Called “Preferred Cost”, Google is now allowing advertisers a third method for managing their campaign performance. In addition to their “Max CPC” and “Bid Optimizer” options, Google’s latest addition allows advertisers to specify a desired average CPC either for keywords or entire ad groups. Google’s algorithm will then manage the keyword or ad group to maintain that average CPC. One of the benefits of this feature is that it will allow many advertisers to spend less time tweaking and tuning bids, since Google will automatically keep your bids within your acceptable range. It should be noted, however, that Google does state that on any one click, they may actually bid up to two times higher than your preferred bid; the average, however, will end up being aligned with the advertiser’s specification. Anvil believes that this may be the first step toward Google’s release of a more comprehensive and powerful PPC bid management tool.