If you only had $1 to spend on one click, which of the following search queries would you prefer to spend that $1? 

1. Home decor
2. Frame
3. Custom canvas floater frame 

“Bottom Funnel” Definition 

A Bottom Funnel search is a Google Search that nearly guarantees that the user is actively shopping for the products we sell. 

We can reasonably agree that Bottom Funnel audiences are in the market for your product. There is little room for ambiguity. 

We use data, or signals, to make these assumptions. In this case, Search Query is the signal that tells us that this user is Bottom Funnel.

Bottom Funnel, or BoF users, are our most precious commodity.

‍What are the potential reasons that someone might perform the following searches?

Home decor
Someone searching for “home decor” could be searching for something in particular, or for many items across different categories. For example, someone searching for “home decor” could be in the market for picture frames, wall art, wallpaper, house plants, accent pieces and/or bookshelves. Their general search for home decor is broad and could lead them to purchase any number of products from any number of websites. ‍

‍Frames

‍While “home decor” is a large category and broad search term, “frames” is slightly more specific. There are only so many variations for what a frame could be: picture frames, bed frames, eyeglass (frames).

1. picture frames

2. bed frames

3. eyeglasses

Custom canvas floater frame
This kind of search term would be an example of what would get your bottom of the funnel traffic - it’s specific, the user clearly knows what they are in the market for, therefore your expected conversion rate is stronger given the qualified traffic being brought in through the specificity of the search. 
‍

Bottom Funnel traffic has lower volume relative to upper-funnel traffic. Due to its higher expected conversion rate, we should be willing to bid more aggressively on this traffic. 

Auction Time Signals

Search query is just one of many signals that Google uses to predict the conversion rate of a given ad auction. Google can leverage their own data about a user as well as first-party data provided by a client (customer lists, etc) to make more accurate predictions about how a user will respond to your ad. We start with Search Query because it allows us to increase our confidence level that our ads are serving to the right audience. However, Google has the power to consider massive additional data sets in real time at the moment an ad auction takes place.

‍Automation At Scale

‍We start with Bottom Funnel traffic not just because of its agreed-upon value, but also as a means to train Google’s machine learning algorithms about who our highest quality customers are. When a conversion takes place in your account, Google analyzes all of the available signal data from that conversion to understand the person, as opposed to just simply the search query that led to the conversion.

If we train Google to understand your highest value, Bottom Funnel audiences, the system will pick up on trends from other signals (demographics, interests, YouTube history, etc.). Eventually, Google will learn to make accurate predictions for Middle Funnel, Top Funnel, or even Display/Social auctions!

Before automation, Upper Funnel traffic was rarely profitable. Now, if we commit to training Google to better understand our core customers, we can effectively capture a larger share of the market… and it starts with properly identifying and focusing on our Bottom Funnel traffic.