To decide whether to bid on a keyword, run five checks: read the live SERP, match the intent with what you sell, compare the top of page bid estimate with your max CPC, size up the ad competition, then choose Bid, Test or Skip. Volume and CPC describe a market. They do not tell you whether the click can convert for you.
Search the keyword in a private window, in the target country and on the target device. Count the ads, look for a Shopping block or a local map, and sort the organic results by page type. For ‘invoicing software for contractors’, check whether software vendors fill the page.
Classify the query (information, navigation, comparison, purchase), spot buyer words and learner words, then check the fit with your price, your audience and your area. A buying query for another product is still a bad keyword.
Note the low and high top of page bid ranges in Keyword Planner. Work out your max CPC: margin per customer × share invested × conversion rate. Above the high range, the economics work; inside the range or with no data, Test; below the low range, Skip.
Count the advertisers, read their promises and landing pages. Offers comparable to yours show that the demand can be monetized; identical promises from bigger brands call for an angle of your own before you bid.
Choose Bid, Test or Skip before launch. For a test, set in advance the number of clicks to buy, the duration, the total cost that triggers a stop and the negative keywords. With Should I Bid: Bid at 70 or above, Test from 50 to 69, Skip below 50.
The word ‘bid’ covers two questions. The first: should this keyword get any budget at all? That is what this page is about. The second: how much should you pay per click, with Manual CPC or with an automated strategy such as Maximize Clicks or Google's Smart Bidding? Google covers that one in its help on bid strategies, listed in the sources.
Order matters. A bid strategy sets the price of the click; it does not decide for you whether the keyword matches your offer. A bad keyword with a well-tuned bid is still a bad keyword. And before both questions comes building the list itself, covered in our guide to choose Google Ads keywords.
The method below comes down to five checks, one keyword at a time. It ends with a choice: Bid, Test or Skip.
Search the keyword in a private window, in the country and on the device you target. Write down what shows up: how many ads at the top and bottom, a Shopping block, a local map, then the type of each organic result.
A buying SERP shows product pages and pricing pages, several ads, sometimes a Shopping block or local results. A research SERP shows guides, definitions, forums and videos. Compare ‘invoicing software for contractors’ with ‘how to write an invoice’: the first should bring up software vendors, the second tutorials. Your reading has to confirm it.
Keep a record of what you see. A results page changes from one day to the next, and a bid decision should still make sense three months later.
Classify the query: information, navigation to a specific site, comparison or purchase. SEO tools give you that as a label; our keyword intent tools comparison explains what the label is worth for a bid.
Some words give the buyer away: pricing, cost, software, quote, near me, or ‘for’ followed by a segment (‘for contractors’, ‘for small business’). Others give the learner away: how to, template, example, definition, what is. ‘Free’ is ambiguous: useless for a paid-only offer, it can suit an offer with a free plan.
Then check the intent against your offer: price level, B2B or B2C, the area you serve. A buying query for another product is still a bad keyword. On the other hand, a comparison query can be worth a test if your page holds up in the comparison.
In Google Keyword Planner, two columns matter here: ‘Top of page bid (low range)’ and ‘Top of page bid (high range)’. According to Google, they approximate what advertisers have historically paid to show at the top of the first page: around the 20th percentile for the low range and the 80th percentile for the high range. Google also offers three bid estimates per keyword: first page, top of page and first position.
Then work out your max CPC: margin per customer × share of that margin you are willing to invest × click-to-customer conversion rate. A worked example in ratios: if 1 click in 50 becomes a customer and you are willing to invest 30% of the margin, your max CPC equals margin × 0.30 ÷ 50, which is 0.6% of one customer's margin.
Compare the two. If the high range sits below your max CPC, the economics work. If even the low range is above it, you need a better conversion rate, a higher margin, or a Skip. In between, Test. These ranges are historical benchmarks, not a guaranteed price: Google points out that the actual cost of a click is set in the auction and is often below your max bid.
No conversion data yet? Use a cautious assumption and put the keyword in Test rather than Bid. Measuring that rate is exactly what the test is for.
Count the advertisers and read their promises: who are they, what do they sell, with what call to action? SpyFu shows a competitor's ad history going back more than ten years. The Should I Bid Competitors module shows the advertisers seen on your analyzed keywords, their ad copy, their landing pages, and who bids on your brand.
A crowded ad space is a good sign when the advertisers sell an offer comparable to yours: the demand can be monetized. It is a bad sign when they are all bigger, with the same promise, and your page has no angle of its own: you pay to be the fifth choice. No advertisers at all? Either the spot is open, or the query makes money for nobody. Go back to the organic results to find out which.
Decide before you see any campaign results. The decision table below sums up, check by check, what leads to each verdict:
A test is written in advance: how many clicks to buy before judging, over what period, at what total cost you stop, and which negative keywords to add from day one. A practical benchmark, not an official rule: buy enough clicks to expect two or three conversions at the rate you are aiming for.
Should I Bid turns this decision into a score out of 100: Bid at 70 or above, Test from 50 to 69, Skip below 50. The score rests on intent fit (40%), buying maturity (30%), competitive signal (15%) and the commercial signal of the SERP (15%). The details are on the page that explains how the score is computed.
As an illustration, take a US company that sells invoicing software to contractors. It is weighing three keywords. What follows describes the reasoning, not the result of an analysis.
‘invoicing software for contractors’. The query names the product and the segment. If the SERP shows vendor pages and several software ads, the intent is to buy and it matches the offer. That leaves the economics: if the high range of the top of page bid sits below the max CPC you worked out, the call is Bid.
‘invoicing software’. Same product, but a broad query: it can also draw freelancers, service businesses and large companies. If the SERP mixes comparison pages and ads from big brands, the sensible call is Test, with a capped budget and negative keywords for the segments you do not serve.
‘free invoice template’. The searcher wants a document to fill in, not software. If the SERP is full of downloadable templates, the call is Skip, and the keyword goes on the negative list. The day the company launches a free plan, the question is open again.
The same keyword can change verdict when the offer changes. That is why Should I Bid's per-keyword intent analysis starts from your company context before it reads the SERP: the verdict holds for your offer, not for the whole market.
Your own brand. If competitors advertise on your name, bidding protects the click of someone who was already looking for you. The Competitors module shows who bids on your brand. If nobody advertises there, the case is weaker: a short, measured test settles it.
Competitor names. The intent is navigational: the searcher is looking for another brand. The usual verdict is Test, with a tight budget and an ad that clearly explains the difference. On the rules side, Google Ads does not restrict using a trademark as a keyword, but it can restrict, after a complaint from the owner, its use in the ad text of a direct competitor. Local trademark law applies too.
A competitor's brand deserves its own method. What Google allows, why those clicks often cost more and when they can pay off are covered in our guide to deciding whether to bid on competitor keywords.
No tool does it all. Keywords Everywhere shows volume, CPC and competition right inside Google during check 1, with a purchase-intent filter via Keyword Keg on its Gold and Platinum plans. Google Keyword Planner, free with a Google Ads account, handles check 3 with volumes and CPC ranges. SpyFu and Semrush's Advertising toolkit shed light on check 4 with competitors' paid keywords and ads; SpyFu adds a Google Ads Advisor and negative keyword recommendations. Optmyzr comes in after launch, on accounts that already have history.
Should I Bid covers checks 1, 2 and 4 for every keyword and returns the decision of check 5. You can start from your own ideas or generate them from a product or a URL with Vision, then export the keywords you keep and the negatives as a CSV for Google Ads. Pricing is per credit, with free analyses, no credit card to try it.
The grid below scores each tool on these checks. Read it column by column: the best tool changes from one check to the next.
Should I Bid is not an SEO suite: no backlinks, no organic rank tracking, no technical audit. It does not manage bids on a live account either; that is the job of tools like Optmyzr.
It does not replace your margin math, your landing page or the live campaign test. The score is an estimate built from today's results page and your context, not a conversion forecast. The AI that reads the ranking pages can be wrong on an ambiguous query: in that case, a Test with a capped budget is the safe call.
Once campaigns are live, the work moves to real search terms: see our guide to cut wasted Google Ads spend.
| Tool | Reads the SERP (check 1) | Intent vs your offer (check 2) | Click cost estimates (check 3) | Ad competition (check 4) | Follow-up after launch | Total /5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Should I Bid (our tool) | 5 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3.6 |
| Keywords Everywhere | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2.5 |
| SpyFu | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2.1 |
| Google Keyword Planner | 1 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2.0 |
| Semrush | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1.9 |
| Optmyzr | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1.6 |
Each tool gets a whole score from 1 to 5 for the checks of the method, plus follow-up after launch. Weights follow the question this page answers, deciding before you spend, so the first two checks weigh the most. Scores rely on each vendor's official pages, reread on the date of the prices table, not on a real-world test.
| Tool | Starting price | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Should I Bid | Per credit (see Pricing page) | Per credit (1 credit = 1 keyword analyzed). 5 free analyses to try, no credit card, then paid subscription plans with no commitment and credits renewed every month. Plans described on the Pricing page. | Source |
| Google Keyword Planner | Free | Free with a Google Ads account. Exact volumes require an account with active spend, otherwise ranges. Google requires entering billing information and completing account setup to access keyword ideas. | Source |
| SpyFu | from $39/mo ($29/mo billed annually) | “Basic” plan: $39 per month billed monthly, $29 per month billed annually. “Pro + AI”: $59 the first month, then $119 per month ($89 annually). 30-day guarantee. | Source |
| Semrush | from $139/mo ($117.33/mo billed annually) | Entry “SEO” plan: $139 per month billed monthly, $117.33 per month billed annually. 7-day trial, limited free plan with no credit card. Separate “Advertising” toolkit: Base plan at $99 per month. | Source |
| Keywords Everywhere | from $84/yr | Annual subscriptions: Bronze $84 per year (100,000 credits), Silver $168, Gold $480, Platinum $1,440. 1 credit = 1 keyword, credits valid one year. | Source |
| Optmyzr | from $299/mo ($209/mo billed annually) | Priced by monthly ad spend tier (25k to 500k+). “Essentials” plan (up to 25 accounts) at the first tier: $299 per month billed monthly, $209 per month billed annually (30% off). “Premium” (unlimited accounts, fair use) at the same tier: $389 per month, $272 annually. “Enterprise” on quote above 500k. 14-day trial with no credit card, no contract, 30-day money-back guarantee on a first subscription. After cancellation, the plan stays active until the end of the paid cycle, with no refund for unused days or months; the 30-day guarantee can be used only once. Overage charges may apply above the tier (with a buffer); after two consecutive months over, Optmyzr may move the account to the next tier if it costs less, with an email seven days before. | Source |
Prices verified on . Public prices observed on the vendors’ websites on the date shown. They may have changed since: the source prevails.
Take keywords one at a time and run five checks: the live SERP, the fit between intent and your offer, the top of page bid against your max CPC, the ad competition, then the choice between Bid, Test and Skip. A keyword that fails on the offer or on the economics is a Skip, even with big volume. Doubt on a single point justifies a capped test.
Start from your max CPC: margin per customer × share of margin you are willing to invest × click-to-customer conversion rate. Compare it with Keyword Planner's top of page bid ranges. The exact amount is then set with a bid strategy, manual or automated, which Google documents in its help center. This page is about choosing the keyword, not fine-tuning the bid.
No. Volume measures search demand, not buying intent: ‘free invoice template’ can be searched a lot and still bring nothing to a paid software vendor. A high CPC proves that other advertisers pay for that click. It does not prove it will convert for you: they may sell at a higher price or to another audience. Read the SERP before you conclude.
Often, when competitors advertise on your name: the ad protects the click of someone who was already looking for you. First check who bids on your brand, for example with the Should I Bid Competitors module. If nobody advertises and your site ranks first, run a short test and measure what the ad really adds on top of organic clicks.
Yes, with a Google Ads account. It gives keyword ideas, search volumes, CPC ranges (top of page bid, low and high) and campaign forecasts. Exact volumes require an account with active spend; without it, you see ranges. It does not read the real SERP and does not return an intent verdict per keyword, so you still need to judge the fit with your offer.
They are the three decisions Should I Bid draws from a score out of 100. Bid, at 70 or above: the intent matches your offer and the query deserves budget. Test, from 50 to 69: mixed signals, worth trying with a limited budget and negative keywords. Skip, below 50: the traffic is not looking for what you sell, or not yet.