How do I know what amount to bid efficiently on keywords and what bidding strategies to use?

The answer varies significantly by industry. For some, you can pay $2.00 per click, and others it's $50.00 or more. It also depends on your conversion rates. If you convert well, you can afford to pay more.

My two general rules are:

1) Spend as much as you can as long as you are seeing your desired return (return on ad spend and/or ROI). In other words, pay Google as long as it's profitable/within your desired range of return.

2) Don't spend more than you have to. Google Ads is an auction-based system, so you may find that you can get the same results for less with smart bid management. For example, you might be spending $4.00 per click on average to be in position 2. But if you bid 20% less, you might still be in position 2 on average. This can be a quick 20% savings on your keywords. This is possible because of the Google Ads discounter, as well as your ad rank and quality scores.

As for the exact lesson inside our Google Ads Mastery Course, each lesson builds on itself, so it's hard to pinpoint the exact place for you to start. I highly recommend watching the entire section on earning a positive return on investment. It's how you can really lower click costs while getting more results for your advertising spend.