The bid adjustment feature is one of the most effective tools for optimizing campaigns and maximizing return on investment (ROI).
It allows you to increase or decrease bids based on specific contexts, such as device, location, or time, helping you better target your advertising efforts.
Let’s explore the concept, understand the situations where bid adjustments make sense, and learn how to set them up effectively in Google Ads.
What Are Bid Adjustments?
Bid adjustments are modifications that you apply to bid amounts in advertising campaigns to prioritize or de-prioritize certain contexts.
For example:
Low-Performance Scenario: Imagine your website doesn’t perform well on mobile devices. In this case, it makes sense to reduce or eliminate bids for searches made on mobile devices, preventing wasted budget.
High-Performance Scenario: If your mobile conversion rate is excellent, you can increase bids for mobile users, ensuring greater visibility and higher chances of success for those searches.
This strategy is essential for optimizing your results in specific situations, such as geographic location, devices used by users, search times, and even demographic groups.
Why Adjust?
This is crucial for aligning investments with the expected performance of your campaigns. It allows you to:
Maximize Results in Favorable Contexts: You can invest more where conversion chances are higher, such as in a specific city or at times of the day with a high conversion rate.
Avoid Unnecessary Spending: By reducing or eliminating bids in contexts that generate few results, such as times with low performance or audiences with low purchase intent.
Customize Strategies: Different types of campaigns (search network, display, video) offer various bid adjustment options, allowing flexibility in decision-making.
Where to Find It?
This metric can be configured directly within the interface. Here’s the step-by-step guide:
Accessing Campaigns: On the Google Ads homepage, go to the desired campaign.
Filters like “Search Network” or “Display Network” will determine which adjustment options are available.
Selecting Bid Adjustments: In the left-hand menu, choose the option corresponding to the adjustment you want to make (such as “Locations,” “Devices,” or “Demographics”).
Make sure the “Bid Adjustment” column is visible.
Configuring Adjustments: Click on the bid adjustment for the selected context.
Choose to increase or decrease the bids based on percentages, adjusting according to performance or relevance.
Options by Campaign Type
The availability of bid adjustments varies depending on the campaign type in Google Ads. Here are some common options:
Search Network Campaigns:
- Devices (mobile, desktop, tablet)
- Locations (city, state, or country)
- Demographics (age, gender, income)
Display Network Campaigns:
- Broader contexts such as specific channels and devices.
Video Campaigns:
- Limited adjustments, but possible on devices and audiences.
This variation requires attention when setting up adjustments to ensure that each campaign receives the appropriate treatment.
Practical Strategies
Here are some practical situations that can guide your decisions:
- Optimization by Location: If your conversion rate in São Paulo is higher than in other parts of Brazil, consider increasing bids for searches made in this city.
- Specific Devices: If desktop users are more likely to convert, increase bids for this device. Otherwise, reduce bids for devices that generate high costs with low conversion.
- Peak Hours: Analyze the hours with the best performance and apply adjustments to maximize visibility during these periods.
- Demographic Data: Use historical data to adjust bids based on age, gender, or income, targeting the most relevant audience.
- Excluding Low-Performing Audiences or Contexts: Reduce or eliminate bids for segments that generate few results, such as times with high bounce rates or regions with low conversion.
How to Set Bid Adjustment Percentages?
Google Ads allows bid adjustments in percentages, both to increase or decrease bids. Here are some practical guidelines:
Increase Bids: For contexts with a high conversion rate, start by increasing bids by 10% to 30%, and adjust based on results.
Decrease Bids: For low-performance contexts, reduce bids by 20% to 50%, or eliminate investment entirely.
Test and Monitor: Make gradual adjustments and monitor the impacts on ROI. Avoid drastic changes that may compromise overall performance.
Benefits of Using This Strategy
- Greater Control: Bid adjustments provide granular control over how your advertising budget is distributed, maximizing the impact of every dollar spent.
- Improved ROI: Directing resources to high-performance contexts significantly increases the return on investment.
- Strategic Flexibility: Adjustment options vary between campaigns, offering flexibility to adapt strategies to different goals and audiences.
- Effectiveness in A/B Testing: Adjustments facilitate controlled testing to identify what works best for your campaign.
Understand and Maximize Results
Bid adjustments in Google Ads are a strategic tool that allows you to maximize campaign performance based on specific scenarios, such as device, location, or demographic behavior.
To make the most of this feature, it’s essential to understand the nuances it offers and know how to apply it effectively.
Defining Adjustments in Campaigns
Bid adjustments vary according to the type of campaign. For example, standard search campaigns offer limited options, while “all features” or display campaigns expand the possibilities.
In a standard search campaign, adjustments for devices are possible, but not for locations. On the other hand, in an “all features” campaign, bid adjustments for locations are available, broadening the strategic reach.
To make navigation easier, Google Ads provides a table in the platform’s manual, where you can check the specific options for each campaign type. With practice, these details become automatic, but for beginners, this table is an essential guide.
Intervals and How to Use Them
This feature allows you to increase or decrease bid amounts based on predefined criteria. The range typically varies from -100% (which removes the advertiser from the auction) to +900% (multiplying the bid by 9 times).
For example:
- Negative Adjustment (-100%): Ideal for situations where conversion is unlikely, such as a website poorly optimized for mobile.
- Positive Adjustment (+30%): Applied when there is a high probability of conversion, such as for demographic segments that purchase more frequently.
It’s important to note that a negative bid adjustment, such as -90%, drastically reduces the bid without setting it to zero, while a zero adjustment simply keeps the original bid amount.
Metrics Analysis
Practical application requires constant analysis of metrics to identify the best moments and segments.
Here are some examples:
- Demographics:
- Does the 35 to 44 age group convert more? Increase the bid by 30%.
- Does the 65+ age group rarely convert? Reduce the bid by 80% or exclude it completely.
- Locations:
- Do users from Los Angeles convert more than other locations? Increase the bids specifically for that region.
- Devices:
- Do mobile devices have a high bounce rate? Consider a negative adjustment to reduce unnecessary spending.
Managing Multiple Campaigns: Automation with CPA
While it’s possible to manually manage bid adjustments for a limited number of campaigns, managing large volumes becomes unfeasible.
This is where CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) comes in as a solution. CPA uses Machine Learning to automatically adjust bids based on conversion probabilities and it:
- Manages bids dynamically, eliminating the need for manual adjustments.
- Increases or decreases bids based on audience behavior.
- Focuses on conversions, optimizing the budget.
For advertisers who are just starting, manual adjustments are recommended as they provide more control. However, as campaigns evolve and the budget grows, transitioning to CPA becomes an efficient strategy.
Master This Technique to Maximize Results
These adjustments are not just about increasing or decreasing values; they are about deeply understanding conversion data and audience behavior to make strategic decisions.
Moreover, understanding how Google Ads offers different options for standard campaigns, all-resources campaigns, or display-specific campaigns is crucial for effectively applying these strategies.
Even with the introduction of automated tools like CPA, manual bid adjustments still have their place, especially for those looking to maximize every penny spent.
Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced advertiser, bid adjustments represent one of the most impactful ways to unlock potential and can be the difference between a mediocre campaign and one that is truly profitable.