Welcome to the second post in our series on using Google’s new Enhanced Campaigns. Our first post covered the basics of the new platform and provided some insight into what this important development could mean for the industry. This section will cover everything you need to know to get started making bid adjustments in the platform. Please post any questions below and we’ll be happy to answer them to the best of our knowledge.
Get Started
Choose campaign-level bid adjustments in your campaign settings. They’ll be applied on top of the bids that AdWords uses to show your ad (such as keyword or ad group bids) so we will continue to utilize the KOM tool to guide the base bids on your desktop/tablet campaign that the multiplier will work from. With bid adjustments, you’re spending on individual clicks may vary, but your overall daily budget won’t change.
Bid adjustments for locations, days, times, and any ad group-level targeting methods can be set from -90% to +900%. For mobile devices, you can set bid adjustments for -100% (leaving a desktop/tablet only campaign), or in the range between -90% and +300%. The maximum increase is 10 times your current figure (including location, device, and time).
There may be an update soon that will make it possible to set bid adjustments for targeting methods in your ad group, like topics or placements, if you’re running an enhanced “Search & Display Networks – All features” or “Display Network only” campaign.
Examples:
If you know that your campaign performs well on mobile devices in Chicago, you can set bid adjustments to increase your bids for mobile and Chicago to try to capture all available traffic. For example, you could set a +20% adjustment for mobile, and a +10% adjustment for Chicago, resulting in a final bid adjustment of +32% for searches in Chicago on mobile devices.
Say you’ve set a $1 maximum CPC ad group bid. You decide to add a +20% adjustment for California, and -50% adjustment for Saturdays. Your resulting bid for a search that occurs in California on a Saturday will be $0.60. Here’s the math:
- Starting bid: $1
- California adjustment: $1 x (+20%) = $1.20
- Saturday adjustment: $1.20 x (-50%) = $0.60
- Resulting bid for searches in California on Saturday: $0.60
How can I only target mobile?
This option is no longer available; you can also no longer target at the operating system level either. Your options are simply desktop and tablet or desktop, tablet and mobile. Device setting bid adjustments can only be done on mobile devices. You cannot apply a bid multiplier on computers or tablets.
How can I only target tablets?
This option is no longer available. Desktop and tablets in Enhanced Campaigns are considered the same experience. Note that if you are running an app download type ad you can create an ad for that purpose and Google’s algorithm will show that ad to tablet users. You also cannot opt out of tablet.
How can I target desktop and tablet only?
Note that desktop and tablet are now grouped together. You could decrease your mobile device with full browser bid by -100% (Screenshot below)
How can I create device-specific ads?
When you login to the new Enhanced Campaigns interface your ads will be eligible to appear on all types of devices: desktop and laptop computers, tablets, and mobile devices (unless you have -100% negative bid on mobile) . If you’re adding an additional ad to an ad group, you’ll have the option to create a mobile-optimized ad with a headline, text, display URL, and destination URL tailored for customers viewing your ad on mobile devices. To do so, select the “Mobile” checkbox next to the “Device preference” setting. Moving forward Google’s algorithms will decide where the ads should run. If you are doing a mobile app campaign you will need to upgrade your ads for this as well by creating a new ad and selecting the “App promotion add” and then follow the necessary steps.
How can I view a breakdown of results by device?
See below:
Bid Adjustments by Device
For mobile devices, you can set bid adjustments for -100% (in other words this will leave a desktop/tablet only campaign), or in the range between -90% and +300%. You will notice on this first screenshot that there is no option to adjust bids for computers or tablets. When you upgrade Google will suggest a mobile bid adjustment with estimated impact on traffic at various bid adjustment options, however we would suggest you review your mobile-only campaigns and the average CPC’s for those compared to your desktop/tablet campaigns and use that as a guide on where to set your bid adjustment for mobile. So for example if your mobile-only campaign CPC’s are 30% lower than desktop then set the bid adjustment to -30%. If you set the mobile bid to 0% that means it will be the same bid as desktop.
Bid Adjustments by Location
These bid adjustments can be set from -90% to +900%. If you have a physical store location you can also adjust your bid based on proximity to your store. Google knows a person’s location by the GPS coordinates and device signatures
Bid Adjustments with Ad Scheduling by time of day and day of week
These bid adjustments can be set from -90% to +900%.
Check back next Thursday to learn how to optimize ad extensions in Enhanced Campaigns!