AdWords Automated Bidding Gets An Overhaul: Welcome, Portfolio Bid Strategies

Google is planning a roll out of a revamped version of AdWords automatic bidding.  There will be some changes that are simply semantic, but there will be an update to the workflow as well.

Let’s take a look at the naming changes first:

1. Flexible strategies will be now be called “portfolio” bid strategies. The idea behind this change is to better indicate that a single strategy will able to be applied across multiple campaigns, ad groups– and keywords in some cases.
2. A strategy that is applied to a single campaign is now called a “standard” bid strategy.
3. Conversion Optimizer now will be called Target CPA for all new bid strategies.  This is to simplify the nomenclature. Target CPA can still be applied as a “standard” or a “portfolio” bid strategy.

Here’s the functionality updates:

1. Managers will now be able to create or add to bidding strategies from the Campaigns Setting tab.  With this update, there is no more need to dive into the Shared Library.
2. Portfolio bid strategies for Target CPA can have different CPA goals for separate ad groups. “For example, if you’re a clothing retailer with multiple ‘Accessories’ ad groups in a bidding portfolio, you may want to set a lower CPA target for ‘Socks’ compared to other product categories with higher average order value.”

Something to keep in mind is that Portfolio bid strategies aren’t able to be applied to video or universal app campaigns.

Source – Ginny Marvin