Mobile Bid Adjustment Calculation

Mobile Bid Adjustment Calculation

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. configuring the campaign mobile bid adjustment
3. configuring the group mobile bid adjustment
4. Configure mobile bid adjustments for a specific campaign and group
   1. Individual Edit
   2. Multi Edit  (Campaigns only)
   3. Bulk Edit
5. Important Notes
6. Frequently asked questions
   1. What are the Off, Preview, and Traffic settings on the Calculations drop-down menu?
   2. What Is The Difference Between The Mobile Bid Adjustment Recommendations Settings On The Optimization Tab Vs. The Folder Settings Pages?
   3. What metrics can be used to determine the Mobile Bid Adjustment?
   4. Should I use the campaign-level recommendations or group-level recommendations?
   5. Does the adjustment work for both Google and Yahoo! Japan?
   6. Which metric should I use when enabling campaign-level Mobile Bid Adjustment Recommendations?
   7. Which KPI will be set for my folders?
   8. How will bids be calculated with the Mobile Bid Adjustment Calculation enabled?
   9. Will a mobile bid adjustment and multiplier be calculated for all groups and campaigns?
   10. How will the system determine if a campaign or group’s data is statistically significant?
   11. How much data will be used?
   12. What are other specifications of this feature?
   13. Which settings do not apply to Mobile Bid Adjustment?
   14. Is there a way to exclude certain groups or campaigns from platform recommendations?
7. Mobile Bid Adjustment infographic

Introduction

To help advertisers using Google Enhanced Campaigns and Yahoo! Japan Unified Campaigns optimize their bids across devices, users can opt into automated bidding recommendations that calculate and set the Mobile Bid Adjustment for Google Adwords Evaluations and Yahoo! Japan. The mobile adjustment can be set at the campaign and/or group level for both Google and Yahoo! Japan.

configuring the campaign mobile bid adjustment

Campaign-level Mobile Bid Adjustment recommendation settings for Google Enhanced Campaigns and Yahoo! Japan Unified Campaigns can be configured on the account level by following these simple steps:

1. Go to the Admin tab.
2. Click on the Optimization sub-tab.
3. Click on the Mobile Bid Adjustment link in the left-hand navigation.

These settings will be applied to all Google Enhanced Campaigns and all Yahoo! Unified Campaigns across the client account.

configuring the group mobile bid adjustment

For added control, users can choose to also opt into group-level mobile bid adjustment recommendations. Groups are opted into platform recommendations at the folder level by following these steps:

1. Go to the Bidding tab.
2. Select a folder.
3. Click on the Mobile Bid Adjustment link in the left-hand navigation of the folder settings page.

These settings will be applied to all Google and Yahoo! Japan ad groups within the selected folder.

You can also set a given folder or set of folders mobile bid adjustment calculations to Off, Preview, or Traffic in bulk via Folder Bulk Edit.

Configure mobile bid adjustments for a specific campaign and group

A mobile bid adjustment can be increased or decreased for a specific Google campaign or Google group through individual edit, multi-edit or bulk edit.

Individual Edit

If you need to insert the mobile bid adjustment just for a few campaigns or groups, you could edit those items one at a time by typing in the desired percentage under settings:

1. Select a specific campaign or group,
2. Edit > Go to settings,
3. Update the Mobile Bid Adjustment setting

Multi Edit  (Campaigns only)

1. Select the Google campaigns from the Campaigns tab
2. Select Edit pencil
3. Select Mobile Bid Adjustment > Update settings

Bulk Edit

1. Create a report that includes campaign, group and mobile bid adjustment
2. Manually enter the percentages (there is no need for a plus sign; however, there must be a negative sign to decrease bids)
3. Select bulk edit groups or campaigns, upload the file with the saved changes and they will be applied to your account

Important Notes

1. Please note that mobile bid adjustment recommendations at folder level are independent of those at campaign level.

   This means that when account-level is set to Web Traffic, we will calculate and push recommendations for all Google and Yahoo! Japan campaigns in the account. When account-level is set to Preview, we will calculate but not push to the publishers. This happens regardless of any folder-level setting.

   The important thing to note is that the client-level settings are used to control campaign-level recommendations settings (for Google and Yahoo! Japan) only. Folder-level settings are applied to the ad groups in the folder. These two controls behave completely independently of each other and operate on different fields (campaign vs. group level setting).

2. Historical data is not currently available for Mobile Bid Adjustments.

Frequently asked questions

Below we’ll answer some common questions about this feature.

What are the Off, Preview, and Traffic settings on the Calculations drop-down menu?

If Off is selected, no Mobile Bid Adjustments are calculated.
If Preview is selected, the system will calculate Mobile Bid Adjustments and display them on the campaign and group settings pages, Enhanced Campaigns reporting grids, and Keyword Bid Details pages.
If Traffic is selected, the system will calculate and display Mobile Bid Adjustments, then push them to the publishers each day.

What Is The Difference Between The Mobile Bid Adjustment Recommendations Settings On The Optimization Tab Vs. The Folder Settings Pages?

The settings on the Admin > Optimization tab will be used to control campaign-level mobile bid adjustment recommendations for all Google and Yahoo Japan campaigns. The folder-level settings are applied to all Google and Yahoo! Japan ad groups within the folder.

What metrics can be used to determine the Mobile Bid Adjustment?

For the campaign recommendation settings configured at the client level, users can specify that the system calculate the Mobile Bid Adjustment based on Click-Through-Rate (CTR), Conversion Rate, or Revenue-Per-Click. For the group recommendation settings configured at the folder level, the metric used to determine the mobile bid adjustment recommendation is automatically set based on the folder revenue model, and will be either Click-Through-Rate, Conversion Rate, or Gross Profit-Per-Click.

Should I use the campaign-level recommendations or group-level recommendations?

If you are using platform automated bidding, it is suggested that you configure group-level mobile bid adjustment recommendations within your folders. This will ensure that mobile bid adjustment recommendations align with your bidding goals, and will give you more targeted recommendations using group-level data. Additionally, if you have different goals across campaigns (e.g. one brand campaign driving clicks and one performance campaign driving revenue), you should consider foldering these campaigns separately and configuring the mobile bid adjustment recommendations with the appropriate KPI in each folder.

As a fallback, you should also activate campaign-level recommendations so that groups without enough data can leverage campaign-level mobile bid adjustment recommendations.

Does the adjustment work for both Google and Yahoo! Japan?

Yes, the system will calculate campaign-level and group-level mobile bid adjustments recommendations for all Google Enhanced Campaigns and all Yahoo! Japan Unified Campaigns in the client account with sufficient data when the client-level settings are activated.

Which metric should I use when enabling campaign-level Mobile Bid Adjustment Recommendations?

• If the goal is to maximize Clicks, we recommend using CTR.
• If the goal is to maximize Gross Profit or Profit, we recommend using Revenue-Per-Click.
• If the goal is to maximize Conversions, we recommend using Conversion Rate.

Note: Using Revenue-Per-Click or Conversion Rate as the metric for the Mobile Bid Adjustment Calculation may cause a decrease in mobile traffic if mobile traffic has a lower Conversion Rate or Revenue-Per-Click. Make sure to review device performance data before enabling this setting.

Which KPI will be set for my folders?

Your folder-level mobile bid adjustment recommendation KPI will be set automatically based on your folder maximization goal.
Maximization Goal Mobile Bid Adj. KPI

• Clicks Click Through Rate
• Conversions Conversion Rate
• Gross Profit / Profit Gross Profit per Click

Note: If your folder is targeting a position goal, the KPI will be Click-Through Rate (CTR).

How will bids be calculated with the Mobile Bid Adjustment Calculation enabled?

With this setting enabled, bidding will be a three step process. Step 1 will occur as long as bidding is turned on. Steps 2 and 3 will only occur if the Mobile Bid Adjustment Calculation is enabled and a campaign has sufficient data.

1. Each keyword will calculate its bid using both mobile and desktop data.
2. The system will calculate and apply a single desktop adjustment to all bids in a campaign or a group. This adjustment will be based on the difference between desktop performance and Mobile performance for the user-specified metric within the campaign or group. This adjustment will be applied to all bids before they are sent to the publisher.

   Note: This adjustment will not be applied to keywords that are on bid override or position bidding.

3. The system will calculate a Mobile Bid Adjustment. Google or Yahoo! Japan will use this value to adjust all mobile bids within a campaign or a group.

Will a mobile bid adjustment and multiplier be calculated for all groups and campaigns?

When client-level recommendations are enabled, the platform will calculate a mobile bid adjustment and desktop adjustment for each campaign with sufficient data. Similarly, when a given folder is opted in mobile bid adjustment recommendations, a recommended bid adjustment will be calculated for each group in the folder with sufficient data.

If a group’s mobile bid adjustment is populated, the group will ignore the campaign-level mobile bid adjustment and desktop adjustment. If a group in a folder with the MBAR enabled does not have sufficient data, it will use the average of all groups in that folder that do not have enough data to calculate the mobile bid adjustment and desktop adjustment.

How will the system determine if a campaign or group’s data is statistically significant?

The user can set a confidence level between 80% and 99%. The Mobile Bid Adjustment will only be calculated for campaigns or groups in which the statistical confidence that mobile and desktop perform differently is greater than or equal to the user-specified confidence level. The confidence level can be set in the Mobile Bid Adjustment Calculation settings under the Optimization tab (campaign-level) or under the Folder Settings page (group level).

How much data will be used?

The user can specify that the algorithm look at the past 14 days, 30 days or 60 days. It should be noted that using fewer days will generally reduce the data’s statistical confidence. This can also be configured in the Mobile Bid Adjustment section of the Optimization sub-tab.

What are other specifications of this feature?

The Mobile Bid Adjustment will never be set below -90%, which would risk shutting off mobile traffic. If the calculated recommendation is lower than -90%, it will default to -90%.
The system will observe account-level excluded dates but not folder-level excluded dates when calculating the Mobile Bid Adjustments.

Which settings do not apply to Mobile Bid Adjustment?

The following settings do not apply: Folder Bid Cap, Dampening. Trailing Date Exclusion applies for folder-level settings only.

Is there a way to exclude certain groups or campaigns from platform recommendations?

Yes, there is. You can use the Campaign Mobile Bid Adjustment Recommendation Exclusions feature to achieve this. Please read Campaign Mobile Bid Adjustment Recommendation Exclusions for more information.

Mobile Bid Adjustment infographic

The infographic below explains how mobile bid adjustment works for an example campaign: