Bid Optimization First Steps
Before you begin, download the free AdWords Editor from Google and backup your AdWords account. That way, if your bids change in an unexpected way, you can quickly restore them from the backup.
- Load Keyword history for account.
- Choose a date range over which to run the optimizer.
- Choose bid settings.
- Run the optimizer to simulate bid changes.
- Check results and update bids or run with new date range until satisfied.
1. Load Keyword history for account.
Click on the AdWords account you wish to optimize in AdWords Explorer and select File -> Load Keyword History from the menu. Be sure the AdWords account is selected and highlighted yellow (1 level down from the root MCC account) as the Bid Optimizer will only run on the selected item in the explorer.
If this is the first time loading history for an account the 'Click History Settings' window will display (above). This determines how much historical click data the program will fetch from Google. There is no need to try and get data from before conversion tracking was enabled, but it is important to get as much data as you can.1000 days is recommended, but if you have thousands of keywords and 1 Gigabyte or less RAM, we recommend a lower number, perhaps 500 days.
2. Choose a date range over which to calibrate the optimizer.
With the account or campaign to be optimized selected in the AdWords Explorer, choose Window -> Conversion History Graph from the menu .
The graph above opens showing the number of clicks for each conversion (click per conversion) against time. Initially, it shows the entire history loaded. A typical subset of this data needs to be selected against which to calibrate the bid optimizer. Bids will be set using, among other factors, the average conversion rate from the section. You can see from this graph how much the conversion rate fluctuates over time. Pick a range of values that are typical for the last 30-90 days. If less data is available, just move on to the next step. Otherwise, hold down the left mouse button and drag a rectangle (from top left to lower right corner) with a typical part of the graph including the right most (the most recent) data points. Zoom out by dragging the mouse from lower right to top left corner or right click and use the menu (see common graph actions for more info). At least 30 days should be selected, but it will work with as few as three. Don't worry if you don't pick a good range, you can come back later and try again later if you don't like the optimizer results.
3. Choose bid settings
With the date range selected in the graph choose from the menu Graph -> Bid Optimize Date Range. This will open the Bid Settings window.
Use this window to set the desired bid settings for the currently selected item in the AdWords Explorer. If any items such as a campaign or Ad Group does not have individual Bid settings, the parent settings are used for the optimization. If you need to set different bid settings for different keyword/groups/campaigns, you can do so by selecting that item in the AdWords explorer and choosing Tools->Bid Settings from the menu (or right click menu). You can have one setting for an entire account unless other sub-settings are found. A small blue cylinder next to an item in the explorer indicates settings on it.
| Desired Cost Per Conversion | Target cost per action/conversion in $ |
| Maximum Cost Per Click | Maximum cap in $. Should be around 20% of Cost Per Conversion. |
| Minimum Cost Per Click | Minimum for a bid, below which a bid will not be set. |
| Maximum Position | If a keyword is already over this position your bid will not increase. |
4. Run the optimizer to simulate bid changes.
Click the Save button on the Bid Settings to start the bid optimizer. The Bid Optimizer dialog will appear with a status bar to show it is working. BidForce is not actually updating your bids now, it is just running a simulation, working out what they should be. Once complete, a Bid Change graph will open showing how much the bid for each keyword changed against the number of conversions for that keyword.
