Bing Ads debuts Target CPA, Maximize Conversions smart bidding strategies

Bing Ads announced Monday that automated bidding strategies Target CPA and Maximize Conversions are now generally available for campaigns targeting Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom or the United States. Both strategies have been in testing for more than a year.

Maximize Conversions aims to generate as many conversions as possible within a campaign’s budget. There is also an option to set a maximum CPC (cost per click) at the campaign level, but advertisers don’t set individual ad group or keyword bids.

Target CPA aims to generate conversions at the average cost per acquisition the advertiser sets at the campaign level. With this strategy, too, advertisers can set a maximum CPC for added bidding control, and advertisers do not set or change ad group or keyword bids in a campaign using this bid strategy.

To use either of these conversion-based bidding strategies, campaigns must have at least 15 conversions within the past 30 days. As with all machine learning-powered automation, the more data to train and learn the better. Bing Ads recommends allowing the strategies to run at least two to three weeks for the system to learn and achieve the target goals.

A couple of unique features to call out:

• Bing Ads allows advertisers to use manual bidding on individual ad groups or keywords within a campaign set to use Target CPA or Maximize Conversions by choosing the Manual bid strategy type for the ad group or keyword.
• Advertisers can use bid modifier values between -90% and +900% with automated bidding to increase or decrease the click volume a campaign receives from the targeting option (device type, location, ad schedule or audience). A bid modifier value of -100% will still function as a way to opt out of the related targeting option. Bing notes that bid adjustments in campaigns using automated bidding do not change the CPA goal and “may cause your bids to go above your maximum CPC.”

Both Maximize Conversions and Target CPA require accounts to have Universal Event Tracking (UET) implemented on their sites for conversion tracking, and if you’re using a third-party management tool, bid adjustments made there will not apply to campaigns using either of these strategies. Bing Ads put together a handy comparison chart below to help advertisers evaluate its bid strategy options.

Source: Bing Ads

Bing uses a variety of signals to inform its bidding strategies such as browsing activity, operating system, search queries and ad copy. The system also makes bid adjustments in real time based on time of day or day of week, user location and device type.

Want more info on Paid Search? Check out our comprehensive PPC Guide – Nine chapters covering everything from account setup to automation and bid adjustments!

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About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.