Google Ads unveils several fine-tuning controls for bidding strategies

The ability to set conversions actions at the campaign level was among the announcements at Google Marketing Live 2019.

Google unveiled several updates around bidding controls at Google Marketing Live this week that marketers will want to be on the lookout for as they roll out into accounts over the coming weeks and months.

Set conversions at campaign level. This is a significant and welcome addition. You’ll be able to set conversion goals for each campaign rather than just at the account level. For example, you may have campaigns in which a download is the desired conversion action and others in which a demo request is the conversion goal. You’ll be able to assign those distinct goals to the appropriate campaigns to inform conversion-based smart bidding strategies and conversion reporting.

Additionally, you’ll be able to group conversion actions into conversion action sets and apply those at the campaign level.

Seasonality adjustments with smart bidding. Smart bidding strategies already aim to account for seasonality spikes in text ad campaigns, and as we reported last month, smart bidding for Shopping campaigns will soon add seasonality signals — as well as price competitiveness. Soon, Google will offer an option to fine-tune seasonality adjustments based on your own promotion calendar. You’ll be able to schedule adjustments around your promotions to account for higher conversion volume, for example. Seasonality adjustments will roll out in the coming weeks for Search and Display, they’ll be available for Shopping later this summer. Keep in mind, these inform Google’s conversions predictions model, so seasonal adjustments will only be applicable when you’re using conversions-based bidding strategies.

New smart bidding strategy: Maximize conversion value. Google launched the maximize conversions bidding strategy in 2017, now it’s adding maximize conversion value. While maximize conversions aims to generate as many conversions within budget, this new strategy will aim to optimize for the greatest conversion value within budget.

Conversion value rules. Value rules will roll out in the coming months to give you flexibility assigning value to conversion actions. You’ll be able to set conversion value rules based on characteristics such as location, device and audience.

Why we should care. Manual bidding is still available, but Google has been de-emphasizing it for quite some time; Google says more than 70% of advertisers are now using automated bidding. Here’s a case of Google actually giving users more controls, not fewer. These new features are meant to give advertisers ways to fine-tune based on their own goals when using smart bidding strategies. Campaign-level conversion settings are probably the most significant of these updates, but each offers greater flexibility to tailor your conversion and bidding strategies to the specific business objectives of your campaigns.