Make these Bid Adjustments to Improve Your Google Ads & Microsoft Ads ROAS

When you start running your campaigns on Google or Microsoft for the first time, you have everything set up, keywords are looking good. and everything seems like it should be working. The problem, however, is that your ads are not performing as well as expected.

For those new to PPC, did you know that you can actually make bid adjustments beyond just keywords? Google Ads and Microsoft Ads allow you to make additional bid adjustments on things that matter more (or less) to you.

What is a Bid Adjustment?

A bid adjustment allows you to bid accordingly on things that matter most in your ads account. Google allows you to make adjustments based on demographics, locations, devices and specific days of the week or time of the day. The bid adjustment is based on a percentage you would like to decrease or increase, depending on what your focus is and what you want to target or not target. You are able to make adjustments as low as -90% or as high as 900%.

Demographic Targeting – Audiences

Say your product or service is tailored towards a specific audience. You are able to make bid adjustments based on your audiences’ demographic. This allows you to reach certain audiences more effectively by bidding higher or lower on the age, gender, or household income.

Locations

Location bid adjustments allow you to adjust the frequency in which your ads are shown in a specific area. You can make an adjustment geared toward your targeted locations or  matched locations if you want to get granular. A matched location is the user’s physical location or the location of interest and can be broken down into the country, state, city, county, or even a specific zip code.

Devices

Devices are often overlooked and can make a huge difference in your return on ad spend. The device adjustments allow you to limit where your ads show up based on the device that users are searching with. This includes mobile devices, computers, and tablets. 

Ad schedule

For an ad schedule adjustment, you are able to make adjustments based on the day of the week or time of the day. This allows full control and allows you to bid more on better-performing days/times and bid less on poorer-performing days/times.

How To Make The Appropriate Bid adjustment To Improve Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)

The formula I like to use to make the most appropriate bid adjustment is the following:

((Current ROAS/ Average Campaign ROAS) -1) * 100 

This formula allows you to make the appropriate adjustments to refine your return on ad spend. For example, say mobile devices have a current ROAS of 3.35 and your current average campaign ROAS is 4.5, plugin those numbers into the formula ((3.35/4.5)-1)*100 = -25% you would make a decreased bid adjustment of 25% towards mobile devices. 

Refining & Optimizing Your Ads

Bid adjustments and segment adjustments are often underutilized when it comes to optimizing your ads account. Don’t overlook these simple adjustments that can do numbers for your ROAS. Make these optimizations to refine your Google Ads and get a return on your ad spend. Of course with paid search, it’ll require some trial and error. Take the time to run tests on bid adjustments and continue adjusting until you’re at your desired ROAS. 
If you would like some additional insight into how you can improve the strength of your eCommerce PPC efforts and grow your business in 2022 & beyond, we at SmartSites can help! We utilize our years of digital advertising expertise and omnichannel strategic planning to identify the right solution to help you grow your business. Schedule a free discovery meeting to see how we can help you today!