See a preview of the bids for a bid strategy

We recently announced the launch of the Target bid column in DoubleClick Search (DS) reporting, which shows you the bid that DS would have used if there were no secondary constraints in the keyword’s bid strategy. Here’s a way you can use the column to get a preview of the bids in a bid strategy, so you can feel confident that it will result in a solid return on your investment.

You’ve heard about all the great things DS has been doing to improve the Performance Bidding Suite, both in the UI and behind the scenes with improved algorithms. You’re ready to try a bid strategy, but you’d love to have some idea as to what DS is going to bid before giving over full control. Based on your bid strategy settings, how is DS going to bid on your keywords?

To get an idea, just follow these steps:

1. Create your bid strategy and apply it to some keywords.


2. When applying the min and max bids for the selected keywords, set a tight bid range that you’re comfortable with. For example, you could set the bids so they match the range of max CPCs, as shown in the following example:
   


3. Let the bid strategy run.
   The bid strategy won’t be able to update the bid beyond the tight min and max bid limits, but it will update the Target bid column.


4. Navigate to a Keywords page that contains the keywords in the bid strategy.


5. Filter to the keywords in the bid strategy.


6. Above the performance summary graph, click Columns and then select the Target bid column.
   


7. Review the target bids. If they look reasonable, relax the bid limits to give more control to the bid strategy. In the following example, you may want to set your min bid to $5.00 and max bid to $60.00 for the keywords, to ensure that the Performance Bidding Suite has the room to set the target bids.
   

After you give the bid strategy control, remember that you can use Change History to gain insights into bid strategy changes with a summary of the bid rationale. In addition to the target bid, this feature lets you know how often bids are evaluated and provides details on why a change was made to a target position strategy. You also receive guidance on how to improve bid strategy performance by discovering where settings like max bid inhibit the bid changes. Learn more.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team