Smart Bidding is a Google Ads bidding feature. Smart Bidding is not compatible with Marin's automated bidding.
In Google Ads, you can define Smart Bidding with certain goals and settings, then attach certain Google Ads campaigns, groups, or keywords to the defined Smart Bidding strategy. In the platform, you can associate Google Smart Bidding to Google campaigns, groups and keywords, provided the Smart Bidding strategies have already been defined in Google Ads.
Marin Support
Currently, MarinOne offers support for syncing Google Smart Bidding targets into the platform and reporting on your targets. We offer editing support via Bulk Edit. Please note that this is a Google-only feature and is currently available only at the campaign level.
You'll find the following Smart Bidding columns available from the Campaigns grid:
- Publisher Bidding Strategy
- Publisher Target ROAS
- Publisher Target CPA
- Publisher Target IS Type
- Publisher Target IS %
- Publisher Bid Strategy Level
- Publisher Bid Portfolio Name
- Publisher Bid Cap
- Publisher Bid Strategy Status
Viewing Your Smart Bidding Targets
- The first step, as always, is to log into MarinOne.
- Next, from the left-hand navigation, select Search ('magnifying glass' icon).
- From there, go ahead and click on the Campaigns tab. Please note that your Smart Bidding Targets are currently only visible from this tab, so be sure you're on the right tab.
- Use the Column Selector to add the relevant Smart Bidding columns to your grid. The available columns are:
- Publisher Target ROAS
- Publisher Target CPA
- Publisher Bidding Strategy
- Want to easily find your Smart Bidding columns in the grid? From the campaign-level Column Selector, simply use the Search bar to search for 'publisher.' You'll see all of your Smart Bidding columns grouped together. It's as easy as that!
Enabling Or Editing Smart Bidding For Campaigns
Bulk Edit
In MarinOne, we offer bulk edit support for the Google Smart Bidding Publisher Target CPA and Publisher Target ROAS. We'll walk you through how this is done in the steps below.
- The first step, as always, is to log into MarinOne.
- Next, from the left-hand navigation, select Search ('magnifying glass' icon).
- From there, go ahead and click on the Campaigns tab. Please note that your Smart Bidding Targets are currently only visible from this tab, so be sure you're on the right tab.
- Click on the Upload button to the top-right of the grid.
- You’ll notice three fields are now available for Bulk Uploading at Campaign-level:
- Bidding Type
- Publisher Target CPA
- Publisher Target ROAS
- From here, you can continue your bulk upload as you would normally, including the columns needed for Smart Bidding. To learn more about bulk uploads, check out our dedicated article.
Bulk Edit Considerations
- Currently bulk edit support is available for Google Smart Bidding only and for Publisher Target CPA and Publisher Target ROAS only.
- Currently we support standard-level strategies (at campaign level) only.
- In the Bidding Type column, the value should be set to 'TargetCPA' or 'TargetROAS' rather than 'Target CPA' or 'Target ROAS.'
- We have made changes to the accepted bulk upload columns, but MarinOne will accept either the new or old column headers.
Switching From Google Smart Bidding To Marin Bidding
Google Smart Bidding is not compatible with any 3rd party bidding engines and will reject any attempted bid changes, therefore making it incompatible with Marin Bidding. Smart Bidding can be left on while Marin Bidding Strategies are being set up, but must be turned off and the bids should be manually updated before trafficking the Strategies.
The remainder of this article highlights the key steps that should be taken to ensure a seamless transition from Smart Bidding to Marin Bidding.
Preparing For Transition
Google Smart Bidding does not provide information on how it bids on keywords. When Smart Bidding is turned off, the bids are reverted to the bids that were in place before Smart Bidding was initially turned on. To avoid this, we recommend uploading new bids based on recent CPCs.
To do so, follow these steps:
- Download the most recent two to four week keyword level report with the following columns: [Keyword], [Account], [Campaign], [Group], [Match Type], [Clicks], [Search Bid $] and [Avg. CPC $].
The Clicks column can be used to filter keywords with low click volume in order to set a default base bid. Be cautious, however, if you have keywords with low click volume. For keywords with low or no click data, you can compute an Average CPC based on the keywords with clicks and apply this value to the keywords without clicks. - Copy and paste the [Avg. CPC $] column to the [Search Bid $] column and add 25% to 40% to the bid. One can also consider adding a higher % based on position (e.g. 40% for keywords in position 1.0-1.9, 25% for keywords 2.0 +).
- Copy the [Search Bid $] column and paste values over the current column.
- Remove the [Avg. CPC $] column from the spreadsheet and save the file (it will be uploaded into Marin later).
Transition Steps
- Follow the guidelines for setting up and reviewing Strategies.
- Within Google Ads, disable CO for all campaigns involved with Marin Bidding.
- Within Marin, manually sync all the above campaigns so that the settings align.
- Upload the spreadsheet with the updated bids into Marin.
- Set the appropriate Strategies to traffic and immediately bid on those Strategies. To kick off bids immediately, please reach out to our Customer Support team, otherwise bids will be synced with the publisher during the nightly sync.
- Enable automated Mobile Bid Adjustments for your Marin Client Account.
Automation
Interested in Smart Bidding automation? Reach out to your Marin account representative to learn more!
