Bid Optimization Strategy in SplitMetrics Acquire is a digital advertising solution that harnesses our extensive expertise in Apple Ads automation to tailor your bidding strategies toward achieving specific campaign performance goals. In SplitMetrics Acquire, we offer two powerful bid optimization methods:
💎 Condition-based optimization offers precise control by optimizing performance for each keyword across single or multiple campaigns to achieve a specific target KPI for each keyword under the bid strategy (CPA, CPI, ROAS);
💎 AI bid optimization method takes a centralized and holistic approach by automatically adjusting bids across a portfolio of keywords within one campaign, rather than focusing on each individual keyword. Our advanced AI models help maximize overall conversions within your target metrics, while ensuring that all keywords work together as one to achieve the best possible results.
In this article, we’ll delve into our Condition-based strategies and how they can help you achieve your desired target KPI for each keyword across multiple campaigns. To learn about our cutting-edge AI bid optimization, check out this 🔗 Help Center article.
⚡ You can save time and reduce manual effort to concentrate on other crucial elements of your campaigns.
⚡ You can tailor the Bid Strategy to your needs by adjusting target KPI settings and bidding aggressiveness to align with specific campaign objectives, whether it's ROAS, CPI, or CPA.
⚡ With incremental bid adjustments, the algorithm allows you to prevent overspending on non-converting or irrelevant keywords, maximizing cost-efficiency.
⚡ The algorithm covers almost all keywords, boosting the underperforming ones to increase your ROI and improve overall campaign results.
⚡ The tool is transparent and informative, guiding you with сlear insights about the current keyword optimization stage, estimated target value, and recommended actions.
⚡ By using automatic Condition-based smart bid optimization, you can save time and resources to concentrate on other crucial elements of your campaigns.
This strategy optimizes bids across multiple campaigns to achieve a specific target CPA, CPI, or ROAS for each keyword under the strategy. The optimization process involves analyzing historical keyword performance data, competitors' landscape and identifying keywords that are driving the most conversions, revenue or installs, and those not worth the investment.
🔎 Keyword Evaluation Stage: The algorithm assesses each keyword separately based on installs, conversions, cost, revenue, current impression share, and Share of Voice (SOV).
⚖️ Optimization Stage: It then groups the keywords into categories and defines an optimization stage by comparing them with the target KPIs.
Optimization Stages
Optimizing, well-performing: Well-performing keywords that exceed KPIs are scaled within their target KPI while maintaining top positions without overspending.
Optimizing, optimal: Optimal-performing keywords that meet their target KPIs are optimized for volume growth while ensuring the best cost.
Optimizing, low-performing: Keywords that bring expensive conversions are reviewed for bid adjustments. The optimal approach would be to optimize the funnel by increasing your ads’ TTR through improving Custom Product Pages.
Accumulating data: Keywords that started getting data but need more conversions for optimal bid adjustment. You can wait or increase the current CPT bid using the ‘Suggested Bid' column.
Boosting: Keywords lacking sufficient conversions receive gradual CPT bid increases to gather impressions and conversions.
Not converting: Keywords with impressions but no conversions - need to have their bids reduced to minimize losses.
Not relevant: Low-relevance keywords with sufficient bids but no impressions.
Before jumping right in and creating your very first strategy, please take a moment to read the guidelines below. These recommendations are important to consider for ensuring most efficient results.
🏆 Optimize running campaigns with at least 3 weeks of performance history and a minimum of 50 conversions of your target in-app events during the given period.
🏆 Choose realistic targets. To help you with that, our system will automatically calculate and suggest best target values based on the historical performance from the last 30 days and your strategy goal.
🏆 Avoid using the same target for campaigns with both top-performing and low-performing keywords campaigns. Instead, consider creating multiple strategies for better bid optimization.
🏆 Be mindful of any active automated rules that change bids in the campaign under the strategy with enabled automatic adjustments . In case of an overlap, these rules will skip keywords managed by the strategy, allowing the strategy to take full control of bid adjustments.
Important: The current version of Bid Strategy does not include time-sensitive optimization and does not consider highly specific bidding setups due to seasonality factors.
Go to Bid Strategy and click Create Strategy.
Configure general settings
Choose the app where you want to apply the strategy. Begin typing your app's name, and select it from the list.
Select one or multiple campaigns to include in the strategy.
Enter a unique name for the strategy to help track its performance.
❗ Once you select campaigns and create a Condition-Based Bid Strategy, those campaigns will be locked in and can’t be edited later—so just make sure everything looks good before hitting Create Strategy.
Select the target metric
Select the target metric, depending on your optimization focus 👇
🎯 Target CPA: Optimize conversions within the maximum cost per action, maintaining cost efficiency and quality outcomes..
💰 Target ROAS: Optimize conversions to achieve your target ROAS by prioritizing revenue-driving opportunities, balancing costs and returns effectively.
📲 Target CPI: Increase install volume while staying within your CPI target. The strategy adjusts bids to optimize app installs at the best cost.
💡 Pro-tip. Optimizing towards CPI can help manage ad spend and increase ROI by driving installs. However, it may not always be effective if:
Conversion rates are low or inconsistent across keywords. Consider improving your app’s top-funnel conversion rates or exploring other ad formats.
Your app operates in a highly competitive market. Alternative tactics, like enhancing ASO or visibility through other channels, may deliver better results.
Specify your strategy goal
Choose the main objective your bid strategy will focus on to drive desired results.
Bid strategy is designed to optimize specific outcomes, such as increasing visibility, driving conversion volume, or improving overall performance efficiency. Align the goal with your campaign's objectives for optimal outcomes. What’s your focus?
I Focus on Visibility | If your primary objective is to maximize visibility and reach, opt for Scale up conversions/ ROAS/ installs goals that increase impressions and engagement. These goals are ideal for brand awareness campaigns where exposure is the key metric. |
I Focus on Conversion Volume | For campaigns prioritizing a higher number of conversions, choose Scale up- or Maintain average- goals. These goals ensure steady growth in conversions while maintaining cost-efficiency aligned with your target. |
I Focus on Performance Results | If your primary focus is performance metrics, such as reducing costs or maximizing ROI, use strategies that aim to Decrease CPI/ CPA while maintaining consistent conversion rates. If the goal is to keep performance consistent, use the Maintain conversions at target CPA or Maintain average ROAS goals to achieve sustainable results without compromising efficiency. |
By aligning your bid strategy with your campaign's specific goals, you can ensure a more targeted and effective approach to achieving desired outcomes.
If you select the CPA or ROAS target metric, and the campaign is eligible for AI optimization, the AI icon will appear, indicating that AI Bid Optimization is enabled by default. Give it a try for enhanced automation and performance 🔗 Learn more about AI Bid Optimization powered by Samba. If you wish to disable AI, click the ⚙️ icon and turn off the AI toggle.
🆕 Samba 2.5 leverages an improved decision-making algorithm for bid distribution to invest your dollar smarter. By anticipating future conversions and optimizing bids in real-time, while preventing overspend, you can drive on average 55% increase in revenue from optimizing ROAS with AI.
Let AI work smarter, so you can strategize better 🚀
Optimization Goals - Comparison Table (click ▼ to unfold)
Optimization Goals - Comparison Table (click ▼ to unfold)
Choose a target value
Set the desirable value of the target metric you'd like to achieve. You may analyze your target KPI over the last 30 or 90 days to define your target value or choose the recommended one.
⭐ Our smart legibility assessment algorithm will additionally evaluate historical performance data from the last 30 days to recommend an optimal target value. It will also flag if the value is too high or low, or if another condition-based bid strategy type would be preferred for better optimization results.
Configure Impression Share settings
Expand the Advanced Options to customize how the strategy manages fluctuations in impression share, allowing you to fine-tune bids based on keyword performance.
High-performance focus (Default): The strategy maintains bids only for well-performing keywords with Impression Share value > 91%. This helps secure the #1 position for keywords meeting target KPIs while minimizing unnecessary spending.
Maximum coverage: You can choose to maintain bids for well, optimal, and low-performing keywords with Impression Share over 91%, aiming to maximize visibility even for less effective keywords in the competive landscape.
Broader coverage for Brand campaigns: For even wider reach, maintain bids on all keywords, including those with lower performance or relevance. This ensures coverage for important brand or strategic keywords in the brand-heavy campaigns, but may result in less efficient spending.
Set the date range for analysis
Select the date range for analysis by expanding the Advanced Options in the Optimization Goal section.
For CPI or ROAS strategies, the date range is preset to 14 days, the minimum required for accurate results.
For CPA strategies, the default is Automatic, where Bid Strategy selects the best range based on data sufficiency. If unsure, stick with the Automatic option.
💡 If you notice data anomalies or irregular performance (e.g., unusual spikes or dips in conversions), you may use the Exclude specific date range setting to omit specific dates from analysis (as a fixed period). You can exclude multiple date ranges, with longer ranges prioritized if they overlap. Ensure the excluded period does not exceed your intended analysis range.
By enabling the Set as Rolling toggle, the selected dates will update dynamically, moving forward as the calendar advances. This allows you to continuously exclude "today + a specific time period." A rolling icon will appear in the selector to indicate this setting.
Configure Bidding Settings
The bid optimization strategy evaluates keyword performance and shares bid recommendations for active keywords. If the Automated Bidding toggle is enabled, the strategy automatically adjusts CPT bids within your defined limits to maximize performance and prevent sudden spikes or drops.
❗Notes before activating Automated Bidding:
Keywords labeled as "Don't apply suggested bid" will not be adjusted automatically by the condition-based strategy.
The strategy does not adjust bids for keywords in non-running ad groups or campaigns.
Configuring the following settings ensures bid recommendations and adjustments align with your preferences:
Lower bid limit: Set a minimum bid limit to ensure your keywords enter the auction.
Upper bid limit: To avoid overspending, set an upper limit for your bids.
Max bid adjustment ($/%): Set a maximum increment limit to control how much CPT bid can increase - the lower of the two values (either $ or %) will apply. Lower caps require more frequent updates, while higher caps allow for larger, less frequent changes. A 20% cap is recommended for optimal results.
Bid adjustment frequency cap: Set a limit on how often CPT bids can be adjusted. While the algorithm automatically determines the best frequency based on keyword performance, it will not adjust bids more often than your specified limit. Once every 24 hours or less is recommended.
This setting helps prevent overspending on random and expensive conversions for low-performing keywords by significantly reducing bids — even if this bypasses your configured bid limits. It allows you to save budget and reallocate it more efficiently.
When to Turn It Off: if you are running the strategy for a campaign with low conversion volume where all conversions are highly valuable, make sure you turn off the ‘Prevent spend loss’ setting to avoid potential volume loss.
Once you have finished configuring all the settings, click Create Strategy to finalize the setup. The first recommendations will be available within 3 hours after the strategy is created.
Budget Pacing (Beta)
Budget Pacing is an AI-powered feature that dynamically adjusts your daily budget based on real-time performance predictions and market opportunities, helping you stay within your Monthly Budget Cap while optimizing your campaign performance.
📈 The strategy increases your daily budget when: | 📉 The strategy decreases your daily budget when: |
|
|
❗ Budget Pacing limitations in Beta:
|
To enable, click the + Add Budget Pacing button and specify the settings.
Automatically adjust Daily Budget toggle: Enable for automatic budget changes, or disable for only daily budget suggestions in the Usage & Recommendation column.
Monthly Budget Cap (required): Specify your maximum spend limit (cap) for the given calendar month.
Upper Daily Budget Limit (optional): Add the limit if you need to restrict the maximum daily budget increase and control how far the budget can go.
Notice how the current daily budget value will be always displayed below to guide you.
You can analyze the results of your Bid Strategy either in Ads Manager or by reviewing the Change History. Both of these methods provide valuable information that can help you evaluate the performance of your Bid Strategy and make adjustments as needed.
💡Tip: After creating the strategy, we recommend waiting 3 days before reviewing the first changes. For keywords in stages such as "Optimizing, well-performing," "Optimizing, optimal," and "Optimizing, low-performing," begin evaluating results after at least 7 changes (e.g., if your frequency is once every 24 hours, review the first results after 1 week). For other stages, allow the strategy to work longer to gather sufficient impressions and data for accurate performance estimation.
Bid Strategy Analytics
To gain deeper insights into your bid strategy performance, use the Bid Strategy Analytics tool available in the Bid Strategy dashboard. This feature offers detailed, actionable data to evaluate the effectiveness of your AI-driven bid optimizations and make informed adjustments. 📖 Learn more here.
Ads Manager
➡️ Check the Suggested Bid column–it displays the current Optimization stage in color, along with a tooltip providing insights.
The Optimization stages are represented using 4 colors:
🩵 Blue for boosting and accumulating data keywords.
💚 Green for well-performing keywords. The status indicates that the bid for that keyword may be increased or that the current bid is already optimal.
❤️ Red for low-performing or non-converting keywords. The status suggests that the bid for that keyword may need to be decreased to improve its performance.
🩶 Gray for not relevant keywords that are not helping to optimize the performance.
💜 Purple for AI Bid Optimization.
Hover over the colored dot to review the target and current bids, a bid suggestion from our smart algorithm, the bid adjustment status, and the time of the last update.
➡️ Use the Bid Strategy column to identify the applied strategy name, and click it to review the strategy settings.
➡️ Check the Usage & Recommendation column. This metric shows how efficiently the daily budget is being utilized. If Budget Pacing is enabled, it will show AI-driven daily budget recommendations. Adjustments to the budget can be made based on these recommendations to ensure optimal campaign performance. 📖 Learn more
➡️ You may also analyze individual keyword performance with the CPT Bid metric on detailed charts. Use annotations to keep track of automatic bid adjustments (if enabled) and changes in keyword performance over time.
Change History
The history of bid adjustments is also available in Change History, enabling you to track and analyze changes over time.