About bid adjustments

A bid adjustment is a percentage increase or decrease in your bids. Bid adjustments allow you to show your ads more or less frequently based on where, when, and how people search. For example, sometimes a click is worth more to you if it comes from a smartphone, at a certain time of day, or from a specific location. You can also adjust your bids based on how your ads perform, helping to improve your return on investment (ROI). Spending on individual clicks may vary as your bids increase or decrease according to the adjustments you've set, but your overall average daily budget won't change.

In this article, you’ll learn about the different types of bid adjustments and their requirements, how multiple adjustments interact, and what options are available for different types of campaigns.

Before you begin

All bidding strategies are compatible with all campaign types. Learn more about target CPA, target ROAS, maximize clicks bidding strategies, and how to add or remove a bid adjustment.

How bid adjustments work

Say you've got a campaign that performs well on mobile devices with a max CPC bid of $1 USD. To show your ad to more customers on mobile devices, you increase your bid by 20% for searches on mobile devices, resulting in a final bid amount of $1.20 USD. Here's the math:

Starting bid: $1 USD

Mobile adjustment: $1 USD + ($1 USD x 20%) = $1.20 USD

Resulting bid for searches on mobile devices: $1.20 USD

In another example, let’s say you have a $1 USD bid and would like to decrease it. To adjust it to $0.80 USD, select Decrease by 20%.

How to view your bid adjustments

In your Google Ads account, you can view bid adjustments from the page menu on the left:

Note: The instructions below are part of the new design for the Google Ads user experience. To use the previous design, click the "Appearance" icon, and select Use previous design. If you're using the previous version of Google Ads, review the Quick reference map or use the Search bar in the top navigation panel of Google Ads to find the page you’re searching for.
Note: If you don’t notice bid adjustments, review Bid adjustment eligibility in this article.
  • For bid adjustments on the Display network:
    1. Click the ad type you want to view from the page menu:
    2. In the table, look for the column titled “Bid adjustments”.
Note: If you don’t notice bid adjustments, review Bid adjustment eligibility in this article.

Types of bid adjustments

Device

Use device bid adjustments to show your ad more or less frequently for searches that occur on specific devices: computers, tablets, or mobile devices.

Where you can use them

  • Campaigns
  • Ad groups
  • If you’ve set a device bid adjustment for a campaign and an ad group within that campaign, the ad group bid adjustment will be used to determine your bid.

Range

  • -100% to +900%
  • To opt out of showing ads on a certain device, decrease your bid by 100% for that device. If you’ve decreased a campaign’s bid by 100% for a particular device, then the ad group-level adjustment for the same device won’t be used.

Location

Use location bid adjustments to show your ad more or less frequently to customers in certain countries, cities, or other geographic areas. You can also use location asset targeting to set different bids for customers who are located around your business.

Where you can use them

  • Campaigns

Range

  • -90% to +900%

Ad scheduling

Use ad scheduling bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bids for campaigns that show only on certain days or during certain hours. To do this, you’ll first need to set up a custom ad schedule.

Where you can use them

  • Campaigns

Range

  • -90% to +900%

Top content (advanced)

Note: Top content bid adjustments are no longer available.

Targeting methods (advanced)

Set bid adjustments for topics, placements, and other targeting methods in campaign types that show ads on the Display Network and the Search Network. Learn how to add audiences (interests and remarketing lists) to an ad group.

Where you can use them

  • Campaigns
  • Ad groups

Range

  • -90% to +900%

Remarketing lists for Search ads (advanced)

You can set bid adjustments for remarketing lists in your ad groups if you’d like to show ads to people on these lists. For example, you could increase your bid by 25% for those who previously viewed your website in the last 30 days. If you don’t yet have a remarketing list set up, review About Google Ads remarketing lists for search ads.

Where you can use them

  • Campaigns
  • Ad groups

Range

  • -90% to +900%

Interactions (call adjustments)

You can increase your bid for mobile devices to show call interaction ads more frequently for mobile phone users. Interaction bid adjustments influence how often you show call assets and call-only ads to users. The flexibility of adjusting your bids for certain interactions gives you more control over how often they appear with your ad and how potential customers connect with your business.

Where you can use them

  • Campaigns in the new Google Ads experience

Range

  • -90% to +900%

Demographics (age, gender, and household income)

You can adjust your bid to target potential customers of either gender and/or in certain age ranges and incomes. Demographic bid adjustments determine how often your ads show to the preferred audience to make the most of each impression. Learn more About demographic targeting

Where you can use them

  • Campaigns and ad groups in the new Google Ads experience

Range

  • -90% to +900%

Bid adjustment eligibility (manual bid strategies)

Scroll to the right to view the entire table.

Campaign type Device Location Ad scheduling Targeting method Remarketing lists for search ads (Search Network) Interactions (call adjustments) Demographics
Search Network Campaign yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed
Display Network Campaign yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed - yes, confirmed
Shopping Campaign yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed -
Display Video Campaign yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed -
YouTube Campaign yes, confirmed yes, confirmed yes, confirmed -
App Campaign - - - - - - -
Smart Campaign - - - - - - -
Tip: With Smart campaigns and App campaigns, Google AI adjusts bids seamlessly to maximize performance based on your advertising goals.

Automated bidding

  • If you are using Smart Bidding strategies, powered by Google AI, including Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize conversions, and Maximize conversion value, you don’t need to make manual bid adjustments since those strategies automatically set bids to optimize for the conversion goal specified by the customer. If you make a manual bid adjustment to your automated Smart Bidding strategy, it won’t be supported.
  • Device bid adjustments for Target CPA allows you to modify the value of your CPA target, rather than the bids themselves.

This chart outlines the bid adjustment types that are supported by each automated bid strategy (scroll to the right to view the entire table).

Bid adjustment type -100% possible? Maximize clicks Target Impression Share Target CPA Target ROAS Maximize Conversions Maximize Conversion Value
Device yes, confirmed yes, confirmed -100% only yes, confirmed* -100% only -100% only -100% only
Location - yes, confirmed - - - - -
Ad scheduling - yes, confirmed - - - - -
Audiences (incl. RLSA) - yes, confirmed - - - - -
Calls - yes, confirmed - - - - -
Demographics - yes, confirmed - - - - -

* = Treated as a target adjustment

Note: In cases where -100% adjustments aren't possible, Smart Bidding strategies will still consider targeting and exclusions for each bid adjustment type.

Multiple bid adjustments

When you set more than one bid adjustment in your campaign, those adjustments are typically multiplied together to determine how much your bid will increase or decrease. However, multiple device and location bid adjustments behave differently.

Keep in mind that combined bid adjustments can't exceed a 900% bid increase. For example, a $1 USD bid with a device increase of 900% combined with a location increase of 900% will result in a bid of only $10 USD. The lowest possible bid adjustment when combining multiple bid adjustments is -90%.

  • Multiple device bid adjustments: If you set a device bid adjustment at the campaign level and an adjustment for the same device at the ad group level, the ad group device bid adjustment will be used to determine the resulting bid adjustment. However, if the campaign-level device bid adjustment is a 100% decrease, then the ad group level device bid adjustment won't be used.
  • Multiple location bid adjustments: Multiple adjustments that apply to the same location won't be combined. If you set an adjustment of +50% for France, and +100% for Paris, only the adjustment for Paris, the most specific location, will be used for traffic from users in Paris.
  • Multiple bid adjustments for dissimilar ad types: For dissimilar ad types, multiple bid adjustments are still multiplied together, but will adjust for changing conditions. Check out the example below.

Example

Say you're running a campaign that targets the U.S. and is scheduled to run all days of the week. And, you've set an ad group max CPC bid of $1 USD. You decide to increase your bid by 20% for California, and decrease your bid by 50% for Saturday. Your resulting bid for a search that occurs in California on a Saturday will be $0.60 USD. Here's the math:

Starting bid: $1 USD

California adjustment: $1 USD + ($1 USD x 20%) = $1.20 USD

Saturday adjustment: $1 USD x $1.20 USD x 0.50 = $0.60 USD

Resulting bid for searches in California on Saturday: $0.60 USD

Resulting bid for searches in California on Sunday through Friday: $1.20 USD

Resulting bid for searches in other states on Saturday: $0.50 USD

Resulting bid for searches in other states on Sunday through Friday: $1 USD

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