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, maximise 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 AUD. 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 AUD. Here's the maths:
Starting bid: $1 AUD
Mobile adjustment: $1 AUD + ($1 AUD x 20%) = $1.20 AUD
Resulting bid for searches on mobile devices: $1.20 AUD
In another example, let’s say you have a $1 AUD bid and would like to decrease it. To adjust it to $0.80 AUD, 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:
- For bid adjustments on the Search Network:
- Click the ad type that you want to view:
- In the table, look for the column titled 'Bid adjustments'.
- For bid adjustments on the Display network:
- Click the ad type that you want to view from the page menu:
- In the table, look for the column titled “Bid adjustments”.
Types of bid adjustments
Device
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 | |||||||
| Display Network Campaign | - | ||||||
| Shopping Campaign | - | ||||||
| Display Video Campaign | - | ||||||
| YouTube Campaign | - | ||||||
| App Campaign | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Smart Campaign | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Performance Max campaign | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Demand gen campaign | |||||||
| Hotel campaign | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| Travel campaign | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Automated bidding
- If you are using Smart Bidding strategies, powered by Google AI, including target CPA, target ROAS, maximise conversions and maximise conversion value, you don’t need to make manual bid adjustments since those strategies automatically set bids to optimise 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 allow 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? | Maximise clicks | Target Impression Share | Target CPA | Target ROAS | Maximise Conversions | Maximise Conversion Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Device | -100% only | -100% only | -100% only | -100% only | |||
| Location | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| Ad scheduling | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| Audiences (incl. RLSA) | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| Calls | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| Demographics | - | - | - | - | - | - |
* = Treated as a target adjustment
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.
Bear in mind that combined bid adjustments can't exceed a 900% bid increase. For example, a $1 AUD bid with a device increase of 900% combined with a location increase of 900% will result in a bid of only $10 AUD. 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. See the example below.
Example
Say that you're running a campaign that targets Australia and is scheduled to run all days of the week. And you've set an ad group max CPC bid of $1 AUD. You decide to increase your bid by 20% for New South Wales, 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 AUD. Here's the maths:
Starting bid: $1 AUD
California adjustment: $1 AUD + ($1 AUD x 20%) = $1.20 AUD
Saturday adjustment: $1 AUD x $1.20 AUD x 0.50 = $0.60 AUD
Resulting bid for searches in New South Wales on Saturday: $0.60 AUD
Resulting bid for searches in California on Sunday to Friday: $1.20 AUD
Resulting bid for searches in other states on Saturday: $0.50 AUD
Resulting bid for searches in other states on Sunday to Friday: $1 AUD
