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, 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:
  1. Click the ad type that you want to view:
     • Locations
     • Ad schedule
     • Devices
     • Audiences
     • Placements
     • Advanced bid adjustments.
  2. In the table, look for the column titled 'Bid adjustments'.

• For bid adjustments on the Display network:
  1. Click the ad type that you want to view from the page menu:
     • Audiences
     • Topics
     • Placements
  2. In the table, look for the column titled “Bid adjustments”.

Types of bid adjustments

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.

Related links

• Add or remove a bid adjustment
• Troubleshoot 'limited by budget' bid adjustments
• About bidding features in Display campaigns
• Bidding overview for Hotel ads