A bid specifies the maximum amount you're willing to pay for an interaction with your ad, and it helps determine where your ad appears on a page.
In a Microsoft Advertising campaign, your bids specify how much you're willing to pay if someone clicks on your ads. This bidding method is called cost-per-click (Max CPC) bidding. You can get good value with this bidding method because you pay only when a viewer is interested enough to click your ad and learn more.
Set bids at the ad group level and lower
You set bids when you create ad groups. You can set different bids for each ad group depending on the likelihood that an ad group will help you achieve your goals.
You can also set bids for specific keywords or product groups. Bids at this lower level override the ad group's bid. For example, if you see that some keywords have a higher clickthrough rate than others, you can set a higher bid for those keywords and increase the chances that customers will see and click on your ads.
Automated bid strategies and max CPC
When you add a campaign or ad group to a Search Ads 360 automated bid strategy, the bid strategy automatically sets bids at the keyword and product group level. This enables the bid strategy to fine tune your bidding to get the most efficient spend.
This means that any keyword or product group managed by a bid strategy will no longer inherit the max CPC setting from the parent ad group.
If you need to temporarily override the max CPC set by a bid strategy, you can edit your bids for a keyword or product group.
Bid adjustments
Bid adjustments allow you to increase or decrease your bids based on where and how people search. For example, you use bid adjustments to bid higher for clicks on mobile devices. Note that bid adjustments could result in your actual bids being higher or lower than the Max CPC you've set.
Related articles
- Edit your bids
- About bid adjustments in Microsoft Advertising campaigns