Advertisers, you may already know that you can optimize bids on a site-by-site basis to maximize conversions at your target price.
But, ever wonder exactly how it’s done? We’ve collected some tips from our best and brightest at AdBrite.
Before you get started, you’ll need an AdBrite conversion code so you can track conversions and CPA by site. See our recent post for step-by-step instructions on adding a conversion code.
Once your code is live, there are three easy steps for optimizing your campaign to maximize conversions.
1) Bid high to maximize your exposure
Start with a high bid to maximize your exposure and see which sites convert for you. If the market rate for banners is $1 CPM, try a $2 or $3 CPM bid. Likewise for CPC text bids – if the market is 20 cents per click, try a 50 cent bid. With AdBrite’s market-based pricing, you’ll only pay a penny more than the next-highest bidder, so you’ll typically pay less than your max bid.
Do this for a few days. You’ll quickly run on thousands of sites, and get valuable data about how your campaign is converting on each site.
2) Optimize bids by site
Now the fun starts. Armed with lots of rich site-level conversion data, we’ll optimize our campaign and drive up conversions at our target CPA. For everything that follows, go to the “For advertisers” tab on AdBrite, click on an individual campaign, and then click the “Sites” tab to see site-level conversion data.
First, let’s pause all non-converting sites. Among the thousands of sites in AdBrite’s network, some may work for us, and others won’t. No problem. Simply sort by spend and pause all sites that have zero conversions.
Before:
After:
Next, reduce bids on sites converting above our target CPA. To do this, simply sort by CPA, from highest to lowest. For sites that are converting, but above our target CPA, let’s reduce our bid price and see if we can get conversions at a lower bid price.
In this example, the campaign is converting, but above our $20 CPA target. To get our CPA down to $20, we’ll lower our bid by 54% to $1.39, and see if we’re able to get impressions and conversions. Note: if the new bid is below the minimum bid allowed, then pause the site.
Finally, increase bids on sites converting below our target CPA. This may seem strange – if we’re converting at a great CPA, why should we increase our bid? The answer is that these are our best-converting sites. There may be even more conversions available to us, and we should bid aggressively to go get them. Again, with auction-based pricing, you’ll never pay more and often will pay less than your max bid.
In this case, our current CPA for this site is $14.06, well below our target of $20. We should be willing to bid more than we’re currently paying to make sure we lock in inventory and conversions on this site! Specifically, we’ll raise our bid to $2.65 (142% of our current bid) in order to secure more impressions on this site.
3) Increase daily budget to drive more conversions
You’ve now taken the first steps towards running a network campaign with site-level optimization. If done properly, you’ll be converting below our target CPA on all the sites on which we’re running, and will have a super-effective campaign in place. Give yourself a pat on the back!
Now, it’s time to scale up your spend to capture more conversions. This part is easy. Simply raise max daily budget for the campaign to make sure we’re capturing all of the available inventory that will convert for us.
See what happens, and repeat the steps above to drive the most conversions possible at your target CPA!
Benny Blum
Manager, Account Services
