When setting the bid strategy for your campaigns in Google Ads, you have the option to use a portfolio bid strategy. This approach allows you to manage bids across multiple campaigns, ad groups, or keywords using a single bidding strategy.
What is a Portfolio Bid Strategy?
A portfolio bid strategy helps you manage your bids more effectively if you are running multiple campaigns in your account but have one specific goal for your business. Whether you aim for conversions at a certain cost per acquisition (CPA) or revenue at a specific return on ad spend (ROAS), and it doesn't matter to you from which campaign the conversions or revenue come from, a portfolio bid strategy could be an ideal solution.
Google’s AI will adjust bids to help you reach your performance goals across multiple campaigns when using a portfolio bid strategy.
How Does a Portfolio Bid Strategy Work? An Example
Let's say you have three campaigns in your Google Ads account, and your goal is to get conversions at a $70 CPA.
If you set a target CPA goal for each individual campaign, Google Ads will aim to achieve your specified target CPA for each campaign separately. However, different campaigns often perform differently, so it may not be practical to set the same target for each campaign.
This is where a portfolio bid strategy can be useful. By setting a target CPA for your portfolio and applying that portfolio to all three campaigns, Google Ads will aim to reach the target at the portfolio level, which means across all the campaigns within that portfolio.
In practice, this means one campaign may perform better than your target CPA, while another may underperform. But if your overall objective is to maintain an average CPA across all campaigns, this variation won’t matter as much. The average CPA across all three campaigns is what you're ultimately aiming to achieve.
When should you not use a portfolio bid strategy?
A portfolio bid strategy can streamline performance across multiple campaigns, but it also has its limitations.
For example, if you sell products or services and have a campaign with a lower average order value, you may not want to spend a lot on that campaign. You might prefer to set a lower bid because it’s less profitable.
In this case, a portfolio bid strategy might not be the best solution. If you include that campaign in a portfolio, Google Ads may end up bidding higher on it due to high search volume and easy conversions, which may not align with your profitability goals.
Therefore, before using a portfolio bid strategy, ensure that conversions across all campaigns have the same value for you and that you are indifferent about where the conversions originate.
How to Create a Portfolio Bid Strategy in Google Ads
To create a portfolio bid strategy in Google Ads:
Log in to your Google Ads account.
On the left menu, navigate to Tools > Budget and Bidding, and then click on Bid Strategies.
Click on the Plus (+) button to create a new portfolio bid strategy.
Choose the bidding strategy you want to use: Target CPA, Target ROAS, or others.
Select your bid strategy (Target CPA in this example), name your portfolio, specify the target CPA you aim to achieve, and choose the campaigns you want to include in this portfolio bid strategy.
Google Ads will then work to achieve your specified average target CPA across all selected campaigns.
Conclusion
A portfolio bid strategy can be a powerful tool to optimize performance across multiple campaigns in Google Ads. However, it’s crucial to use it wisely and ensure that all campaigns in the portfolio share the same conversion value for your business.
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