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How to choose a bidding strategy

  • Updated

When it comes to setting up your campaigns, selecting the right bidding strategy is crucial. Two common bidding strategies for Performance Advertisers are Maximize Conversions and Target CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition); this FAQ will help you understand when to use each strategy and the key differences between the two. Most recently though, we released the ability to switch between these two strategies!

 

What is Maximize Conversions?

Maximize Conversions is a new bidding strategy designed to predictably spend your daily budget while also delivering as many conversions as possible.

 

What is tCPA?

Target CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) is an automated bidding strategy where you set a specific cost target for each conversion. Our Ad Manager will adjust your bids to achieve that target cost and deliver conversions.

 

How are they similar?

Both smart bidding strategies utilize AI and machine learning to achieve conversions and require the integration of a pixel/postback.

 

Bidding Strategy Maximize Conversions Target CPA
Goal
  • Spend your daily budget while also optimizing to deliver as many conversions as possible
  • Attain a specific CPA target while achieving spend threshold
Advantages
  • Predictable spending
  • Drive as many conversions as possible
  • Can be used as a tool to identify your CPA
  • Control over CPA
Who's a good fit
  • Performance Advertisers
  • Want stable daily spending
  • Especially good for goal CPA < $50, CPA may end up lower than running Target CPA
  • Performance Advertisers
  • Have a strict CPA goal
  • Less strict on daily spending goal

 

How to set up Target CPA and Maximize Conversion Campaigns

  • For both types, choose “Conversions” as your campaign objective
    • For tCPA, select the “Target CPA” bid type in your ad set
    • For “Maximize Conversions” select the “Maximize Conversions” bid type in your ad set.ezgif.com-video-to-gif (1).gif

 

💡We now support Max Conversion and tCPA switching! Review the scenarios below when it makes sense to switch your bidding strategy.

  1. From Max Conversion to tCPA: Once enough conversion data is collected and you've passed through the learning phase, switch to tCPA to control performance and cost.
  2. From tCPA to Max Conversions: When you are running tCPA and you are not seeing the scale you want, switch to Max Conversions.
  3. If you are ROI-driven and don't know your CPA goal, start with Max Conversions to gather data, then switch to tCPA for more targeted optimization.

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