What Are Google Ads Portfolio Bid Strategies? Features and Setup

Automated bidding has become the standard in advertising management in recent years, and is fast becoming the mainstream approach.
Automated bidding is a feature in which advanced machine learning optimises delivery for you, based on your goal and on all kinds of historical advertising data.
Convenient as that is, once the business grows and you are handling more campaigns, you have to keep track of several automated bid strategies at once, and management can take more work rather than less.
That is where portfolio bid strategies, the subject of this article, come in.
We will go through the advantages and how to set them up in detail.

1. What is a portfolio bid strategy?

First, A bid strategy is a feature that adjusts bids according to the campaign goal you want to reach in Google Ads. A bid strategy can be set for each campaign.
When you have many campaigns, using a portfolio bid strategy means
bids are set and managed automatically to hit a single goal across several campaigns.

[The bid strategy handbook] A thorough guide to bid strategies in Google search advertising

2. What portfolio bid strategies do

2.1. Bid strategies are easier to manage

A portfolio bid strategy cuts the work of managing an automated bid strategy for every campaign.
Say you are running two campaigns, A and B.
With conventional automated bidding you set a bid strategy per campaign, so the machine learning works to hit the goal for each campaign separately.
With two campaigns, A and B, that is simply twice the management work.
With a portfolio bid strategy, though, you manage the bid strategy for both A and B together.
Change the portfolio once and the change applies to every campaign it covers, which makes management easier.

2.2. Machine learning optimises faster

As the diagram above shows, a portfolio bid strategy spans several campaigns, so there is more for it to optimise.
More data to analyse means optimisation moves along faster.

A portfolio bid strategy also adjusts automatically to hit the goal across the whole set rather than campaign by campaign.
With shared budgets, for example, you can manage the budgets of several campaigns together.
Say the daily budget is 10,000 yen, split evenly at 5,000 yen across two campaigns.
If one campaign has a bad day and only spends 4,000 yen, the remaining 1,000 yen is reallocated automatically to the other campaign, so you lift overall performance without waste.
In this way, It can also shift budget automatically towards the products that convert most, and adjust the split across several campaigns.

2.3. You can set a maximum and a minimum cost per click

If you want a ceiling or a floor on bids, you can set them under maximum bid and minimum bid.
The ceiling is the one most often used: bids never go above the figure you set.
A portfolio bid strategy can be applied to a single campaign too, so it suits anyone introducing automated bidding on one campaign who wants to avoid the cost per click running higher than expected.
Putting limits on automated bidding does get in the way of the machine learning, though.
The strength of automated bidding is that it adjusts bids for you.
Set a ceiling or a floor and you may well get less out of it.
Setting them without good reason is not recommended.
And because Display Network campaigns are not covered.

3. Bid strategies available as a portfolio

There are six bid strategies you can use as a portfolio.

・Maximise clicks
Bids are adjusted automatically to get as many clicks as possible within the budget you choose.
Effective when traffic matters more to you than conversions.

・Target impression share
Bids are adjusted automatically so your ad appears at the absolute top, the top, or anywhere on the Google search results page.
Effective when you want your ad to show without fail on searches for your company name or your core keywords.

・Target cost per acquisition (tCPA)
Bids are adjusted automatically to maximise conversions while holding the average cost per conversion to your target.
Best when you want more conversions while keeping your cost per acquisition where it is.

・Target return on ad spend (tROAS)
Bids are adjusted automatically to maximise conversion value while aiming at your target return on ad spend (ROAS).
Effective when you assign a revenue figure to each conversion and want to hold a target balance between cost and revenue.

・Maximise conversions
Bids are adjusted automatically to get as many conversions as possible while spending the whole budget you choose.
Effective when you want to maximise conversions within a set budget.

・Maximise conversion value
Bids are adjusted automatically to spend exactly the budget you choose and get as much conversion value as possible.
Effective when you want to maximise revenue within a set budget.

4. How to set up a portfolio bid strategy

Here is how to set one up in practice.
There are two ways to set up a portfolio bid strategy: from the shared library, and from the campaign settings screen.

4.1. Creating a portfolio in the shared library

First, how to create a portfolio from the shared library.

① Sign in to Google Ads and click the tools icon at the top right of the account

② Choose portfolio bid strategies in the shared library

③ Click the + button

④ Click the bid strategy you want from the drop-down that opens

⑤ Name the portfolio bid strategy
⑥ Select the campaigns to apply it to
⑦ Set the target (if you chose target CPA, target ROAS or target impression share)
⑧ Press save and you are done

4.2. Creating a portfolio in the campaign settings

Next, how to create a portfolio from the campaign settings screen.

① Sign in to Google Ads and click the campaign you want to edit

② Click Settings on the left, then Change bid strategy

③ Click Or, select a bid strategy directly (not recommended)

④ Click Use a portfolio strategy

⑤ Set a suitable name and a target cost per acquisition
⑥ Click Save and you are done
Once it is set up, the bid strategy report lets you check whether it is working.
On the portfolio bid strategies screen, click a strategy name to see its report.

5. In closing

This article covered portfolio bid strategies, an advanced use of automated bidding.
If you are using similar bid strategies across several campaigns, a portfolio strategy lets you manage them efficiently.
And when it comes to how much a change of bid strategy affects performance,
a portfolio strategy lets you see data across several campaigns, so you can compare efficiently – another big advantage.
Make active use of portfolio bid strategies and get results efficiently and effectively.