Recently got a customer email asking how to setup bid adjustments based on target CPA goals for his campaigns. After writing the email I realized it would make an excellent resource for others on adjusting Outbrain campaign bids based on cost per action (CPA) common in online marketing for improving campaign ROI.
The Problem:
Marketing manager running campaigns on Outbrain with a target CPA of $10 wants to increase bids up to 50% or lower 10% based on performance during the day. Outbrain conversion pixel in use to track conversion and cost per conversion that is used to measure performance.
Desired actions:
- Raise CPC bid 25% when CPA under $7.50
- Raise CPC bid 50% when CPA under $5.00
- Lower CPC bid 10% when CPA over $10.00
Solution:
Now we want to create three "Update Campaign Bids" rules in Brax to accomplish changing campaign bids by a percentage of the current bid.
Here are the rules in order of how you want to create / assign them to each campaign with a CPA target of $10.00
Rule 1 - Increase CPC bid 25% when CPA under $7.50
Assuming a current cpc of $1.00 this will set the bid to $1.25
Rule 2 - Increase CPC bid 50% when CPA under $5
Assuming a current cpc of $1.00 this will set the bid to $1.50
We run this 2nd because the first rule may also meet these conditions sometimes yet we still want the 50% increase.
Rule 3 - Decrease CPC bid 10% when CPA over $10
Assuming a current cpc of $1.00 this will set the bid to $0.90
A few notes:
- Test all automation rules on a small budget campaign first, check you are getting desired results
- The rule priority is determined by order ran
- Run rules up to every 5 minutes using Postman monitor and Brax API
- The rules above are based on Last 7 Days however you can use a shorter or longer time frame
- The UI shows $ however it is based on the currency of your campaign or network account
- There is no currency conversion being done by Brax
The rules above can be modified slightly to adapt for just about any conversion focused campaign. If you have questions about how to setup rules send me an email, mark at brax.io, happy to help achieve your desired outcome.
