What is Conversion Bid Strategy and what are its best practices?

Conversion Bid Strategy (CBS) uses our machine learning and AI methodology to optimize and auto-adjust your bid strategy in order to hit your campaign goals. To make the most out of CBS and evaluate which strategy can work best for your campaign, you first need to identify your overall Outbrain objective and your primary KPI. Once you’ve done that, you can simply choose whether Target ROAS, Target CPA, Max Conversions (previously Fully Automatic) or Semi Manual (previously Semi Automatic) are best for you.

Whatever mode you choose, here are some best practices to help you succeed with CBS!

General Best Practices

• Start with Max Conversions or Target CPA. This will leave less room for manual optimization mistakes.
• Split campaign per platform (e.g., Desktop, Mobile…).
• Implement a conversion event that has a CVR of between 10% – 20% in the funnel in addition to the lower funnel conversion (CVR 0.5%-3%) you are optimizing towards. For both target CPA and target ROAS, the system will use all conversions in the funnel for optimization purposes.
• Remove any blocking set on the campaign level to avoid scale issues.

Target ROAS & Target CPA Best Practices

• Once live, allow 48 hours before making any adjustments
• Set a reachable ROAS or CPA goal to prevent scale issues
• Launch with your maximum budget and do not adjust for best results
• Ensure starting budget can generate at least 7 conversions a day
• If you are unable to achieve +7 conversions a day, run on Max Conversions and run on the upper funnel conversion as the target (assuming there is a strong correlation between the upper and lower funnel)
• Make any campaign adjustments at the beginning of the day EST
• If you care more about spend than generating a specific CPA/ROAS, consider using Max Conversions.

Max Conversions Best Practices

• Once live, allow 48 hours before making any adjustments
• Start off with budget that can generate at least 5 conversions a day
• If garnering good results, increase your budget incrementally by 50%-100% at the beginning of the day EST
• If results is not where you want it, decrease budget gradually (by around 30%) at the beginning of the day EST

Semi Manual Best Practices

• Closely monitor your CPA, # of conversions, and CPC
• If CPA is too high, decrease your CPC
• If CPA is good, increase your CPC
• Remove any manual section/content level bids, as they will override the Semi Manual optimization

Want to know more about Conversion Bid Strategy? Visit our dedicated article on which bid strategy is right for your campaign objectives!