Google has introduced seasonality adjustments for Smart Bidding in Google Ads, allowing retailers to use Smart Bidding for a set period of time to help reach their target CPA.
What’s especially exciting about this is that Smart Bidding already accounts for seasonal changes, such as the holidays or back-to-school season. This development effectively lets you incorporate Smart Bidding strategies for non-standard events, such product launches or sales. These seasonality adjustments are currently only available for Search and Display campaigns, with Shopping campaigns expected sometime later this year.
In the announcement of this feature, Google provides this example:
“Let’s say you’re planning a flash sale for the weekend. Historically, you’ve seen a 50% increase in conversion rates when you’ve run a similar sale. With seasonality adjustments, you can apply a predicted conversion rate adjustment and Smart Bidding will consider that adjustment for the date range selected, while trying to hit your target CPA.”
Google recommends using these adjustments for short events lasting one to seven days. This feature gives marketers more control when it comes to maximizing the opportunity of putting together a short time event. It presents a great opportunity to identify what factors contribute to conversions and what role Smart Bidding seasonality adjustments could play in that strategy.
How To Create A Seasonality Adjustment
Per WERSM.com, this is how you implement your seasonality adjustment:
1 . Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Click on the Tools icon in the top-right corner.
- Select Bid Strategies under “Shared Library” from the drop-down menu.
- Under “Bid Strategies”, click Advanced Controls.
- Select the Seasonality Adjustments option at the top.
- Click the blue plus symbol plus to create a new seasonality adjustment.
- Provide a name and description for the adjustment, fill in the event’s start and end dates, and choose your scope and devices.
- Adjust your conversion rate to reflect your estimated conversion rate change.
- Click Save.
So with this new tool available, what’s the best way to use it? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
Here’s How You Can Solve For X:
Find Your Thresholds
Knowing that you have an event coming, identify what benchmarks you’re associating with success for the event so you can properly apply the seasonality adjustment. Conversions is a metric for most events, but decide what the CPA is and what you need your conversion rates to look like to consider the event successful. Then, Smart Bidding seasonality adjustments can help with your heavy lifting.
Go Macro
It’s vital to consider no just on-the-nose sales events or product launches as potential opportunities for applying seasonality adjustments. What about when you incorporate a new Influencer into your marketing and their first few posts go live? What about a new retargeting strategy? What if your site is expecting an SEO boost that may drive traffic? These can all be events that work in tandem with applying Smart Bidding to help you hit CPA goals, and maximize the impact from other marketing tactics you use.
Do you want to add seasonality adjustments to your marketing strategy? Contact us to discuss how to maximize your conversion spike opportunities.
