In this article, we'll explore 3 manual bidding strategies that have proven successful for our clients in enhancing their Facebook Ads performance.
Why Choose Manual Bidding Over Automatic?
Sometimes, relying solely on automatic bidding just doesn’t yield the results you’re looking for. It could be due to a limited campaign budget, insufficient consumer data, or restrictions imposed by Facebook’s algorithm that limit your reach. In these scenarios, manual bidding can give you more control and potentially improve performance.
Below, we outline three manual bidding strategies that have helped our clients boost ad delivery and efficiency:
1. Sharp Bid Increase
This strategy is ideal if your campaign is struggling to gain traction. For one of our clients in the e-commerce sector, sharply increasing the bid led to more impressions and ultimately better results.
When to use it: When your ad impressions accumulate slowly or stop altogether.
Objective: Speed up delivery by sharply increasing the bid.
How to implement:
- Select an ad set for the experiment and create a copy. Let’s call the copy “Ad Set B” and the original “Ad Set A.”
- Set the budget for Ad Set B to $750 and leave it unchanged throughout the experiment.
- In Ad Set A, increase the CPA (Cost Per Action) by 2x to test if the higher bid improves delivery.
- Monitor performance for 3 days. If the ad set starts using 70% or more of the daily budget, the experiment is a success. Lower the CPA back to its original value and continue monitoring for up to 14 days.
If Ad Set A still doesn’t use 70% of the budget, increase the CPA by another 10%, wait 3 days, and then lower it again. After 2 weeks, compare the results between Ad Set A and the control group (Ad Set B).
2. Slow Bid Increase
If you prefer a less aggressive approach, the slow bid increase strategy can help you identify the optimal bid without risking sudden drops in performance.
When to use it: When delivery has significantly slowed or stopped.
Objective: Gradually increase the bid to see if it yields higher ad delivery.
How to implement:
- Copy the original ad set (Ad Set A) and label the copy as “Ad Set B.” Set the control group’s budget (Ad Set B) to $750 and don’t modify it throughout the experiment.
- Increase the CPA in Ad Set A by $5 every day until the daily budget spends over 70%.
- Once delivery picks up, maintain the bid for 3 days, then lower it back to your target CPA.
This gradual approach helps prevent your ads from re-entering the Learning Phase or being removed from delivery altogether.
3. Finding the Minimum Working Bid
This strategy aims to find the lowest possible bid required to generate quality impressions, making it ideal for campaigns with an unknown audience.
When to use it: After launching a new ad set with untested audience parameters.
Objective: Identify the minimum acceptable bid for effective delivery.
How to implement:
- Create a new ad set and set the CPA to your initial target value.
- Increase the bid by $5 every three hours until impressions start to accumulate.
- Once impressions pick up, reduce the bid by $5 every three hours until you reach the point where impressions slow down.
- Increase the bid by $5 once more to find the minimum bid that sustains delivery.
Conclusion
Manual bidding offers flexibility and control over your ad performance, enabling you to optimize for lower costs and higher impressions. Ready to take your Facebook Ads to the next level?
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