Google Ads enables bid simulator for Target ROAS, budget simulator for Maximize clicks, conversions

See the projected impact of making bid or budget changes in your campaigns that use these smart bidding strategies.

Chat with SearchBot

Google is extending the availability of bid and budget simulators to more smart bidding strategies.

Bid simulator for Target ROAS. The bid simulator has been available only for manual and Target CPA bidding. It’s now available for Target ROAS campaigns. The screenshot below shows a bid simulator for Target ROAS portfolio strategy, but you can also see the simulator icon at the ad group level in Target ROAS campaigns that aren’t using a portfolio strategy.

Target ROAS bid simulators are now available in Google Ads.
Target ROAS bid simulators are now available in Google Ads.

The simulator works the same way it does in manual and Target CPA bidding campaigns. The projected impact of a change is based on your auction data from the past seven days and assumes all other influencers, such as your ads, landing pages, your competitors’ ads and bids, all stayed the same.

Budget simulator for Maximize clicks, Maximize conversions. Both of these bid strategies aim to spend your entire budget in pursuit of maximizing the number of clicks or conversions the campaign can generate on a daily basis. If you’re using these strategies and routinely running out of budget before the end of the day, you may see the budget simulator icon appear in the “Status” column. It shows the projected impact of changing your daily budget. These simulations are also based on your past-seven-day auction data.

Budget simulator for Maximize Clicks, Maximize conversions bid strategies in Google Ads.

Why we care. The simulators can be helpful directional indicators of the potential performance impact from making bid or budget adjustments. As always, keep in mind the projections are based on historical data and actual future performance can (and often does) vary from these projections.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.