The Bid Modifier Bid Model component allows you to take control of your campaign’s bidding strategy. You can choose to bid a higher or lower price for the Creative, Location, or Inventory targeting dimensions that are most or least important to your campaign.

Bid Modifiers are one of the three Bid Model components that you can manage for your campaigns. Refer to Dimension Priority overview and Spend Ratio overview for more details on the other ways that you can apply Bid Model settings.

All advertisers can apply Bid Modifiers to a campaign; however, a campaign must meet each of these conditions before it becomes eligible.

*You can apply Bid Modifiers to campaigns that are targeting either Open Exchange inventory and Deal IDs, or targeting only Open Exchange inventory. Note that, when a campaign targets both, it only applies your Bid Modifier settings to Open Exchange bid requests. Incoming traffic from the targeted deal is treated as if no Bid Modifiers are applied, and bids the Max Bid Price you defined instead. Note that Deal IDs are, however, eligible for advanced modeling via Spend Ratios and Dimension Priorities.

Bid Modifiers allow you to tailor how much you’re willing to bid on a campaign’s targeting dimensions. When you apply a Bid Modifier, you increase or lower the dimension’s Base Bid Price. These modifiers range from 0.1X to 100X, with numbers below 1X indicating that you want to pay less than the campaign’s Base Bid Price, and numbers above 1X indicating that you want to pay more than the campaign’s Base Bid Price for that dimension.

The Bid Model will honor the Max Bid Price you define in instances when the Bid Modifier would have otherwise caused a bid to exceed it. Refer to Base Bid Price and Max Bid Price for more details.

You can apply Bid Modifiers to dimensions within a single dimension category, or apply them to multiple dimension categories for the same campaign.

When an incoming bid request matches a dimension that has a Bid Modifier applied to it, the campaign will multiply the Bid Modifier by the Base Bid Price. For example, if the Base Bid Price is $5 and the Bid Modifier is 0.8X, the campaign will bid $4 for an ad opportunity that matches this particular dimension.

In this example, an advertiser creates a campaign and targets the following four ZIP Codes:

They define the following bid prices for the campaign:

The advertiser observes that ZIP Code A is the highest-performing location and ZIP Code C is the lowest performing location for this campaign. They define the following Bid Modifiers for these dimensions to place a higher value on ZIP Code A and a lower value on ZIP Code C:

* In this example, Others includes ZIP Codes B and D.

An incoming bid request matches the campaign’s targeting criteria for ZIP Code A. The Bid Model applies the defined Bid Modifier (3X) to the defined Base Bid Price ($5). This totals $15, but since this number exceeds the defined Max Bid Price ($14), the campaign bids $14 instead.

Another incoming bid request matches the campaign’s targeting criteria for ZIP Code C. The Bid Model applies the defined Bid Modifier (0.5X) to the defined Base Bid Price ($5). This totals $2.50, and is the amount that the campaign bids since it’s less than the Max Bid Price ($14).

Each of the other ZIP Codes that the campaign is targeting are included in Others and will bid using the defined Base Bid Price ($5).

You can define Bid Modifiers for multiple supported dimension categories.

When an ad request matches one dimension, the campaign responds as if you only applied a Bid Modifier for one dimension. In other words, it multiplies the Bid Modifier by the Base Bid Price that you defined for that dimension category.

When an ad request matches one dimension from one dimension category, and a second dimension from another dimension category, the campaign multiplies their Bid Modifiers together. The result is multiplied by the Base Bid Price you defined.

The same is true of ad requests that match more than two dimensions. The campaign multiplies all applicable Bid Modifiers together, and multiplies the result by the Base Bid Price for those dimensions.

In instances when the Bid Modified value exceeds the Max Bid Price, the campaign will bid the Max Bid Price instead.

In this example, an advertiser creates a campaign targeting four ZIP Codes and two Publisher Categories.

They define the following bid prices for the campaign:

The advertiser defines the following Bid Modifiers for each dimension:

AND

An incoming bid request matches the campaign’s targeting criteria for ZIP Code A and Books & Literature. The Bid Model multiplies both Bid Modifiers (1.3X and 1.2X) together, and multiplies the result by the Base Bid Price ($5). This totals $7.80, but since this number exceeds the Max Bid Price ($7), the campaign bids $7 instead.

Another incoming bid request matches the campaign’s targeting criteria for ZIP Code B and Books & Literature. The Bid Model multiplies both Bid Modifiers (0.7X and 1.2X) together, and multiplies the result by the Base Bid Price ($5). This totals $4.20, and is the amount that the campaign bids since it’s less than the defined Max Bid Price ($7).

The steps you’ll follow to add or edit a Bid Model setting will differ based on the dimension category for which you’d like to apply the Bid Modifier, Dimension Priority, or Spend Ratio.

Refer to the dedicated resources linked below to learn how to apply a Bid Modifier or another Bid Model component based on the dimension category.

Bid Modifiers rely on two items: the campaign’s Base Bid Price and Max Bid Price.

The Base Bid Price is the starting price for an ad impression before a Bid Modifier is applied. We’ll multiply the Base Bid Price by the Bid Modifier that you define to determine how much your campaign should bid on an ad opportunity for a particular dimension.

The Max Bid Price functions as a ceiling that the campaign should not exceed—even when a Bid Modifier that you added would otherwise cause the campaign to bid a higher amount for a particular dimension. A campaign will bid the Max Bid Price in instances when the Bid-Modified Base Bid Price is higher than the Max Bid Price. For example, if a Bid Modifier results in a $15 bid, but the Max Bid Price is $13, the campaign will bid $13 instead.

There may also be instances where you’d like to bid less than your Base Bid Price for dimensions that are underperforming. Define a Bid Modifier of less than 1X, but greater than 0.1X, to decrease your bid for those dimensions.

Others appears in the Bid Model table any time you choose to apply Bid Modifiers to only certain dimensions in a dimension category. Others aggregates all of the items you’re targeting in the same dimension category that don’t have a Bid Modifier applied to them.

The items included in Others are assigned a non-editable “1X” Bid Modifier by default, meaning that their bids will not be multiplied by a Bid Modifier.