How to make the most from Micro Bidding feature

Micro bidding is an essential feature when it comes to optimizing campaigns for maximum performance and accuracy.

Read how to set up this feature properly in UI and in the Campaign section (that is exactly much easier to do).

What is Micro bidding?

Micro bidding is a RichAds feature that allows to make a custom bid for a parameter and treat it differently within a campaign.

There are 13 such parameters (which you can combine), for example:

  • Publisher
  • Sublist
  • Site
  • Device
  • OS
  • Location — region/city/zip
  • Carrier
  • Connection type
  • ISP
  • Weekday
  • Hour
  • IP
  • Creative

Micro conversion bidding saves you money and time because you don’t need to create multiple split campaigns, blacklists, or whitelists anymore.

Micro bidding parameters

The structure is the following: parameter:value:operation with a bid.

ParameterValueExample
sub_list_id enter an Subscribers List ID, e.g. 1197 sub_list_id:1197:-0.2
publisher_id enter a publisher ID, e.g. 48965publisher_id:48965:+1
site_id enter a site ID, e.g. 41563site_id:41563:/0.5
carrier enter a carrier, e.g. SFRcarrier:SFR:+0.4
device mobile, computer, tabletdevice:mobile:*0.4
connection_type enter a connection type: wifi, cellular, ethernet connection_type:wifi:-0.1
ISP enter an Internet provider, e.g. Orangeisp:orange:+0.1
OS enter an operating system, e.g. android 6os:android 6:-0.9
weekday MO, TU, WE, TH, FR, SA, SU weekday:fr:*0.4
hour put the number from 0 to 23 hour:15:-0.3
ip enter an IP, e.g. 151.101.65.121 ip:151.101.65.121:-0.7
region / city / zip region / city / zipregion:ca:+0.1
city:Chicago:-0.5
zip:90009:*0.2
creative_id enter a creative id, e.g. 38746creative_id:38746:+0.7

Value:
Register is of no importance.

Operations with a bid:
+ — add to a bid
–  — deduct from a bid
*  — multiply a bid
/  — divide a bid

NB! If you use more than one rule, e.g. country:usa:+0.2 and device:mobile:+0.3 in case, when both rules are followed 0.5 (0.2+0.3), will be added to the bid.

Micro bidding: How it works

Let’s look at some examples to see Micro bidding in action.

Example 1

Let’s say your target CPA is $2.5. Android 8 is the most converting OS, but the overall CPA is $2.9. Typically people think about blacklisting, but blacklisting Android 8 will cut 78% of traffic. Reducing CPC just for Android 8 i.e. by 20% would be a much better solution.


Example 2

Two of the most converting publisher are way below the target CPA. Win Rate is a measure that shows how much traffic you buy from the parameter. In this case, 62.5 and 43.8 respectively. By raising CPC for them, we can buy the rest of the most relevant traffic left.

It will look like this (we take conditional publishers and conditional increase parameter):

Our micro bidding supports the CPC payment model only. If you use this feature in the Pops campaign, you should divide the micro bid value by 1000 to get CPC from CPM. Or just use the operations of multiplication and division with your original bid. It’s a lot easier.

RichAds team

Example 3

Your original bid on Pops campaign is 2 CPM. You may use one of two operations to make the bid for publisher ID 77889 equal to 2.5.

  1. publisher_id:77889:+0.0005
  2. publisher_id:77889:*1.25

We recommend using the second way.

One of the main Micro bidding mistakes to avoid

One of the main mistakes marketers make using Micro bidding is that multiple micro bids cannot be added for one unique “parameter+value”.

For example, if you already raised a bid for one site with the formula site_id:41563:*0.5 you can’t raise it once again for this parameter using another magnifying factor, for example, site_id:41563:*0.7. It won’t work with the second formula. 

Editing the first formula is the right way to go. 

Setting up Micro bidding became much easier in 2022!

When the Micro bidding feature was released in 2019, it was great in action but not so easy to set up.

The thing is that for campaign optimization, any marketer should return to the campaign setup and place the formulas there.

Now, Micro bidding options can be set up on the same page where campaign results are displayed. 

Our new feature Optimizer will help with this. You can find it on the “Campaigns” page.

Click on the Optimizer’s icon and make the changes to the campaign using Micro bidding options in one click.

There are two main benefits of using Micro biding from Optimizer: 

  1. A client puts the bid based on statistics. This saves a lot of time.
  2. In the Optimizer, there is no need to put the long formula we discussed earlier. 

Here you can see the specific parameter such as sublists, publishers, sites, OS, and devices.

So, in the campaign’s UI marketer have to set up the full formula — sub_list_id:2645:*2.

In the Optimizer, the client already sees that he is on the Subscriber List Id tab, so he just needs to find line 2645, and type *2 in the field. 

A couple of clicks and changes are made and already working.

Conclusion

Micro bidding is a great option that really helps to save your time and budget.

If you have questions about how to deal with it properly, our account managers can help you. Any marketer can find their contacts in the upper right corner of the page.

Don’t hesitate to ask for help, they are always ready to help and set up this feature for you.

What is RichAds?
🔝 Push and pop ads,
🔼 Domain redirect traffic,
🔝 CPM for domain ads starts from $ 1.5,
⏫ CPC for push ads starts from $ 0.003,
🔼 CPM for pops — from $0.3 in Tier 3, $1 in Tier 1,
⏫ large volumes of available traffic in more than 200 goes.

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Aksana Shakal
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Aksana Shakal has been in affiliate marketing for more than 5 years and is currently the Head of Content at RichAds, an ad-tech holding company. Her sphere of interest lies in affiliate marketing and SEO copywriting. In her articles, Aksana provided in-depth expertise in gaining traffic with different ad formats (push and in-page push ads, popunders and native ads) and verticals (Gambling, Dating, Nutra, Finance and much more). Aksana also loves reading novels and watching interviews on YouTube.
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