Google AdWords Ushers In Device-Level Bid Adjustments For Tablet And Desktop

Google has just announced a major change aimed at giving advertisers more control over bidding in AdWords at the device level, creating a significant milestone in the world of paid search.

Previously, we were only to make bid adjustments on mobile devices, but they would still be tied to tablet and desktop pricing.

For example, if we noticed that mobile devices converted 20% better on a particular account, we might be prepared to pay 20% more per click, as the traffic is more important to us. As a result we would add a +20% bid adjustment to mobile devices, effectively turning a £1.00 bid on a desktop into a £1.20 cpc bid on a mobile.

Now bid adjustments are available across mobile, tablet and desktop as separate elements. This is the first time that tablets and desktops have been treated as separate entities in AdWords. Both were previously treated as almost equal by Google, regardless of device performance.

Source: Google

Here at WMG, we started noticing this across a small number of accounts during July 2016, but it now appears to be fully rolled out.

What does this mean? Well, it allows better use of data to measure performance across all devices separately and adjust our bids accordingly. As of today (we think…) we have the ability to add bid adjustments across desktop, tablet and mobile devices. Our immediate reaction is to review data over the last 90 days to give an indication into performance across each device and add bid adjustments as soon as possible to ensure our clients feel the maximum possible benefit as soon as possible.