Bing Ads has rolled out Maximize Clicks to all accounts globally. It first introduced the automated bidding strategy in 2017.
How does it work? With the Maximize Clicks strategy, the system will automatically set and adjust bids to get the most clicks for the daily budget.
Are there any controls? Yes, there are two. Like Google, Bing offers the option to set a maximum CPC at the campaign level to give advertisers a bit of manual control over how high the system can bid.
Additionally, if there are high performing keywords or ad groups in a campaign that you want to continue to manage manually, you can select “Use the bid I set” from the bid strategy type drop down at the keyword or ad group level.
How long does it take to get up to speed? Bing suggests letting the strategy run in a campaign for at least a month before analyzing results to determine whether it’s working, “as our bidding models use that time to learn and optimize.”
Keep in mind, the goal here is to bring in the maximum number of clicks to your site within your budget. The strategy has nothing to do with how well that traffic actually performs on your site. If your business goal is to generate qualified leads or sales at a certain return, you’ll want to keep a very close eye on how this traffic performs on the back end with this bidding strategy, if you choose to use it at all.
Caveat. As with other automated bidding strategies, if you’re using a third-party bid management solution, you likely won’t be able to use Maximize Clicks. “With Maximize Clicks, Bing Ads will set all your bids where you’ve turned on the feature. This means that Bing Ads would likely overwrite any bids set by a third-party bid management tool,” said Haily De La Cruz, a Bing Ads program manager.
Why you should care. Automated bidding isn’t going anywhere. Maximize Clicks is Bing’s third automated strategy, including Maximize Conversions and Target CPA. Expect to see all platforms, not just search, continue to develop these features and push advertisers toward using them.
About The Author
Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, managing day-to-day editorial operations across all of our publications. Ginny writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, she has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.