CTR Optimization

CPC Bidding Strategy

The CPC bidding strategy optimizes campaigns by ensuring that the optimal bid price is submitted into auction. This bidding strategy will evaluate each eligible bid against the CPC goal and make a prediction on the CTR potential of the bid. Six data points are taken into consideration when evaluating the CTR prediction: environment type, platform device type, placement type, app bundle, domain, and placement.

When setting live, it’s important to back out the CTR the campaign will have to drive in order to meet the CPC goal at the designated CPM. Manipulate the CPC and CPM until you are in the range of average CTRs – if you set a CPC goal that is too aggressive and backs out to a CTR of 1%+, scale will likely be limited as the bidding strategy will not be able to find inventory that can confidently drive a CTR that high and will therefore not bid.

Bid Shading

Test Bid Shading on line items that are using the Fixed CPM or VCR Bidding Strategy to help decrease CPM in first price auctions and therefore decrease overall CPC (Bid Shading is not available within the CPC strategy as the algorithm is focused on meeting the CPC goal).

Using Bid Modifiers to Optimize Various Parameters

Bid Modifiers will be the most powerful optimization tool day to day. We typically recommend making optimizations every 2-4 weeks depending on the length of the campaign; this gives the campaign enough time to collect meaningful data.  Pulling reports that analyze browser, operating system, exchange, site/app, and time of day will help indicate which parameters perform best. From there you can apply bid modifiers to bid down on or even block parameters that aren't driving strong CTRs.  It varies by campaign size, but a good rule of thumb is to completely block sites that have delivered 1,000+ impressions without any clicks. Keep in mind that it’s important to be mindful of scale when making optimizations in order to find a good balance between delivery and performance.

Use Delivery Modifiers to Deliver Against Sites/Apps that Drive the Highest CTR

Aside from using Bid Modifiers, if you have a group of sites/apps that you know perform well you can use a Delivery Modifier that will prioritize delivery across those specific sites/apps before spending across other targeted inventory; using delivery modifiers allows you to prioritize delivery without the need to bid higher. It’s not recommended to use Delivery Modifiers with a CPC bidding strategy. 

The More Exact the Targeting, the Better the CTR

If you are engaging the right audience, they will be more likely to click. We recommend testing out line items with various targeting combinations and after a few weeks optimize into the line items that are driving the highest CTR. Keep in mind that line items with more generic targeting are likely going to drive lower CTRs unless your audience is quite broad. 

If you have first party data available, prioritize using it over third party data.

Other Things to Consider

• Frequency Capping – are you showing a user the same ad over and over again?
• Creative - Is your messaging engaging? Is there a creative size that is performing best? If so, you can use prioritize delivery to that ad size using Delivery Modifiers
• Viewability - Are people actually seeing your ads so that they can click on them?Beeswax has a direct integration with IAS, MOAT and DoubleVerify for viewability reporting of desktop web, mobile web, and mobile in-app display ads.
• Making one optimization at a time - If multiple optimizations are made at once, it can be difficult to understand what drove performance. Although there are many variables that can be optimized, we recommend sticking with one or two to start.