Bid Adjustment vs. Keyword Boost | Perpetua Help Center

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Introduction
Definition
Functionalities
Best Practice & Strategies
FAQs

Introduction

The content of the article is going to instruct you more about the differences between applying a bid adjustment and creating a Keyword Boost campaign in Perpetua when is best to opt for one instead of the other, and some best practices to consider.

At a glance, both seem like very similar tools but have distinct differences that have an impact on when to use each one.

Definition

By understanding and utilizing Bid Adjustments and Keyword Boost features in Perpetua, advertisers can strategically enhance their campaign performance, driving more efficient and effective ad placements. These features provide a blend of human insight and AI precision, offering greater control and adaptability in the ever-evolving landscape of Amazon advertising.

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📒Bid Adjustment

The ad engine is continuously working to determine the most optimal bids for your targets. However, its bidding algorithm has built-in constraints to prevent excessively high or low bids, thereby managing risk. This is where bid adjustments come into play.

Bid adjustments enable you to manually adjust bids for a target, either through fixed prices or dynamic multipliers (upward or downward) for a specified period, allowing you to exceed the engine's thresholds. The data from these adjustments is then integrated into the engine to enhance goal optimization in the future.

📗 Keyword Boost

Designed to prioritize and highlight selected keywords in your Sponsored Product goals. These keywords are launched in a separate campaign with a dedicated target ACoS and daily budget, tailored to your prioritization objectives. Additionally, a Top of Search (TOS) multiplier can be applied, enabling the engine to allocate more ad spend towards the top positions on the Amazon search results page.

During the keyword boost, the keyword will be archived in its original campaign. The primary focus of this feature is to drive spend and attention to specific keywords, so the engine will not perform any keyword harvesting in these campaigns.

Functionalities

Aspect	Bid Adjustment	Keyword Boost
Availability	SP, SB and SD goals. Keyword and PAT Targets	Sponsored Product goals only Keyword targets (No PAT targets) 🚨 Note 🚨 If you aim to isolate an ASIN target in a single campaign, consider launching a Custom Goal with PAT Targeting (Learn more here). Max 25 KWB Campaigns within an SP goal
Reversibility	It can be enabled or removed.	It can be launched or deleted. Consider deleting the campaign if no longer willing to continue with it.
Structural Differences	Keywords are kept within the current campaigns.	Boosted keyword/s will be isolated into a separate campaign. These keywords will be archived in the original campaign. 🚨 Note 🚨 If a KWB campaign is deleted, the keyword(s) will automatically be reintegrated into the original campaign, and the campaign will be shown as paused and can't be reactivated.
Configuration	Set an end date for your bid experimentations. Apply a bid (dynamic) multiplier OR a fixed bid adjustment (learn more here).	Set Target ACOS, Daily Budget and Top-of-Search Multiplier. 🚨 Note 🚨 The KWB configuration varies depending on the type of KWB you launch. Find out more here.
Management	From the "Targets" tab within the goal (Filter by Match Types > Active Bid Adjustments). From the "Experiments" tab.	From the "Targets" tab within the SP goal (Filter by Match Types > Keyword Boost). From the Campaigns tab OR the "Keyword Boosts right-side panel within the SP goal. From the "Experiments" tab.
Bulk Actions	Apply/Manage bid adjustments using "*Bulk Actions for Targets*" (learn more here).	Create/Manage Keyword Boost campaigns using the "*Bulk Operations*" tab (learn more here).
Stream Optimization	Bid adjustments may be impacted by the Bid Multiplier schedule you set up (learn more here).	Apply a Bid Multiplier Schedule to your KWB campaign by using Stream (learn more here).

Benefits

Bid Adjustment	Keyword Boost
Drive Spend on Strategic Keywords: Increase spending on targets with low impressions or those considered strategically important. Bid adjustments can also be applied to high-performing keywords to ensure bids exceed the CPC.	Increase SOV (Share-of-Voice) on TOS placements: Prioritize a select group of high impact, strategic keywords to grow top of search share of voice. TOS placements typically have higher CPCs but also higher CVR compared to PDP or rest of search placements.
Reduce Spend on Poor-Performing Keywords: Reduce spending on these targets or on costly keywords that do not align with your strategic objectives. Instead of pausing the targets entirely, use bid adjustments for greater flexibility, allowing you to set a duration and control specific bids for those targets.	Improve Organic Rank: Enhance your Organic Rank on Amazon, which determines your position on the Search Results Page for a specific search term.
Experiment with new Keywords: Due to the ability to control the duration of the adjustment, use either a fixed bid or a dynamic bid multiplier approach (Learn more here).	Promote New Product Launches: Increase exposure when launching a new product. Identify the keywords, promote them alongside your new product and kick-start their momentum.
🚨 Note 🚨 Perpetua's engine optimizes your bid order to be in line with the Target ACOS you apply to the goal. Bid adjustments help to accelerate the process. Learn more here.	🚨 Note 🚨 Organic Rank increases can take some time to actualize and depend on which products are ranking above you. This makes KWB more of a long-term investment strategy in this specific scenario.

Best Practices & Strategies

Bid Adjustment	Keyword Boost
Number of Keywords: Set it to a max of 3-10 keywords per goal at a time. Increasing bids on too many targets at the same time may lead to exhausting budgets and wasted ad spend. Increasing bids on inefficient targets (where the realized ACOS is higher than the target ACOS) may also lead to bids being lowered on more efficient targets as the engine tries to hit the target ACOS set for the segment.	Use "Exact" Match Type Keywords: Broad and Phrase matches can go after many variations of search terms and could potentially be targeting irrelevant keywords, where boosts would not be effective. We tend to see better and more efficient results by placing only exact matches in keyword boosts, so you can be very specific with the keywords you are going after. 🚨 Note 🚨 A KWB campaign does not execute Keyword Harvesting.
Set a Date for your Experiments: Always set an end date instead of leaving them "always on." A duration of 7-14 days is recommended, as it allows the engine enough time to collect adequate data and enables you to see the results.	Include 1 Keyword per KWB: For better performance tracking and adjustment. When there are lots of targets within the same campaign it can be harder to evaluate the performance of the individual targets. Setting up multiple KWBs also allows you to have a custom Target ACOS and budget to have more granular spend allocation.
Determine Optimal Bid Adjustments: Ensure your bid adjustment is substantial enough to make a noticeable impact on performance but moderate enough to keep you comfortable and minimize risk in case of inefficiencies. Learn more here.	Set a Higher Daily Budget and Target ACOS: Review the last 30 days' performance for the search term(s) you've selected and then add 50%-100 % relative percentage (ex: 40% -> 60% or 40% -> 80%) to your Target ACOS. For your Daily budget, we recommend taking the keyword's daily average spend over the last 30 days and doubling it.
	Keywords to be Considered: Perform an attributed sales check by reviewing the target list from the past 30 days, sorted by descending sales, to identify keywords generating the most sales, focusing on exact match types. I wouldnt look at the targets tab, i would do Search Terms tab instead but the logic is the same - looks at the highest sales search terms with high search frequency, this will also help with using the right exact match target Assess impressions, noting that high impressions indicate potential traffic, making these keywords suitable for increased visibility on TOS. Finally, conduct a spending check by identifying keywords with significant expenditure, sorting by descending spend, and focusing on exact match types.
	TOS Multipliers: We recommend launching with 100% TOS if the goal is to push TOS over other placements After a couple weeks, evaluate the campaign's data to see where spend is going. If most of the spend isn't going to TOS, consider increasing the Target ACOS and/or increasing the TOS placement multiplier

FAQs ❓

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What happens when I delete a Keyword Boost?

The KWB campaign will be shown as paused on Amazon, and the keyword/s within the campaign will be reintegrated into the manual campaign they were originally in before being placed in the KWB.

Can I initiate a Keyword Boost for only one product within a goal?

No, you cannot launch a Keyword Boost for just one product within a goal unless your multi-campaign goal consists of only one ASIN. You should launch a Custom Goal as an alternative.

How do I measure the success of my Keyword Boost?

One of the reasons to launch a Keyword Boost is to improve your TOS placements. Review the metrics at the target level to help measure success on TOS domination.
Find out more here.

What happens to my bids when a bid adjustment expires?

Our engine utilizes the data from these experiments to train algorithms specifically for your account, incorporating both positive and negative results. With continuous learning, the ad engine will use all the data collected during the experiments to enhance its machine-learning capabilities and better optimize your goals.

Why did Perpetua apply a lower bid compared to my historical ones?

Perpetua gets access to target history, by harvesting targets that were well-performing during your 60 days before launching a goal on Perpetua, however, we do not have access to the bid’s history.
For instance, if you were bidding $2 on target “x” a couple of months ago before running your goal on Perpetua, the engine will not be able to get access to that data. That’s why we give a lot of importance to the initial Target ACoS of your goal.

What we recommend here, is to review the historical bid of that set of targets, and apply a bid adjustment. The bid adjustment to consider could be a fixed bid adjustment for the next 30 days that would match your historical. The engine will learn from this “experiment” by considering the performance of the target during the 30-day experiment.

Article last updated June 2024. If you find this information to be out of date, please contact hello@perpetua.io.