AI Smart Bidding best practices and FAQs

This article shares best practices and common questions to help you choose the right AI Smart Bidding strategy, set realistic targets, and understand how to manage your setup after it goes live.

Before you begin

To use AI Smart Bidding, you need access to AI Smart Bidding in your plan.
AI Smart Bidding can only be applied to campaigns and ad groups running search results ads.
For setup steps, see How to create an AI Smart Bidding setup.

Best practices

Choose the strategy based on your campaign goal

Start by deciding what you want the campaign or ad group to optimize toward.

Use:

Target CPI if your main goal is to keep install costs close to your target.
Target CPA if your main goal is to control acquisition cost.
Target CPG if you want to optimize toward the cost of a selected post-install goal.
Target ROAS if you want to optimize toward revenue return.
Target Impression Share if your main goal is brand protection and maintaining visibility on important keywords.

Not every campaign should be optimized the same way. For example, a brand campaign may need to protect impression share, while a performance campaign may need to focus on CPI, CPA, CPG, or ROAS.

Use Target Impression Share for brand protection

Target Impression Share is useful when you want to protect your presence on brand keywords.

Every impression on your brand terms is either yours or someone else’s. With Target Impression Share, you set a daily impression share target or range, and AI Smart Bidding adjusts keyword bids to help keep your brand visible.

This strategy is especially helpful for:

Brand campaigns
Brand ad groups
High-priority keywords
Markets where competitor pressure is high

Use longer ROAS windows when users take more time to show value

Target ROAS supports different ROAS windows, including D1, D7, D14, D30, and D60.

Use shorter windows when user value appears quickly. Use longer windows, such as D30 or D60, when users take more time to convert, purchase, subscribe, or show their full revenue value.

Avoid judging D30 or D60 performance too early, because the revenue data may need more time to mature.

Set realistic target values

When entering a target value, use recent performance as a guide.

If the target is too aggressive compared to recent results, AI Smart Bidding may have limited room to optimize. If the target is too loose, the setup may not push performance enough.

Where available, use the last 28 days’ average value reference line to decide whether your target is realistic for the selected campaign or ad group.

Give AI Smart Bidding enough data

Successful campaigns often rely on having access to a wealth of data. To benefit from AI Smart Bidding, rather than obtaining a high number of goals from just one keyword, it’s important that the campaign collects data across a broad spectrum of keywords. Ideally, a healthy campaign should see 30–40% of its traffic distributed among a diverse array of keywords. This approach prevents data from being overly concentrated on a single keyword, which can skew results and reduce the overall usefulness of the data.

Use bid limits carefully

Where available, you can set minimum and/or maximum bid values. When bid limits are set, AI Smart Bidding continues to optimize the selected keywords within the range you define.

Bid limits can help you keep automated bid changes under control, but very narrow limits may reduce optimization flexibility.

Review logs before making new changes

Before changing a target value, bid limits, or setup status, review the Logs tab.

Logs help you understand what changed and when, including:

Target value adjustments
Bid limit changes
Status changes such as Run, Pause, or Stop
Other setup updates shown in the AI Smart Bidding flow

This helps you avoid reacting too quickly to a recent change.

Use filters to manage setups faster

If you manage multiple AI Smart Bidding setups, use filters in the AI Smart Bidding table.

You can filter by:

Target Strategy
Status
Labels
Level

You can also search by AI Smart Bidding name.

FAQs

Which target strategy should I choose?

Choose the strategy based on your main campaign goal.

If you want to control install cost, use Target CPI.
If you want to control acquisition cost, use Target CPA.
If you want to optimize toward a post-install goal, use Target CPG.
If you want to optimize toward revenue return, use Target ROAS.
If you want to protect visibility on brand keywords, use Target Impression Share.

What factors does AI Smart Bidding consider when optimizing bids?

AI Smart Bidding is designed to help you get the most out of your ad spend by considering a variety of important factors:

Keyword performance: We look closely at how each keyword is performing within your campaign or ad group and adjust bids to maximize effectiveness.
Share of voice (SOV): To ensure you're not overspending, we analyze and adjust your bids on keywords that might not significantly benefit from higher spending.
Cost-per-tap (CPT) and Conversion rate (CR): If certain high-potential keywords are underperforming, we tweak the bids to help them realize their potential.
Seasonality: We keep an eye on daily and weekly trends, adjusting your bids to adapt to these changes.
Traffic: By examining past traffic trends, we can time your bid adjustments to support the impact you want.
Sweet spot: For keywords that aren’t spending yet, we find the bid amount that’s just right to start generating activity and quickly improve their performance.

Can AI Smart Bidding optimize campaigns across multiple countries?

Yes. You can include multiple campaigns and ad groups targeting different countries within the same AI Smart Bidding group, allowing unified optimization across multiple regions. AI Smart Bidding can also be applied directly to multi-country campaigns, enabling consistent bidding strategies even when managing diverse markets simultaneously.

Does AI Smart Bidding change or exceed my budget?

No. AI Smart Bidding does not alter your total budget. Your overall budget is constrained by Apple, and the tool will not exceed this total budget. It’s possible for your daily budget to be exceeded (consistent with how Apple Ads operate), but your monthly budget will never be surpassed.

After AI Smart Bidding is set to active, initial cost fluctuations are normal as the tool adapts to campaign conditions during its learning phase. It is advised to allow 2 to 3 weeks for the tool to stabilize and show improvements.

Can I set up automations while using AI Smart Bidding?

It’s recommended not to set up automations for changing bids when AI Smart Bidding is active. Automations related to managing your budget or setting up notifications can be implemented without interfering with AI Smart Bidding’s optimization process.

Bid-changing automations can't be set up on campaigns with paused AI Smart Bidding; AI Smart Bidding must be stopped first. Also, activating AI Smart Bidding will disable existing bid automations, and a warning pop-up will notify you if there is an attempt to combine these actions.

What challenges can arise with AI Smart Bidding?

When you start using AI Smart Bidding, you might notice an initial uptick in costs. This is part of the learning period as the system adjusts to find the most powerful bidding strategy for your campaigns. These costs typically stabilize once AI Smart Bidding has fine-tuned its approach.

When should I see the effects of AI Smart Bidding?

You might not see immediate changes. Typically, allow 2–3 weeks to assess the impact of AI Smart Bidding. If you notice a spike or drop in costs within the first few days, continue monitoring before drawing conclusions.

When should I use Target Impression Share?

Use Target Impression Share when impression visibility matters more than cost-based optimization.

It is especially useful for brand protection, where losing impressions on important brand keywords may mean giving visibility to competitors.

What ROAS windows are available?

Target ROAS supports D1, D7, D14, D30, and D60 windows. D30 and D60 are useful when users take longer to show revenue value.

Should I use D30 or D60 ROAS for every campaign?

No. Use D30 or D60 when your users typically convert or generate revenue later. If your campaign gets meaningful revenue signals quickly, a shorter ROAS window may be more suitable.

Should I manually intervene while AI Smart Bidding is active?

It’s best to keep manual interventions to a minimum to let AI Smart Bidding optimize your ads. If you spot a critical issue that might impact performance, it’s okay to step in, just be sure it’s truly necessary before making changes.

Can I change the strategy after creating a setup?

The bidding strategy cannot be changed after creation. Choose the right strategy carefully when creating a new AI Smart Bidding setup. If you need to use a different strategy, create a new setup with the correct strategy.

Can I change the applied level after creating a setup?

The applied level cannot be changed after creation. Select the right level during setup.

Can I update target values later?

Yes. You can update target values from the AI Smart Bidding table. You can also select multiple setups and use Update Target Values from the bulk action bar where available.

Always make sure your campaign is active before you try to set up or modify AI Smart Bidding strategies. If your campaign or the AI Smart Bidding group is paused, you'll need to activate both the campaign and the AI Smart Bidding for the tool to start working. Note that each active campaign can support only one AI Smart Bidding strategy.

What happens if there is not enough data?

If there is not enough recent performance data, the platform will show a message explaining that AI Smart Bidding cannot start yet. You can go back and adjust your setup without losing the details you entered.

What do Run, Pause, and Stop mean in AI Smart Bidding?

Run reactivates a paused setup.
Pause temporarily stops AI Smart Bidding while keeping the setup.
Stop ends the setup and resets its progress.

Can AI Smart Bidding optimize within bid limits?

Yes. Where available, you can set minimum and/or maximum bid values. AI Smart Bidding will then optimize the selected keywords within those limits.

Should I make frequent changes to my setup?

Avoid making too many changes too quickly. After updating a target value, bid limit, or status, give the setup enough time to respond.

Use the performance graph and logs to understand whether a change is recent enough to affect results.

Where can I check what changed in a setup?

Open the setup’s detailed view and review the Logs tab.

Logs show setup changes and AI Smart Bidding actions, helping you understand why performance may have shifted.

What else should I keep in mind when I’m setting a bid group with Target CPI, CPG or ROAS?

AI Smart Bidding can be activated immediately for target impression and CPA-focused campaigns since it does not require MMP data. For the CPI strategy, a brief waiting period is recommended to gather sufficient performance data. For CPG and ROAS strategies, waiting around 20 days after starting the campaign may provide more accurate data for optimization.

When using AI Smart Bidding with CPI, CPG and ROAS strategies, which rely on MMP data, it is advisable to choose the “without re-attribution” option. This setting excludes redownloads from the optimization process, allowing for more precise bidding.

If you have questions about which strategy to choose or what target value makes sense for your goals, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or contact support via live chat.

Need more help?

If you have further questions on the process, contact your dedicated Customer Success Manager or contact the support team via live chat.