A Portfolio Bid Strategy (often called a Shared Bid Strategy) is an automated, goal-driven bidding strategy that you create once and apply across multiple campaigns, ad groups, or keywords in your account. This allows Google’s Smart Bidding algorithm to learn from the combined data of all included campaigns to more effectively achieve a single, shared objective (like a Target CPA).

It is generally recommended for campaigns that have similar performance goals and can benefit from shared data and budget optimization.

Step 1: Navigate to the Shared Library

Portfolio bid strategies are managed centrally, not within individual campaign settings.

1. Log In to your Google Ads account.

2. Click the Tools in the left side menu.

3. Under the ‘Budget And Bidding‘ section, click Bid strategies

Step 2: Create a New Portfolio Strategy

1. Click the button      to create a New portfolio bid strategy.

2. Choose the Strategy Type: Select the automated strategy that aligns with your business goals. The most common portfolio strategies are:

• Target CPA (tCPA): Maximizes conversions at or below a set cost per acquisition.

• Target ROAS (tROAS): Maximizes conversion value to achieve a specified return on ad spend percentage.

• Maximize Conversions/Value: Focuses on getting the most conversions or conversion value within the campaign budget.

• Maximize Clicks: Focuses on getting the most traffic within the budget.

• Target Impression Share: Focuses on brand visibility and ad placement.

3. Name the Strategy: Give it a clear, descriptive name (e.g., “UTDS – Search T-CPA – £50”).

4. Set the Target: Enter your goal (e.g., if you selected tCPA, enter £50 as your target).

Step 3: Select Campaigns and Apply

1. Select Campaigns: Check the boxes next to all the campaigns you want to include in this portfolio.

• Best Practice: Select campaigns that share a similar theme (e.g., all your UK Search campaigns for ERP software) and a similar Target CPA/ROAS.

2. Review Settings (Optional Guardrails): For certain strategies like Target CPA, you can access Advanced settings to set optional Maximum and Minimum CPC limits.

• Note: While limits provide a safety net, Google generally recommends against using them as they can restrict the Smart Bidding algorithm’s ability to optimize fully.

3. Click Save to finalize the creation and application.

The selected campaigns will now share one centralized bidding strategy, and Google’s AI will begin optimizing bids across the entire group to achieve the shared target.

Example Scenario (UTDS Optimal Choice)

Goal: UTDS has three separate Search campaigns (segmented by $\text{UK}$ location for reporting):

1. Campaign – London Leads

2. Campaign – Scotland Leads

3. Campaign – Ireland Leads

Problem: Each campaign is relatively small and struggles to gather enough conversion data individually for stable Target CPA bidding.

Solution:

1. Create a Portfolio Bid Strategy called “UTDS – UK Search Leads” and set the Target CPA to £50.

2. Apply this single portfolio strategy to all three campaigns.

Result: The bidding algorithm now uses the combined conversion data from all three campaigns, making the learning period faster and the bidding decisions more robust and effective across the entire $\text{UK}$ market.