Portfolio bid strategies - when they help and how to set them up
Most advertisers run bid strategies at the individual campaign level. Portfolio strategies pool budget and conversion data across campaigns, which can improve performance - particularly in accounts where individual campaigns do not have enough volume to support standalone smart bidding.
A portfolio bid strategy is a shared automated bidding strategy that you apply to multiple campaigns simultaneously. Instead of each campaign having its own Target CPA or Target ROAS, the portfolio strategy optimises across all included campaigns together, treating them as a combined pool of budget and conversion signal.
When portfolio strategies make sense
The primary use case is accounts with multiple campaigns that share the same goal but individually have low conversion volume. A search campaign getting 8 conversions a month and a PMax campaign getting 12 conversions a month might both struggle to optimise well independently. Combined in a portfolio, they have 20 conversions a month to work with - which is above the threshold where smart bidding becomes more reliable.
Seasonality management also benefits from portfolio strategies. If you want to shift budget aggressively across campaigns during peak periods without rebuilding individual bidding targets, a portfolio strategy allows you to do this at a single control point.
Setting up a portfolio strategy
Go to Tools > Shared Library > Bid Strategies. Create a new portfolio strategy, select Target CPA or Target ROAS, and set your target. Then apply that strategy to the campaigns you want to include. You can see combined performance data for the portfolio in the Bid Strategies report, which shows conversion volume, average CPA, and ROAS across all included campaigns.
What to watch out for
Portfolio strategies can mask underperformance in individual campaigns. If one campaign in the portfolio is consistently inefficient, the portfolio-level numbers may look acceptable even when that campaign is dragging results down. Check performance at the individual campaign level regularly, not just at the portfolio level. The portfolio view is useful for management efficiency. It should not replace campaign-level analysis.
Budget still matters
Portfolio bid strategies manage bidding, not budgets. Each campaign in the portfolio still has its own daily budget. The strategy will optimise bids across the pool, but if one campaign runs out of budget mid-day, the others carry on. Make sure your individual campaign budgets are calibrated to give the portfolio enough daily traffic to work with.
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