Cascade Bidding For Bing's Match Types

It is widely known that in Bing, the three separate match types are in fact the same entity, forcing advertisers to use the {matchtype} parameter to properly track. What causes confusion is the fact that Bing recommends something called ‘cascade bidding’ which allows users to analyze performance more easily and prevents the wrongful inheriting of bids across match types.

In Bing, match types can inherit the less specific match type bid. It is not uncommon for a user to set a bid for broad match, failing to set an explicit bid for the phrase and exact, thus causing all match types to have the same exact bid. For example, if an advertiser is bidding on the keyword “shoe” with a $1 bid on broad match and a bid isn’t specified for phrase and exact match types, they will both inherit the broad match bid. This results in Bing serving phrase and exact match queries as if they had been bid at $1 as well.

How do we get around this?

Bing recommends setting an implicit bid on all match types. The chart below will provide an example of AdCenter’s recommendation for dealing with this Bing intricacy. You’ll see that in the broad group, the other two match types are set to the group level minimum bid. The phrase will have exact bid set to $0.5 and so on.

Since AdCenter does not allow advertisers to pause just one instance of the keyword in a group, advertisers will need to implement this solution. If all keywords resided in the same ad group, pausing one match type will cause the others to follow suit. Due to this behavior, Bing recommends the above: cascade bidding.

Cascade bidding is particularly useful for advertisers who do not have the luxury of tracking dynamic parameters like {matchtype} mentioned above. Even without tracking the dynamic parameter, advertisers can now report more accurately on keyword performance.