About forecasting
Forecasts use the historical performance data of biddable items (for example, keywords, placement) and conversions in your bid strategy to project likely performance over the date range.
If the biddable items and conversions in your bid strategy don't have sufficient performance data, Search Ads 360 cannot provide a forecast. For example, if your plan includes campaigns with all new keywords, Search Ads 360 cannot provide a forecast until the keywords accumulate performance history.
In addition, if you change the conversions or biddable items in your campaigns, Search Ads 360 will need some time to recalculate its forecast. You'll see a message on the forecasting page when this occurs.
Using the interactive forecasting option
While you're creating the plan
After the initial setup of your plan (selecting the date range, key metrics, and campaigns), you use the "Explore forecast" tab on the "Adjust forecast" page to see:
- How your plan is expected to perform over the date range for the current key metrics and spend you have chosen.
- How your plan is expected to perform if you make changes to the date range, key metrics, and/or spend.
Keep in mind that forecasts are estimates and are not guarantees of performance.
The forecast based on your current settings is indicated by the gray dot on the chart line.
The X axis measures spend; the Y axis measures key-metric value.
Use the "Date range" and "Key metrics" menus to change those values.
Click anywhere along the chart line to see how the changes in spend and key-metric values influence one another.
As you click along the chart line, you can see the spend and key-metric values change.
When you've found the right balance between all the variables, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Continue to finish configuring your plan.
After you've implemented the plan
After your plan is in effect, you can see the plan listed under Bidding & Planning > Active plans.
When you first open "Active plans", you see a list of plans grouped together by key metrics. Click View at the end of a row to see a list of plans that share the same key metrics.
When you view a list of plans that share the same key metrics, the chart above the table shows you summary data for all active plans, for example, the number of forecasted conversions and the number of actual conversions for all plans.
To see data for an individual plan, click the campaign name.
Forecasts include seasonality
Search Ads 360 looks for differences in daily spend when analyzing the historical budget and conversion performance of a group of campaigns and embeds these differences, known as seasonality, in forecasts and recommendations. Rather than allocating the same amount for every week or every specific day of a week (for example, Saturday) in a plan, Search Ads 360 might, for example, allocate a larger amount to week 2 or to Saturdays.
The shaded area of the chart indicates the time remaining in the plan.
If the forecast chart line looks off or if any of the values in the table don't square with your expectations, you can edit the plan to make adjustments (select the plan, then click Edit above the first column).