Use the bid simulator with Google Ads Standard Shopping campaigns

Do you want to increase or decrease your bids for your Google Ads Shopping campaign, but you're not sure how it would affect your performance? The Bid Simulator can help bring clarity to how different product group bids could affect your traffic by estimating what your advertising results could’ve been over the previous 7 days, if you’d set different bids.

Use this tool from the "Product groups" page to gauge what bid amount is likely to deliver the performance you want, with the budget you have. Then quickly apply your new bid to your product groups, or across all subdivisions of a product group.

Note that your product groups must have spend in order to use the bid simulator. Learn more about the bid simulator in the Google Ads Help Center.

Use the bid simulator to get estimates for an individual product group

1. Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
2. Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
3. On the page menu, click Campaigns.
4. In the table, click the name of the Shopping campaign you want to view.
5. On the "Ad groups" page, click the name of the ad group that contains the product group. 
6. On the "Product groups" page, click the bid simulator icon  next to the bid in the "Max. CPC" column.
7. In the "Bid Simulator" window, select different bid options to see how they could impact your traffic.
8. You can change your bid and have it applied directly to your product group by selecting a new bid option in the bid simulator and clicking Save.

Use the bid simulator to get estimates for product groups with subdivisions

1.  Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
2. Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
3. On the page menu, click Campaigns.
4. In the table, click the name of the Shopping campaign you want to view.
5. On the "Ad groups" page, click the name of the ad group that contains the product group. 
6. Find the subdivided product group containing the product groups you’re interested in and click the bid simulator icon  in the "Max. CPC" column. (Since this product group is subdivided, there won’t be a bid.)
   • To see how percentage changes to your bids for these product groups could impact your traffic, select Bid scaling (%) in the "Bid Simulator" window. To change your bid by that percentage, select the option next to your desired bid and click Save.
   • To see how different fixed bid amounts across your subdivided product group could impact your traffic, select the Product group-wide bid option. To change your bid, select the option (or enter your own bid next to “Use a different bid”), then click Save.

Use the bid simulator to get estimates for conversions

If you're using Conversion Tracking, the bid simulator offers conversion estimates to help you understand the number of conversions and conversion value your ads might have received if you had set different bids. The following is some information to keep in mind:

• Conversion delays: Conversions can be reported up to 90 days after the click, depending on the conversion window you’ve chosen. The bid simulator's conversion estimates show how many conversions you might receive within your conversion window. Learn how to find a report on conversion delays.
• Estimate availability: If there isn't enough reliable data, conversion estimates aren't shown. Reasons that there might not be enough data include:
  • Not enough traffic on your campaign
  • A high conversion delay
  • A pattern of irregular conversions
• Changes to Conversion Tracking: If you've made any major changes to Conversion Tracking in the previous two weeks, you may not be able to rely on bid simulator data for conversions.
• Conversion definitions: Conversions rely not only on ad clicks, but also on the actions that customers take on your site. This can also make them more difficult to predict.

Use the bid simulator to get estimates for mobile device traffic