Bid Management for Cost-Per-Engagement Ad Sets

image_title

The user interface for a configured Multi Reward CPE Ad Set with Per App Bids

CPE and Multi Reward Bidding Overview

Cost Per Engagement

Tapjoy’s cost per engagement is a pricing model wherein advertisers only pay when users complete a desired engagement within an app. An engagement or event can be defined in many ways, such as reaching level X in a game, signing up for an in-app account, completing an in-app tutorial, etc. With the right optimizations, CPE advertising can drive in-app engagements at scale and maximize return on ad spend.

Multi Reward CPE

Our Multi-Reward Cost Per Engagement allows advertising partners to target multiple events within a single CPE ad set. Users are rewarded on completing multiple in-app milestones, driving deeper user engagement and retention of high-quality users. Multi-reward requires a minimum of two events to be set up by entering the event name and event value (as configured in the MMP) along with the pricing for each event. We integrate with the top MMPs in the industry such as Adjust, Appslyer, Kochava, Singular and more.

Linear versus Non-Linear events

Linear events are completed in sequential order by the user - a typical user funnel is a series of linear events. Having rewards for beating levels in a game are linear events.

A single Multi Reward ad set can be a mix of linear and non-linear events, but must only have one linear funnel. For example, one ad set can contain a rewarded, non-linear Tutorial Complete event; a rewarded, non-linear Play An Online PVP Match event; and a series of 5 linear events for beating Level 1, Level 5, Level 25, Level 50, and Level 100.

Setup and bid management

Given the complexity in regards to MMP and Multi Reward event setup, please contact your Account Manager to configure your CPE adsets, or to make structural changes to your multi-reward events.

Once your CPE/multi- reward events have been set up, you will be able to adjust the pricing through our self-serve dashboard tooling:

Single Ad Set

  1. Log into the Tapjoy Dashboard and navigate to the Campaigns tab
  2. Click on the edit icon on your selected Ad set to open the Ad set editor page

image_title

  1. Navigate to the Budget section on the Ad set editor to adjust your CPE/Multi-reward event bids

Multiple Ad Sets

  1. Log into the Tapjoy Dashboard and navigate to the Campaigns tab
  2. Click on the Bid Manager button to open the CSV Bid Manager

image_title

  1. Toggle between the Download and Upload pages to adjust your CPE/Multi-reward event bids

Per App Bids

Per-App bidding (PAB) allows advertisers to bid a different amount per publisher app. This model enables advertisers to further optimize their CPE campaigns and benefit by investing more in high performing sources.

Adding Per App bids via Ad set Editor

Adding a bid for a publisher app can be done via a graphical user interface using the Find & Add Apps button. This brings up a type-to-search experience in which you can search for apps by app name or app ID.

image_title

Please contact your account manager if you’d like to set per app bids for your ad set but cannot find this feature on your dashboard.

Default bid

All ad sets must have a default bid. This default bid is used for every publisher app that does not have a specific corresponding per-app bid.

CSV Bid Management

Campaign Manager

The CSV Bid Manager within the campaign manager allows you to adjust bids for multiple Ad sets via a single CSV. Using advanced filtering capabilities you can download complex multi-reward/per-app-bid setups and upload changes via a single file. We recommend the following user flow for updating bids:

  1. Click the Bid Manager button on the campaign manager page
  2. Filter Ad sets you want to apply changes for by Ad set Status, Advertising app/ID or Adset Name/ID
  3. Export the current bid settings for selected Ad sets using the “Download” button

image_title

  1. Duplicate this file before making your changes. Or, get your other bid CSV sheet ready.
  2. Upload the new bids, correcting any errors that may arise.

image_title

Using this flow, you'll always have your last set of bids before the recent changes in case you want to "undo" or go back to your prior bid setup.

Downloading/Uploading your bid sheet

We’ve tried to make the CSV export as flexible as possible. This includes supporting multiple types of app identifiers in your download file such as Store ID, Bundle ID, internal App IDs and Hashed IDs.

image_title

Flexible app identifiers are supported in the CSV upload as well. However, using multiple identifiers within one bid sheet increases the likelihood of duplicate rows, while also making identifying these duplicates more difficult.

We have further simplified the upload process by introducing the following features:

Make explicit bid changes

This feature gives you the ability to specify only those bid rows in your upload file that you want to change pricing for.

For example, let’s say you have a complex Per App Bid setup containing bids for 25 publisher apps, but you want to change pricing for only 2 publisher apps. You can upload a file with bid details for only those 2 apps, therefore saving a ton of time in formatting and reducing the risk of manual errors.

Note: Not available in Ad set Editor CSV upload.

Upload mixed bid rows

Did you forget to duplicate the file and you don’t quite remember the order of the complex multi-reward setup? We’ve got you covered! The order of rows in your upload file does not need to be exactly the same as your download file. Mix them up, and the system will still be able to process your file.

Note: Not available in Ad set Editor CSV upload.

Deleting per-publisher app bids

You can delete per app bid(s) by inserting the value “DEFAULT” in the bid column. Note that you cannot make structural changes to multi-reward setups, and will need to contact your account manager for that. However, you can add/delete per app bids on your own.

Note: Not available in Ad set Editor CSV upload.

Common errors

The most common error is duplicate rows - that is, more than one row specifying the same Ad set, publisher app and multi-reward event. There are also minimum and maximum bid limits enforced by the system that help minimize manual errors in pricing.

Ad Set Editor

There is no Undo button for bid changes! Therefore, we recommend the following user flow for updating bids via the Ad set editor page:

  1. Export the current bid settings using the "Export CSV" button.
  2. Duplicate this file before making your changes. Or, get your other bid CSV sheet ready.
  3. Upload the new bids, correcting any errors that may arise.

Exporting a sample file to get started

image_title

If you are starting from scratch, it may help to start by editing the sample CSV file, or even looking at it to learn the format can be helpful. Click the "Download Sample CSV" link in the bottom-right corner of the bid manager interface.

Download/uploading your bid sheet

Similar to the Campaign Manager, the Ad editor page supports flexible app identifiers in the CSV download/upload.

image_title

The upload process may time out if your bid sheet has more than 1,000 rows. If this is the case, please use the Bid Manager within Campaign Manager or contact your Account Manager and we can work with our engineering team to manually process these large files.

Common Errors

The most common error is duplicate rows - that is, more than one row specifying the same publisher app and multi-reward event. There are also minimum and maximum bid limits enforced by the system that help minimize manual errors in pricing.

Bid Recommendations and Best Practices

Raising bids to boost ranking

We recommend raising bids by at least 10% to noticeably improve ranking in a given publisher app.

Lowering bids based on ROAS

If your analysis shows that certain publisher apps are driving users with a lower Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) than the rest, lowering your bids can be an effective way to improve ROAS without the potentially significant harm to campaign volume that blocklisting may have.