What are Google Ads bid adjustments and how do you use them?

Google Ads bid adjustments let you increase or decrease your bids by a percentage based on who is searching, where they are, what device they use and when the search happens. Every advertiser starts with a base bid at the ad group or keyword level. Bid adjustments are the fine print that tells Google to spend more on the clicks that are worth more to you, and less on the rest, without you having to change every individual bid.

The four bid adjustment types

Device bid adjustments

Mobile, desktop and tablet traffic often performs differently for the same keyword. If your mobile site converts well, adding a +20% mobile adjustment captures more of that traffic. If desktop clicks rarely lead to enquiries, a -20% desktop adjustment stops you overpaying. The adjustment applies before the auction runs, so a base bid of GBP 1.00 with a +20% mobile adjustment becomes GBP 1.20 for mobile searches.

Location bid adjustments

Location targeting tells Google which geographic areas to show your ads in. Bid adjustments go further by spending your budget more heavily in areas where you get better results. A plumber covering Devon might add +10% for Exeter postcodes and -50% for areas three counties away where the travel time makes the job less profitable. You can adjust at country, region, city, postcode or radius level, and you can apply negative adjustments to exclude areas that waste your budget.

Time and day adjustments

The same keyword can perform very differently depending on when someone searches. A restaurant ad for lunch bookings is worth more at 10am than at 10pm. Time adjustments let you raise bids by +15% during your peak hours and lower them outside trading hours. You set these at the campaign level for whole day-parts or specific days of the week. The pattern works best when you have enough conversion data to see which times earn the strongest return.

Audience bid adjustments

Audience adjustments apply to people already in your remarketing lists, customer match segments or in-market audiences. Someone who visited your pricing page last week is likely closer to buying than someone searching for the first time, so a +25% audience adjustment reflects that higher intent. Audience adjustments are set at the ad group or campaign level and work alongside the other adjustment types.

How adjustments combine

Multiple adjustments can apply to the same auction. Google uses the simplest formula: a 1% base, multiplied by each adjustment added together. If you set +20% for mobile and +10% for Exeter, a mobile search in Exeter sees a base multiplier of 1 + 0.20 + 0.10 = 1.30, or a 30% increase. The cap is 900% (a 9x increase) and the minimum is -90% (cuts the bid to 10% of the base). Smart Bidding strategies override manual bid adjustments because the algorithm sets its own bids, but you can still apply audience and location adjustments within Smart Bidding campaigns.

When bid adjustments matter for small businesses

Bid adjustments are a practical way to make a modest budget work harder. Instead of raising your base bid for every search, you apply increases only where you know the traffic is worth more. Home Instead, one of our clients, saw a +3,446% increase in ad conversions through a campaign structure that included audience and location adjustments alongside strong ad copy and landing page optimisation. The same principle applies to any small business: use your data to find the pockets where ads perform strongest and adjust there.

Start by looking at the Device, Location and Time reports in Google Ads. Check which segments have noticeably better or worse conversion rates, then apply a +10% or -20% adjustment and monitor the change for two weeks. Small adjustments are safer than large ones, and you can always increase them when the direction is clear.

Our PPCPPC stands for Pay Per Click — an online advertising model where advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. team sets up bid adjustments as part of every campaign build. If your account has enough conversion data, the right adjustments can reduce wasted spend while protecting your best traffic.

Want to get more from your ad budget? Talk to us about our pay-per-click management packages, from GBP 849 per month, by booking a discovery call at https://victory.digital/book/discovery-call.