Adbrew’s hourly budget management ruleset is designed to optimize high-performing campaigns by managing their budgets in real time throughout the day. The focus is on increasing the budgets of campaigns that are performing well and have used a significant portion of their allocated budget. In this article, we will walk you through each rule configured in the template, helping you understand the key metrics and settings.
How to Access the Hourly Budget Automation Template
Find the Template:
Navigate to the Rulesets page.
Click Add New Ruleset.
Select Create from Template and choose the campaign option from the dropdown.
Configuring the Settings: At the top of the template, you will see three primary settings:
Using data from: The "Using Data From" setting determines the lookback period for the data used in your ruleset. It ensures that performance metrics like ACOS, sales, and spending are evaluated based on the selected timeframe (e.g., past 7 or 14 days), allowing you to adjust budgets based on recent campaign performance trends.
Frequency: Set this to Hourly to ensure the ruleset runs at different hours throughout the day.
Evaluate: Choose the specific hours when you want the ruleset to run. This helps control when budget changes are made. You can also run it 24 times a day.
Key Attributes in the Ruleset
Current Hour: The ruleset evaluates campaign performance based on data up to the current hour. For example, if it's before 6 AM, the system uses data collected before that time to make budget adjustments. This ensures real-time, data-driven decisions for optimizing your campaign's budget throughout the day.
First Execution Hour: The first hour when the ruleset is triggered. This can be configured in the Evaluate section.
Current ACOS: Real-time ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sale) data from Amazon Marketing Stream is used to adjust your budget based on campaign performance.
Current Budget Utilization: The percentage of the budget already spent by a campaign in real-time. Like Current ACOS, this is also powered by Amazon Marketing Stream.
Min Budget: The minimum budget for a campaign during the day. If the minimum budget is set to $50, the campaign's budget won’t fall below that amount. It is defined by the user at the campaign level.
Max Budget: A user-defined cap that ensures the budget does not exceed a specified amount. This can be configured differently for each campaign.
Current Budget: It is the budget value at which the campaign is currently on. For example, if the budget increases from $10 to $15, the current budget is now $15. All future budget changes are applied to this updated value, not the original minimum budget set by the user.
Explaining Each Rule in the Template
Rule 1: Reset the Budget to the Minimum Budget
At the first execution hour, the campaign's budget is reset to the minimum budget set by the user. This ensures that every campaign starts the day with a sufficient budget to capture early traffic and set a baseline for performance evaluation.
Rule 2: Increase Budget by 25% (Before 6 AM)
If the current time is before 6 AM and the campaigns have utilized more than 75% of their budget with an ACOS within the target range, the current budget is increased by 25%. This rule helps campaigns that are performing well during the early morning hours to continue running and capture available traffic.
Rule 3: Increase Budget by 50% (By 12 PM)
If the current time is before or at 12 PM, and the campaign has used more than 75% of its budget while maintaining an acceptable ACOS, the current budget is increased by 50%. This rule ensures that campaigns performing well into the afternoon have sufficient budget to stay competitive as more shoppers become active.
Rule 4: Increase Budget by 75% (By 6 PM)
By 6 PM, if the campaign is performing well (over 75% budget utilization and ACOS within target), the current budget is increased by 75%. This provides a significant boost to campaigns during the late afternoon and early evening when traffic tends to peak, helping campaigns to capitalize on high engagement periods.
Rule 5: Increase Budget by 100% (By 11 PM)
Finally, if the current time is before 11 PM, and the campaign has met the performance conditions, the current budget is increased by 100%. This gives a final push to high-performing campaigns, ensuring they remain active during the last hours of the day when conversions may still occur, maximizing the opportunity for sales.
This step-by-step budget increase allows campaigns to grow in budget proportionally as the day progresses, ensuring the best-performing campaigns can continue to run effectively during key shopping periods.
Setting Minimum and Maximum Budgets
You can configure the minimum and maximum budgets by following these steps:
From the Campaign Manager Page:
Click on the Edit Columns button at the top right corner of the table.
Click on Hidden Columns and select the Min Budget and Max Budget columns. The new columns will now be visible on the table, where you can set the min and max budgets for each campaign.
Bulk Update Using a CSV File:
Go to the Campaign Manager Page.
Click the three dots next to the actions button and select Bulk Update Campaigns.
Fill out the required details in the CSV file and upload it back into the platform to update multiple campaigns at once.
Set the current budget as Minimum Budget in bulk:
Open the Hourly Budget Management Ruleset.
Under the first default rule, "Reset Budget to Min Budget at Midnight", click on the button inside the caution box.
Click on Set Min Budget to Current Budget.
By following these steps, you can effectively manage your campaign budgets and ensure high-performing campaigns stay active throughout the day, maximizing your return on investment.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Why are we increasing the budget percentage over time in the hourly rule set template?
The budget increases over time to align with typical traffic patterns. In the early hours, traffic and conversion rates are usually lower, so high spending at this time could result in fewer conversions. By gradually increasing the budget later in the day, we ensure that your campaign has enough budget to accommodate the expected traffic increase. You can adjust the percentage increments based on your own traffic trends if necessary to optimize for your specific campaign needs.