Quick take on Smart Bidding

What is Smart Bidding?

Rokt Smart Bidding helps customers achieve a Cost per Acquisition outcome across our platform.

How does Smart Bidding work?

The tool uses a series of machine learning algorithms to determine a one-to-one individualized bid price for each prospective customer that could be exposed to your campaign, based upon their propensity to convert.

How does Smart Bidding provide value for clients?

Smart Bidding helps clients achieve a better Cost per Acquisition outcomes at greater scale with Rokt, and can also help our clients utilize the full scale and potential of the platform. More specifically:

• Improved campaign outcomes: Using the advanced algorithms and automatic optimization that Smart Bidding provides, campaigns can achieve improved efficiencies, i.e. lower CPA or greater scale.
• Maximized conversion opportunities across the platform: By allowing the tool to operate broadly across the platform, Smart Bidding will automatically analyze the conversion likelihood of every possible impression and adjust bid pricing accordingly. This allows your campaign to seek conversions that you may otherwise have overlooked, e.g. in areas of the platform for lower demand or niche verticals.
• Automated identification of highly attractive customer segments: Every hour, your campaign’s performance will be re-analysed and pricing tuned to react to which segments are currently performing best on the Rokt platform.

Understanding the tech behind Smart Bidding

Rokt’s team of Data Scientists and Machine Learning experts have identified and analyzed 15 specific data points for each prospective customer that are strong indicators of likelihood to convert. The identified data points encompass demographic, contextual, and campaign information. Using these data points has enabled Rokt to build a conversion model with an absolute accuracy level greater than 99.7%.

Multiple controllers are then used to ensure that your bid pricing is adjusted appropriately to react to the Rokt auction dynamics and that your campaign meets your Cost per Acquisition objective. The factors adjust every hour of the day.

During every auction, Smart Bidding determines the conversion likelihood of a prospective customer and combines this with the controller outcomes to determine your individualized bid price, in real-time.

CASE STUDY: A recent campaign utilizing Smart Bidding drove a 33% improvement in CPA. As a result of optimizing at a 1:1 level across the entire Rokt platform, an increase in efficient scale was also achieved with referrals increasing by 169%.

Smart Bidding is getting (even) smarter!

This month Smart Bidding gets even smarter. Whereas the previous version adjusted at an audience level, with this release the bid price is now automatically adjusted for each auction that your campaign is eligible for. That means that for every user who may see the campaign, their individual conversion likelihood is assessed and the bid price is adjusted accordingly against your CPA goal. This allows for yet greater campaign outcomes and an opportunity to even more fully utilize the full scale of the Rokt platform.

What do I need to do to get started with Smart Bidding?

There are two minimum requirements that your campaign needs to meet in order to be eligible for Smart Bidding:

1. Conversion analytics enabled: The Rokt analytics tag or API integration must be enabled.
2. Minimum conversions: Your campaign must have >25 conversions in the last 30 days. This is to ensure the machine learning algorithm has enough information to make informed bid pricing decisions.

If your campaign meets the eligibility criteria, Smart Bidding can be enabled directly in One Platform, by editing the audience details and then navigating to the set price screen. Reach out to your Rokt Account Manager to get started with Smart Bidding.