When You Shouldn’t Use Automatic Bidding on Twitter Ads

Twitter Ads can be a gem when used in the right context.

So today, let’s talk about when you should go against the grain and turn off automatic bidding.

Usually, automatic bidding is better

On most platforms, like Google and Facebook, trying to beat the algorithm with manual, programmatic bidding is more effort than it’s worth. You’re better off using auto-bidding.

But this isn’t true on Twitter. If you’re working with smaller budgets (say, $50 to $500 per day), automatic bidding can actually work against you. Here’s why:

Automatic bidding optimizes to max out your budget at a good price.

At frequent intervals throughout the day, Twitter’s algorithm will adjust your bid price to fill the quota of clicks it’s looking for. You’re almost guaranteed to max out your budget every day.

Manual bidding forces Twitter to hunt for the cheapest clicks.

While the most effective manual bidding won’t always max out your budget, you can often see results up to 3x better than automatic bidding with small budgets.

As you increase spending into the thousands, this effect becomes minimal.

Smaller budgets

But if you’re running with a smaller budget, always test manual bidding. Often, results can look like this:

• $250 per day budget, manual bid at $2.00 per click: You might spend about 80%–90% of your budget each day, but cost per click (CPC) will be right around, or less than, two bucks.
• $250 per day budget, automatic bidding: Twitter will change its bid throughout the day to maximize its quota. You could end up with something like 100% of the budget spent, but $3.80 per click in this scenario.

In other words… try driving manual for a change.

Your ad dollars may go farther that way.