Why Bid Modifiers Matter

Bid modifiers are one of the most underutilized levers in Amazon DSP. Launched in Q4 last year to meet programmatic trader expectations, they mirror controls long available in platforms like The Trade Desk.

Bid modifiers let you adjust bids up or down for a specific criteria at bidding time. These can be across six core dimensions:

1. Audience: The segments targeted within your line items.

2. Environment: This could be the device type (tablet, PC, TV, phone, and connected device like TV OEMS - fire stick, Roku, LG TV), operating system (iOS, MacOS, Windows, FireOS), or browser (Chrome, Safari, etc).

3. Geography: The geographical state, country, DMA or city of the user.

4. Creative: The pixel size for the ad and placement on the page (above or below the fold).

5. Site: This could be the domain of a site (yahoo.com, amazon.ca and for STV channels like PrimeVideo, and AppleTV), or an App ID or name.

6. Ad Format: This includes whether the ad is display, audio or video.

But adoption has been slow. Why? Analyzing the data and applying bid modifiers across every single line item is painfully manual, and few agencies have the time or tools to make it work at scale.

The Current Process

Currently, implementing bid modifiers is a two-phase approach that can be incredibly cumbersome and time-consuming—analyzing the data, and then manually implementing the bid modifiers.

Analyzing the Data

Firstly, to identify where bid modifiers should be applied, start in the Amazon DSP Reports tab.

Create a new custom report for the advertiser.

Choose the report type that aligns with the bid modifier dimension you want to analyze. Add the metrics you’ll use to evaluate performance (Amazon offers 200+ to select from). Make sure the report is built at the line item level.

Then download and analyze the data. Depending on your time window, this can mean thousands of rows. For each line item, determine whether a bid modifier is warranted and set the appropriate multiplier.

Decisions should follow a clear set of rules or algorithm tied to the metrics you selected. Since line items often map to different funnel strategies (TOF, MOF, BOF), it’s best to evaluate each with metrics that reflect its stage in the funnel.

Implementing the Bid Modifiers

Bid modifiers have to be manually implemented at the individual line item level using an Excel upload.

Advertisers must open the line item settings, scroll to ‘bidding,’ and select ‘change’ on bid adjustments.

This will then take you to a new screen where you can download the Excel template to create the modifiers.

In the modifier template, this is where you can indicate what multipliers you want to add across the six dimensions (geography, ad format, audiences, etc).

Once you’ve set your designated modifications, you then upload your Excel file back into the bid adjustments tab and save your line item.

Each line item takes minutes to update, making scale across accounts tedious.

Gigi’s Approach

Our platform applies bid modifiers across all DSP line items in seconds. After automatically analyzing campaign data, Gigi generates a natural-language decision summary highlighting efficiencies.

Gigi then provides one-click recommendations across each line item, allowing agencies to easily “accept” bid modifiers at scale across entire accounts.

This enables agencies to quickly action efficiency opportunities without spending hours analyzing data and build bid modifications directly in the ADSP console.

Proof in Action

Lemon Perfect: 36x Lift in Purchase Rate

Cartograph worked with Gigi to launch a true A/B test of bid modifiers across Lemon Perfect’s top-of-funnel campaign. The test showed that spending naturally shifted toward the modified line items because they were outperforming so significantly, resulting in a 36x lift in purchase rate.

Read the full case study →

Topicals: 2.36x ROAS

Amiz applied Gigi’s bid modifiers across Topicals’ account to drive full-funnel growth. By reallocating budgets to audiences and placements most likely to convert, they achieved a 2.36x ROAS while still capturing upper- and mid-funnel demand.

Read the full case study →

Why Agencies Need to Catch Up

Bid modifiers aren’t just a nice-to-have; they’re fast becoming a necessity for programmatic efficiency. Agencies that treat them as optional risk sacrificing performance. Those who operationalize them at scale will outpace competitors in ROAS, funnel velocity, and client retention.

Is your agency applying bid modifiers across all your DSP line items? If the answer is no, it’s time to introduce them to Gigi.