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Ad groups

An ad group is the container between a campaign and its keywords. It holds the default bid, the status, and any Apple Ads audience targeting. This page covers what you see on the ad groups tab and the edits you can make from Catchbase.

Before you start

  • Apple Ads integration connected.
  • Editor role or higher to change status or default bid.

What an ad group carries

Each ad group row displays the fields imported from Apple Ads.

  • Name.
  • Status (Active or Paused) and display status, which reflects whether Apple Ads is currently serving it. A row can read "On Hold" if the parent campaign is paused or held by Apple.
  • Default bid amount. The maximum cost-per-tap (CPT) the ad group will pay when a keyword under it does not have its own bid set. Shown in the campaign's native currency.
  • Cost-per-Tap (CPT). The realized CPT from recent spend, reported alongside the default bid so you can compare intent to outcome.

Audience targeting dimensions (age, gender, device, location) are configured in Apple Ads and are not edited from Catchbase today.

Edit ad group settings

Click a row's Edit action to open the ad-group edit dialog. Four additional fields beyond name and default bid live here:

  • CPO goal. An ad-group-level target cost per objective, independent of the campaign target. When set, the bidding model treats the CPO goal as the per-ad-group constraint when producing per-keyword bids; when unset, the campaign target applies.
  • Status. Same Active / Paused values as the row badge, exposed in the dialog for convenience.
  • Schedule (start time, end time). An optional time window during which Apple Ads will serve this ad group. Leave empty to run without a schedule. The schedule is Apple's, not Catchbase's; Catchbase writes the dates back to Apple Ads.
  • Automated keywords. A toggle that controls whether Apple Ads is allowed to add automatic keywords to the ad group (Apple's own Search Match and Broad Match discovery). Turn it on if you want Apple to supplement Catchbase's Keyword Mining with its own suggestions; turn it off if you want a closed keyword list.

Activate, pause, or change the default bid

Open the ad groups tab from the campaign detail page.

  1. Click the status badge on a row and pick Active or Paused. The change writes through to Apple Ads.
  2. To change the default bid, open Edit default CPT bid on the row. The modal has three actions: set an absolute amount, increase the current bid by a percentage, or decrease the current bid by a percentage. Percentage changes are computed per row, so selecting three rows and applying "+10%" raises each row's own current bid by 10% rather than setting them all to the same value.
  3. For multi-row edits, select rows with the checkbox column. The bulk action bar offers Activate ad groups, Pause ad groups, and Edit default CPT bid.

How the default bid interacts with the bidding model

When a campaign is active in Catchbase, the bidding model sets per-keyword bids that override the ad-group default for keywords it manages. The default still applies to keywords without an explicit bid, and it still acts as the Apple Ads maximum when no per-keyword bid exists. Raising or lowering the default on a campaign the bidding model is managing changes the floor, not the bids the bidding model has already placed.

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