The bidding model is not changing bids
You activated the bidding model on a campaign, several days have passed, and the bids look unchanged. A few distinct causes produce this symptom. Work through them in order.
Before you start
- Confirm the bidding model is active on the campaign. On the campaign detail page, the target and the objective metric are populated, and the campaign status is not Paused.
- Have the campaign open in a separate tab so you can check bids side by side.
1. Bids may be steady on purpose
The bidding model holds bids steady when a keyword is already inside its target range. A flat bid line on a keyword whose measured CPO is within a few percent of your target is the intended behaviour, not a bug. If most keywords are hitting the target, stop here.
2. The campaign is still in ramp
The bidding model needs a short window of recent performance before it sets keyword-level bids. For a newly activated campaign or a newly added keyword, expect no bid movement for the first day or two while the bidder accumulates enough data to act on.
3. The integration is stale
Bid updates only reach Apple Ads when the integration is authorized and syncing. Open Settings → Integrations → Apple Ads. If the row shows an error, reconnect. See Integration sync errors.
4. The target is unreachable
If the target CPO is below what the auction supports for this app in this market, the bidder will drive bids down and eventually leave them at the floor. Check the campaign's recent CPO against the target. If the realized cost per objective is several times the target, raise the target to something the auction can meet. The Bidding objectives page covers how to choose a target.
5. The keyword hit a guardrail
Per-keyword bids are bounded by the campaign's daily budget, the max-CPT bid on the ad group, and the minimum bid Apple Ads allows. If a bid has been held by any of these bounds, raising the bound lets the bidder move it.
6. Objective metric and objective type mismatch
If the campaign's objective metric is a revenue cohort such as Revenue D7 but the MMP is not sending revenue events for this app, the bidder has no signal to act on. Confirm on the campaign settings that the objective metric matches an event the MMP actually reports. See Custom events.
When to contact support
If you have ruled out the six causes above and bids are still flat across a broad set of keywords for more than two full days, capture the campaign ID and the date range and contact your Catchbase representative.