High ACOS Isn't Your Enemy. Your Panic Is.

Because you paused your best keyword when you saw a 105% ACOS.

Here's what happened on their end:

Week 1: "Huh, my impression share just jumped from 15% to 28%."

Week 2: "I'm ranking #3 organically now. I was #8 last week."

Week 3: "Wait... my competitor's on page 2 now. Did they quit?"

Week 4: "Nope, still in stock. They just... stopped advertising. Thanks for the free real estate."

You didn't lose your spot. You donated it.

Why? Because you treated a bid problem like a keyword problem.

That 105% ACOS didn't mean your keyword was broken. It meant your bid was too high—relative to your conversion rate and margins.

The keyword was still driving traffic. Still converting. You just needed to adjust the math.

The fix? Revenue Per Click (RPC) math.

Let's say you're selling at $35 with a 12% conversion rate, and you want 30% ACOS.

Your optimal bid? $1.26. But you were bidding $2.50.

See the problem? Your bid was 2x too high.

What RPC math unlocks:

✔ Outbid competitors without overpaying

✔ Protect your page 1 spot with safety floors

✔ Stop donating your traffic to the next highest bidder

Don't let panic-pausing hand page 1 to your competitors. Start making calculated bids.

The good news? You don't need a spreadsheet.

Scale Insights does the RPC math automatically—and adjusts your bids in real-time so you never overpay (or under-bid and lose rank).

Here's how to automatically adjust keyword bids by target ACOS:

1. From your Scale Insights account, navigate to Ads Insights.

2. Select Performance, then the Keywords tab.

3. Scroll to the ACOS column and filter for results with more than 100% ACOS. Click Apply filter.

4. This shows you the keywords that are out of your target range.

5. Select all the keywords to adjust the bids and bring them closer to your target ACOS.

6. Select Bulk edit, then Adjust bid by target ACOS.

7. Set the target ACOS to adjust bids toward. You can also set maximum/minimum bid percentage change and bid limits to ensure daily adjustments are controlled.

8. Select Preview the changes to review bid changes for each keyword. These suggested changes are calculated based on the RPC formula.

9. Select all bid changes and select Apply selected changes.

10. Your high ACOS keywords have now been lowered to align with your target ACOS. Click Automate to set up a rule that automatically does this for you.

11. Set up the rule to target keywords with ≥ 100% ACOS.

12. When triggered, the rule will adjust bids towards your target ACOS value (e.g. 30%), with a maximum and minimum bid change of 10%.

13. Strongly recommended — Set the maximum and minimum bid range for the adjustments (e.g. $0.50 to $2.00).

14. Modify the rule name and click Create rule.

15. Select the ad(s) you wish to apply this rule to and click Assign.

✅ Done.

Your ads will now auto-adjust bids to hit your target ACOS—without you touching anything.

Pro tip: Set up a second rule for keywords with *low* ACOS (<15%) to gradually increase bids and capture more impression share. You're leaving traffic on the table if you're under-bidding winners.

Running 50+ campaigns and want this dialed in faster?

Not sure which keywords deserve the aggressive bid floors?

We'll review your top 5 keywords and show you exactly where you're overpaying (or under-bidding).