Features
Rounding strategies within Merch Jar are essential for adjusting bids that result in sub-cent values, adhering to Amazon's requirement for bids to be in whole cents. These strategies are designed to align bid adjustments with this requirement, facilitating accurate and efficient bid management.
Weighted Rounding is Merch Jar's default and recommended rounding strategy for all automations and actions. Weighted rounding employs a probabilistic model to determine whether sub-cent bids round up or down, based on their fractional value. This method allows for nuanced adjustments that more accurately reflect the intended bid value.
This strategy is particularly effective in scenarios involving low bids and small, frequent adjustments, such as the 2-3% bid changes often utilized in Recipes. Weighted rounding ensures bids don't stagnate due to always rounding due to small adjustments and mitigates the risk of excessive bid increases over time from rounding up, ensuring that bids are adjusted in a manner that reflects the advertiser's intent.
This strategy consistently rounds any sub-cent bid increment to the next whole cent, leading to an automatic increase in bid amounts.
In contrast, the always round down strategy ensures bids are reduced to the lower cent, potentially limiting the bid's competitive edge by maintaining or decreasing its value.
Normal rounding applies standard mathematical rounding rules: bids at or above $0.005 are rounded up, and those below this threshold are rounded down. This traditional approach may not accommodate the strategic nuances of bid adjustments, especially in tightly contested bidding environments.
The design of weighted rounding directly addresses the shortcomings associated with the more deterministic strategies of always rounding up, down, or applying normal rounding rules. Its probabilistic nature ensures that even minimal bid adjustments contribute to the strategic goal of optimizing ad placements without the risk of over-adjustment or stagnation.
