This guide will take you through best practices when getting started with Smart Bidding covering account setup, bidding strategies, assessing and improving performance, and troubleshooting. Setting you up for success with Google Smart Bidding.
You’ve just launched a Smart Bidding strategy, here’s what to expect
Performance may see temporary fluctuations as the Google Ads algorithm optimizes your new bidding strategy, Smart Bidding is designed to hit your goal over time so the more stable, long-term data points, the more likely consistent performance will be.
Avoid assessing performance too soon. Advertisers are encouraged to evaluate performance once the learning period is complete (typically two weeks after launch).
The chart to the right can be accessed via the Bid strategy report on your Google Ads account.
Learn exactly how many days are left in your campaign’s learning period in your bid strategy report.
Things to do
|
|
|
|
|
Things to avoid
|
|
|
Smart Bidding account structure best practices
Accounts using Smart Bidding can be managed more easily with a simplified account structure and other best practices. Follow the below best practices to help you set up for success.
Track the right conversions
A conversion is an action that’s counted when someone interacts with your ad and then takes an action that you’ve defined as valuable to your business. Once your conversion (i.e. user action) is tracked, Smart Bidding will be able to work towards getting more volume and/or more value from that action.
Add Your Heading Text Here
Consolidate traffic into fewer and larger ad groups and campaigns. Consider segmenting your ad groups and campaigns by common themes or depending on the messaging in your creatives.
This enables you to increase impression and conversion volumes per ad group & campaigns which helps the bidding strategy perform even better.
Broaden match types
Broader match types increase the reach among your relevant audience and allow Smart Bidding more room to find your most valuable customers. Consider using broad match modifier (BMM) as a way to maintain relevance while increasing reach.
Use Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)
To maximize coverage and incremental reach. Dynamic Search Ads are the easiest way to find customers searching on Google for precisely what you offer. DSA generates headlines and landing pages directly from your website. Learn more here.
Creatives
Leverage Responsive Search Ads (RSA) and dynamic keyword insertion to increase relevance among your target audience.
Find about more here.
Budget
It is essential to support the bidding strategy with the right budgets to allow for quicker learnings & improved efficiencies.
- For new search campaigns: use Keyword Planner to get an estimate of bids & budgets required to cover for expected demand.
- For existing search campaigns: When switching to tCPA or tROAS it’s recommended to set your campaigns’ daily budgets 20-30% higher than campaign daily spend.
- For new display campaigns: set budget as follows: if using Max conversions, set 5x your average account CPA. If using Target CPA, set 5x your tCPA bid.
- For video campaigns: set budget as follows: If using Max conversions, set 10x your estimated CPA. If using Target CPA, set 20x your tCPA bid.
Recommended Campaign Structure For Smart Bidding
Manual Bidding |
| Broad match campaign | Ad Group |
Exact match campaign | Ad Group | ||
Phrase match campaign | Ad Group | ||
| Mobile campaign | Ad Group | |
Desktop campaign | Ad Group | ||
Tablet campaign | Ad Group | ||
| 10-day (RLSA) campaign | Ad Group | |
20-day (RLSA) campaign | Ad Group | ||
30-day (RLSA) campaign | Ad Group | ||
| Dynamic Search Ads | Ad Group |
Audience
DSA
Smart Bidding |
tCPA 10$ |
Campaign 1 |
| Broad match or Broad match modifier |
| All devices | |||
| 1st-party audience lists applied at the account/campaign level. Add the longest & largest list possible to maximize reach | |||
| Targeting at the ad group level alongside keyword ad groups in the same campaign | |||
tCPA 18$ |
Campaign 2 |
| Broad match or Broad match modifier | |
| All devices | |||
| Segmented by ad group within the same campaign | |||
| Ad group |
Select the best Smart Bidding strategies for your campaigns, based on your marketing goals
There are various bidding strategies available in Google Ads designed to help you achieve your marketing goals. Use the chart below to identify which strategies are the best fit for your campaigns, based on your business needs.
What |
|
|
|
|
When | From 01 conversions | From 01 conversions | From 01 conversions | From 15 conversions over the last 302 days |
How | With budget constraints Search, Display & Video | Without budget constraints Search, Display & Video | With budget constraints Search, SSC, Local campaigns | Without budget constraints Search, Shopping, Display & Video |
Why | Get as much volume within a set budget | Drive as many conversions at a desired target | Get as much value within a set budget | Drive as much conversion value at a particular ROI |
Metric to consider | Conversions | Cost per conversion (Cost/Conv) | Conversion value (Conv. value) | Return on ad spend (Conv. value/Cost) |
Maximize conversions
Target CPA
Maximize conversion value
Target ROASMarketing objective | Choose the right conversion for your marketing objective | |||
Grow online sales | Add to cart, Begin checkout, Checkout | |||
Generate leads | Phone calls, Form submissions, Sales-qualified leads | |||
Increase awareness | Page view, Subscribe, Newsletter sign up, Brochure downloads, Time on site | |||
Grow offline sales | Get directions, Store visits, In-store purchase | |||
Balance micro and macro conversions using Campaign level conversion settings in campaign settings.
Track values when possible for Target Roas and Max conversion value bid strategies.
PRO TIP: Consider driving specific conversion actions while maintaining one-account set up.
PRO TIP: Adding conversion values are critical for success maximize value as possible within a daily budget.
Evaluating the performance of your Smart Bidding strategy
- To get an accurate understanding of your performance with Smart Bidding, it’s important that you don’t run your analysis too early.
- Check this timeline on when to evaluate and test bidding performance
- To achieve a Target CPA, the max CPC must be proportional to the CvR (Conversion rate). This helps Smart Bidding to improve the performance by predicting the likelihood of conversion from a larger audience to get you more conversions for the same CPA.
- Your avg. CPC might increase and CPAs might fluctuate at the beginning, but CPA should stabilize over time.
- MUST KNOW: When analyzing performance, you should wait a few additional weeks with the campaign running to have a long enough time period for representative results. Target CPA/ROAS is designed to hit the goal over time so the more conversion data, the more likely consistent performance will be.
- Check the Bid Strategy Report to analyze performance. More info here
- Access the bid strategy report through Shared Library or under the Bid strategy type column on the Campaigns page.
- Choose dates to set a time period (at least 2 weeks long) to analyze performance. Ensure that:
- The learning period is excluded from the time period.
- The end date considers your conversion delay (e.g. if conversion delay is 2 days, the end date is at least 2 days prior to when you use the tool to analyze performance).
- If you see a message indicating results are not statistically significant, choose a longer time period.
- Look at the right metrics when analyzing performance:
- Analyzing Performance Metrics = CPA, ROAS, Conversions, Conversion Value
- Metrics not use when Analyzing Performance = CPC, CTR, Clicks, Impression
Check the Recommendations page
- Identify top campaigns to switch over to Smart Bidding and set optimal bids & budgets.
- The Recommendations page provides bids & budgets recommendations to help improve your performance.
- Read this blog on How to use the Recommendations page.
- For campaigns not on Smart Bidding, see recommendations for which Smart Bidding strategy to use, what target to set and what the expected impact would be.
- For campaigns already on Smart Bidding, check recommendations for what changes to targets or budgets should be made along with expected impact.
- Note: Recommendations are updated daily, based on many factors ranging from your campaign settings to trends in the ads ecosystem (i.e. auction dynamics). You may see a different score and a new set of recommendations when these changes happen. Keep in mind: scores are spend weighted based on the past 7 days.
Test & measure the impact of smart bidding with Drafts & Experiments
This feature allows you to test and measure the impact of Smart Bidding on a campaign by running two nearly-identical campaigns simultaneously; the only difference between these campaigns is that one will opt into Smart Bidding and the other will opt into non-Smart Bidding.
Note: Recommendations are updated daily, based on many factors ranging from your campaign settings to trends in the ads ecosystem (i.e. auction dynamics). You may see a different score and a new set of recommendations when these changes happen. Keep in mind: scores are spend weighted based on the past 7 days.
If you are happy with your experiment’s results, you can turn that experiment campaign into a regular campaign with a push of a button
If your result is statistically significant, you’ll see a blue asterisk
Troubleshooting
- Improve your campaigns by exploring potential sources that may be limiting performance.
- Adjust initial setup, Adjust CPA/ROAS targets and budgets to better meet goals.
- Check back on your tCPA / tROAS campaigns to evaluate performance.
Ensure you have enough budget
Add a budget to campaigns using Target CPA/ Target ROAS, if budget constrained.
Check the Recommendations page for budget opportunities.
Ensure your targets aren’t too aggressive
- Use 30-day historical CPA/ ROAS, or what the UI recommends
- Check Bid Simulator Tool (tCPA/tROAS) for target options with an estimated impact
Ensure targeting isn’t too narrow (i.e. your impression share is high)
Use Broad match as your match type for keywords.
Expand keywords via Search terms report and Keyword Planner.
Add 1st party audience lists to campaigns.
Add Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) to your campaigns/ad groups.
Explore if other campaign settings might be limiting the algorithm’s performance
Remove bid adjustments and audience list exclusions.
Choose standard budget delivery.
Ensure you’re assessing performance at the right leve
- If your campaign is part of a portfolio bid strategy, check your portfolio performance.
Ensure there aren’t any conversion tracking issues and you’re considering the right conversions
Check your conversion tag to ensure conversion data is being reported properly.
Mark the conversion as ‘Yes’ under the ‘Include in conversions’ column.
Explore if campaign has experienced other changes
Attribution model, creatives, keywords, etc. changes can impact performance.
Consider any changes made to your landing pages or website.
Ensure you have allowed the learning period to come to completion
- Check the bid strategy report to see how many days are left in your campaign’s learning period before assessing performance.Check back on your tCPA / tROAS campaigns to evaluate performance.
1 – Check how conversions (conversion volume) will increase with a higher CPA (or lower ROAS). You can use one of the following tools:
- Directly in your campaign. Some advertisers can see expected performance impact in the UI when modifying targets
- With the Target CPA Simulation Tool; or
- With Performance Planner
2 – Set a new target that makes the most sense for your goals – If more conversions (conversion value) are desired, increase your target CPA (lower your target ROAS).
When looking back to evaluate performance, exclude the learning period and consider your conversion delay to ensure you’re accounting for all conversions.
Check the Bid Strategy Report to analyze performance
More conversions could be reported (conversion delay)
Conversion data for this period may be incomplete as it takes up to X days after an impression for most of your customers to convert. Select a date range ending before this period or come back to check this date range at a later date.
Limited (budget constrained)
Campaign performance was limited by budget. Increase campaign budget if alert is affecting today’s performance.
This is the time period to be analyzed
Ensure it doesn’t include any periods with alerts.
Learning (new strategy)