Smart Bidding is the Google Ads feature that serves to automatically optimise your ad bids based on the likelihood that your ads will generate a conversion and thus achieve your goal.
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What is Smart Bidding?
As we have told you, Google Ads Smart Bidding is a set of automatic bidding strategies that employ machine learning and aim to increase conversions or improve conversion value.
Using Smart Bidding, algorithms are in charge of performing the appropriate operations to optimise results and free up time for the person managing the campaign.
The automatic bids are configured according to the performance targets that have been set. Google's algorithms allow it to assess the likelihood of conversion in the auctions where campaigns are competing through indicators such as ad creative, time and device of the user and choose which bids are most likely to generate a new conversion.
Types of Smart Bidding Strategies
Before generating a Smart Bidding strategy, the first thing to be clear about is the business objective and the objective of the campaign. We show you the four types of strategies you can use in Smart Bidding:
Maximising conversions
If you want to get the most conversions with a fixed budget or ROI. In this type of campaign, the goal is to increase sales or leads.
A target CPA can be defined in the bidding strategy to maximise conversions. Smart Bidding then tries to achieve as many conversions as possible at the target CPA you have defined.
CPA Objective
If you want to reduce the cost of the advertising campaign and increase sales or customers. Google's algorithm will work to achieve as many conversions as possible with the target cost per action you have chosen.
When using the maximise conversion value strategy with target CPA, the system focuses on investing your budget in a way that maximises the conversion value of your campaigns.
Maximising conversion value
Automatically sets bids to help you get the highest possible conversion value from your campaign with your budget.
When using the maximise conversion value strategy with a target ROAS, the system focuses on investing your budget to maximise the conversion value of your campaigns.
ROAS Objective
It automatically sets bids to drive as many conversions as possible with a fixed ROAS in order to increase profits.
In contrast, with automatic bidding strategies, google ads automatically sets bids for your ads based on the likelihood that those ads will generate a click or conversion to help you achieve your impression share and click maximisation goals. These are automatic bidding strategies, but do not influence the bidding function at auction time unlike Smart Bidding.
Advantages of Smart Bidding
Now that you know the bidding strategy options that Smart Bidding offers, let's review its main advantages to save time and improve the performance of your campaigns.
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Advanced machine learning
Machine learning algorithms base bidding on big data. In this way, more reliable predictions can be made about how the use of different bid values would affect conversions or conversion value. These algorithms take into account a large number of parameters that influence performance, compared to what a single person or team could calculate.
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Wide variety of contextual signals
With Smart Bidding it is possible to optimise the bidding at the time of the auction, taking into account a wide variety of signals. Signals are identifiable attributes of a user or their context at the time of the auction. These include attributes such as device or location.
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Flexible performance controls
You can define performance targets and customise the settings according to the objectives you want to achieve in the campaign.
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Transparent performance reporting
Smart Bidding provides reports that give you detailed information about the performance of your automatic bids so that you can troubleshoot any errors or problems that may arise during your campaigns.
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Bid strategy reports for insight into the performance of your Smart Bidding strategies.
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Bid strategy statuses.
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Drafts and experiments of search and display campaigns used to compare the performance of Smart Bidding and the bidding method applied.
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Simulators to predict the performance of metrics such as cost, conversions, conversion value and ad impressions.
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Alerts and notifications to pinpoint problems by tracking conversions and adding solutions.
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How to set up Smart Bidding campaigns in Google Ads?
To add Smart Bidding to your Google Ads campaigns you need to log in to your Google account and go to the settings section and click on "Test Smart Bidding" in the bidding option.
When you click on the drop down the default bid type will appear and just after that the option to "change bid type" will appear. At this point you must choose whether you want manual or automatic bidding.
Finally, click on the automatic bidding option and you will see all the available targets. Choose the one that best suits your needs and you can start using Smart Bidding in your campaigns.
