What are Google Ads’ Smart Campaigns?

In July of last year, Google rebranded AdWords and created Google Ads. This change came about as Google realized that its search ad service had grown well beyond managing keywords. It was on its way to becoming a robust PPC platform and needed a name worthy of this.

Under its new name, Google Ads has been able to really come into its own skin and become a full-fledged SEM and PPC toolbox with solutions for all businesses. The goal is to not only make PPC easier on the lives of marketing professionals, but also to make it more accessible, particularly by small businesses that may not have access to a dedicated marketing team with lots of collective experience.

Fast-forward a year after this rebranding to the present and we come to Google Ads’ newest offering: smart campaigns. This feature is packed with benefits that serve search users and ad campaign managers.

Considering the importance of this latest addition to the Google Ads platform, it’s crucial to take the time to really break down the smart campaigns feature and understand what it is, who can use it and how to leverage it to make more successful ads that connect you to new customers.

Understanding Smart Campaigns

Smart Display campaigns are the name Google Ads gives its smart campaign feature. In this use, "smart" simply means that the campaigns are utilizing machine learning capabilities to make decisions. This gives these campaigns the ability to quickly analyze lots of data, from sources like past ad metrics, user behaviors, and others, and make informed, accurate PPC management decisions on their own.

Essentially, smart campaigns are able to automate the bidding, targeting and ad creation steps of PPC.

What Are The Benefits Of Smart Campaigns?

By automating these three steps in the PPC process, Smart Display is able to offer PPC marketers a lot of benefits.

More time: Whenever you are able to automate a task that you used to have to do yourself, you’re saving time. This is the time that you can dedicate to other facets of your digital marketing strategy, or use it just relax!

Faster performance: Smart Display campaigns work very quickly to find the right combination of ad assets, targeting preferences and bidding strategies that unlock performance and conversions. You’ll have a fully optimized campaign in a much shorter amount of time.

Beginner friendly: Not every Google Ads user is a PPC expert. There’s plenty of small business owners that understand the importance of SEM, but perhaps don’t have the intimate knowledge and know-how of more experienced search advertisers. Smart Display helps close the gap between these two types of users.

Deeper understanding: Smart Display campaigns don’t just make it easier to run successful ads; they make it easier to understand what factors lead to that win. With asset performance reports, you can develop a clear understanding of what strategies and creatives lead to success. These insights will help you craft better ads in the future.

What Are The Disadvantages Of Smart Campaigns?

The biggest gripe that PPC marketers have with Smart Display campaigns is that you have to relinquish a lot of control. This can be a big drawback for experienced advertisers that really want full control over ad creation and management.

There may be other scenarios where you find that automated targeting and bidding are not right for a particular campaign.

What Do Experienced PPC Marketers Gain From Smart Campaigns?

The drawbacks explained above might suggest that Smart Display campaigns are more suited for newer PPC marketers, or business owners that don’t have a lot of time to run regular campaigns that require a manual, hands-on approach.

While these AI-powered campaigns do provide much more value to still-learning PPC advertisers, there’s still a lot to be gained from Smart Display by veterans. First, simpler campaigns may not need as much human intervention. Operating them through the Smart Display format will free up time for the PPC professional and help streamline progress.

Another powerful benefit for experienced PPC-ers is the responsive nature of smart ads. Because these ads run and then evaluate different combinations of headlines, descriptions, images, etc., it can be a really helpful testing ground for your creative ad ideas.

Can Anyone Use Smart Display Campaigns?

By the end of Spring, 2019, Google Ads officially rolled out Smart Display ads for all users. However, there are some eligibility requirements before you can create your first smart campaign.

Google Ads requires that users have properly set up conversion tracking and have received either:

• 50 or more conversions on the Display Network through regular display campaigns
• 100 or more conversions across search campaigns in the last 30 days

If you have a brand new Google Ads account, you may have to wait a bit before you have the regular ad campaign performance that grants you eligibility into the smart ads feature. This is largely done to ensure that smart campaign users have enough previous ad data for the machine learning system to work.

How To Find Smart Display Campaigns

If you’re eligible for smart ads and want to start your first campaign using this AI-infused format, here’s how to get started:

1. Plan out what your budget will be, what content assets you’d like to use and what you’d like your target CPA to be
2. Access your Google Ads account and create a new Display Network Only campaign
3. For a marketing objective, choose one of the top four choices under "Direct Action"
4. You’ll now be able to check the box next to "Smart display campaign"

Next, Google Ads will walk you through the steps to create a smart campaign, such as uploading your content assets and entering your budget and target CPA.

Don’t forget to monitor and manage your smart campaign. Even though a lot of the process is automated, you still need to ensure that things are running smoothly and you aren’t wasting ad spend on low performing campaigns.

Conclusions

Smart Display campaigns are an exciting feature that represents the next step in PPC and searches advertising. Understanding how these smart campaigns work and what they can be used for are really important steps for any Google Ads user. Hopefully, this discussion has answered your questions relating to Smart Display campaigns and has prepared you to begin using this new feature in your own PPC efforts!

Anderson Frank is 14 years of marketing experience and has led the digital marketing strategy for companies like Ppcexpo, Salesforce, Mint, Intuit, and many other Fortune 500 caliber companies.