What is Smart Campaign and How it Works? Whether you’re new to paid advertising or a pay-per-click (PPC) veteran, Google Smart Campaigns can be your best friend. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence technology at the heart of Google Ads make PPC advertising an entirely different beast — one that may be easier to tame in 2020. Google Smart Campaigns are a powerful tool in the PPC manager’s toolkit. When used carefully, they can save time, money, and a lot of frustration. They do require a lot of data, and a keen eye to monitor their performance. Still, Smart Campaigns offer a lot of promising opportunities, making them worth a try, no matter how much experience you have in PPC advertising.

1. What is Smart
Campaign and How
it Works
Whether you’re new to paid advertising or a
pay-per-click (PPC) veteran, Google Smart
Campaigns can be your best friend.
www.ppcexpo.com

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The Ultimate Guide to Google Smart Campaigns
Whether you’re new to paid advertising or a pay-per-click (PPC) veteran, Google Smart Campaigns can be
your best friend. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence technology at the heart of Google Ads make PPC
advertising an entirely different beast — one that may be easier to tame in 2020.
You may already be familiar with Smart Bidding, which is a Google AI-led bidding strategy you can use in
any campaign type. By comparison, Google Smart Campaigns demand even less of you. In fact, you don’t
even have to provide Ad Groups — Google can do that by itself.
There’s a lot to love about Google Smart Campaigns. Let’s find out what they can do for you.

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Where You Can Use Smart Campaigns
You can use Google Smart Campaigns in three separate
categories:
• Smart Search Campaigns.
• Smart Display Campaigns.
• Smart Shopping Campaigns.
The table below gives you the quick insights you need to
understand what’s possible with each type of Smart
campaign.

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How are Google Smart Campaigns different from Standard Ads?
Google Smart Campaigns are ideal for small to medium
businesses that lack the time or expertise to manage their
Google Ads account properly.
If you have some more experience with PPC advertising, you
may be more comfortable with standard campaigns.
Google Smart Campaigns have the edge over standard PPC ad
campaigns in several ways.

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How are Google Smart Campaigns different from Standard Ads?

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Google Smart Campaigns Requirements
Google Smart Campaigns rely on solid data sources — the more data you have, the better your results
will be. At the very least, you should have data from the last 30 days.
What’s more, is the data must meet the following basic requirements, depending on which type of
campaign you want to run:
Smart Search campaign:
Your Search Network must have a minimum of 100 conversions.
Your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) must not be too low.

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Google Smart Campaigns Requirements
Smart Display campaigns:
50 conversions on the Display Network.
Your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) must not be too low.

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Google Smart Campaigns Requirements
Smart Shopping campaigns:
• Users must own a Google Ads account and a Google Merchant Center account.
• On the Merchant Center account, you must upload your product data feed. This is where Google Ads
gathers data for completing ad descriptions.
• Users must set-up conversion tracking with transaction-specific values.
• You must have an audience of at least 100 users.
• You must install a remarketing tag on your website to enable dynamic remarketing.
Learn More: Master the Art of Dynamic Remarketing

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Challenges in Google Smart Campaigns
So far, so good, right?
Well, it’s not all plain sailing. Here are a few pitfalls to be mindful of when you’re using Google Smart
Campaigns:
• Smart Search Campaigns
• Smart Display Campaign
• Smart Shopping Campaign

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Smart Search Campaigns
• You can’t use remarketing with a smart search campaign.
• You can’t edit match types manually. This may change in the future, but for now, it is handled and
applied automatically by Google Ads as needed.
• You can’t employ a negative keywords list for your search phrases.
• You can’t define your custom audience based on interests for your smart campaign.
• You can set your maximum budget, but you won’t know which automated bid strategy Google will
apply during ad rank.
• If you want to duplicate campaigns and settings, it will start a fresh new account, so there’s no
guarantee it will replicate the same results to date.

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Smart Display Campaign
• Due to its black-box nature, advertisers can’t choose the targeting settings. This may result in your ads
being shown to irrelevant users.
• Similarly, you can’t get insights into the performance data of your creative assets, so you won’t know
which images or ad copy elements are performing well.
• You can’t use negative keywords lists.
• You can’t use settings like the delivery method or device targeting.
• You can’t manually target your audience based on interest.
• If you don’t use placement exclusion, you might get poor ad placement in Google search engine
results pages (SERPs).

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Smart Shopping Campaign
• You can’t use negative keywords lists.
• You can’t use device targeting.
• You can’t use bid adjustments.
• You can’t use custom location targeting. You can set the country, but it’s not possible to narrow your
focus to a specific region.
• You can’t schedule your smart shopping campaigns according to your needs.
Learn More: Your Go-To Tips and Strategies for Google Shopping Campaigns

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5 Reasons Why Your Smart Campaign Is Not Working
Sometimes, your Google Smart Campaigns may not work correctly. In this scenario, several possible
problems could be to blame.
Not Enough Data
Google Smart Campaigns need at least 100 conversions on the Search network or 50 on the Display
network. If you don’t provide Google with enough data, your campaigns won’t stand much chance.

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5 Reasons Why Your Smart Campaign Is Not Working
Inactive Remarketing Tags
If your remarketing tags are inactive on your websites, Google Ads can’t collect the data it needs to feed
your smart campaigns.
Conversion Tracking
You must enable conversion tracking to gather enough data. If it’s not enabled, your conversion-based
bidding strategies won’t work.
Smart Campaigns.

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5 Reasons Why Your Smart Campaign Is Not Working
Budget
Make sure you have enough budget to run your campaign. Set your daily amount and check in regularly
to ensure it isn’t running low.
Business Category
If your business category is not trending as high as current market trends and search behaviors, then it’s
possible that Google is struggling to find relevant search terms for your Google Smart Campaigns.

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6 Common Questions About Google Smart Campaigns
By now, you’re probably interested in trying out Google Smart Campaigns. However, you’re sure to have a
few concerns or queries. Here are some common questions about Google Smart Campaigns (and the
answers you need!)
1. If you execute a Smart Shopping campaign and a standard shopping campaign at the same
time, will the Smart campaign take priority?
If you run several campaigns for the same products (or groups of products), then the Smart Shopping
campaigns will always take priority over standard Shopping campaigns or Display campaigns.
So, if you advertise a black leather jacket in a standard campaign and a smart campaign, the ads in the
smart campaign will get shown first. You should pause the other campaigns to save your budget and to
let the smart campaign have a better chance of maximizing its reach.

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6 Common Questions About Google Smart Campaigns
2. Now that Google Smart Campaigns exist, do I need to bother with regular campaigns?
Google Smart Campaigns can save you a lot of time and money. Better yet, they drive better results
thanks to the AI and automation that guides your creative, bidding, and targeting.
Studies suggest that PPC advertisers who use Smart campaigns on the Display network generate a 20%
increase in conversion rates.

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6 Common Questions About Google Smart Campaigns
3. What is the CPA limit for Smart Display Campaigns?
With Google Smart Display Campaigns, you can set your Target CPA at $200 or less. Anything higher will
trigger a warning message, and you will incur charges for the higher CPA amount.
Ideally, you should look to reduce your Target CPA to less than $200 to optimize your budget.

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6 Common Questions About Google Smart Campaigns
4. Should you go with Maximize Clicks or Manual CPC when you’re starting with Standard
Shopping campaigns?
If you don’t have a lot of data, try starting with the Maximize Clicks setting. Over time, as you gather
more data, you can shift to Manual CPC (cost per click). When you don’t have the data or PPC experience,
it’s hard to predict the max CPC rate, so aiming for more clicks is a wise move in the beginning.

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6 Common Questions About Google Smart Campaigns
5. When increasing your budget on a smart campaign, what is a good % increase that won’t ruin
the campaign?
You should make small incremental increases of about 10-25%. So, for example, if your maximum daily
budget is $40, you could increase it to $50 to discover more keyword opportunities or reach a wider
audience. Just keep an eye on it over time to gauge performance.

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6 Common Questions About Google Smart Campaigns
6. What if you aren’t hitting your conversion targets in a Smart Google Shopping campaign?
If you aren’t hitting your projected targets for conversion rates, try experimenting with different bidding
strategies. When you have products with similar profit margins, you can run the Target ROAS (Return on
Ad Spend) setting. However, if your products demand different targets for ROAS, it may be best to create
separate campaigns for each product.

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6 Problems advertisers should know about Google Ads Smart
Campaigns
Google’s Smart Campaigns isn’t a new tool.
This addition to Google Ads has been around for a while now, helping users
make the most out of their Google Ad campaigns and business strategy.
There are big benefits to using Smart Campaigns. You can use this savvy
tool to advertise your website on Google, write a personalized
advertisement or help your ad appear at the top of Google searches.
However, there are a few drawbacks of Smart Campaigns that may restrict
advertisers from using this tool effectively.

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6 Problems advertisers should know about Google Ads Smart
Campaigns
As an advertiser yourself, whether or not you should integrate Smart Campaigns into your strategy can be
a crucial decision for your overall success. Despite its perks, there are a number of reasons why
marketers may not want to take it on.
This has become clear from the fact that only a limited subset of Google Ad users have opted to use it.
Is there something fishy going on? What are the Smart Campaign issues you need to know about it?
Let’s find out.

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6 Smart Campaigns Shortcomings
What are some of these potential drawbacks of Smart Campaigns?
From afar, the tool seems helpful enough for advertisers. It’s a smart platform, offering helpful abilities to
highlight your selling points and attract customers.
However, upon further inspection, we may begin to see the tool for what it really is.

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6 Smart Campaigns Shortcomings
1. Conflict of Interests
This may be a top concern for many advertisers.
Google Ads are provided by Google to help run your advertisements as needed, however, Smart
Campaigns leave all the control up to Google.
While Google operates everything, it begs the questions: is Google giving themselves more of a leg-up in
the process than your business?
For example, Google may make you spend more of your budget compared to what your manual
campaign may require, however in return, this could result in fewer conversions.

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6 Smart Campaigns Shortcomings
2. Restrictions are Included
A certain amount of data is required to run machine learning algorithms properly. Since Google Ads
Smart Campaigns rely on AI and machine learning, it may take a while to get your campaign to the level
where you can actually choose this option.
In fact, Google suggests users have at least 50 conversions on the display network and 100 conversions
from search ads in the past 30 days in order to be eligible for the Smart Campaign tool.
So, if advertisers optimize their campaigns for 100 conversions, then why would they need Smart
Campaigns anyways?

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6 Smart Campaigns Shortcomings
3. The Level of Risk Involved
While technology continues to evolve, automaton should be expected to provide perfect results every
time. This is especially true when you’re in the first stage of the PPC life cycle.
By leaving campaigns up to Google, you run the risk of losing the ability to tweak aspects of the campaign
that may have given you a competitive edge.
Leaving the work up to automation means needing to sacrifice some control over your campaigns. While
automation may be the reason why you’re drawn to Smart Campaigns in the first place, taking a closer
look at what that change means may sway your decision.

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6 Smart Campaigns Shortcomings
4. Smart Targeting has the Potential to be Wasteful
You’ll learn that Smart Display requires a combination of all targeting methods within regular display
campaigns.
Some of the targeting smart display uses are:
• Similar Audiences
• Remarketing
• Topics
• Keywords

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6 Smart Campaigns Shortcomings
• Placements
• Demographic
• Interest categories
The campaign targets and tests all these uses to discover which singular use or combination works best
for offer conversions at the campaign’s set CPA target.
If Google finds that one of these targeting methods are performing poorly, it will actually switch focus to
other more effective methods. This targeting trial may lead to a waste of your budget.

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6 Smart Campaigns Shortcomings
5. You May Need to Set a High CPA Target to Rank
If your Display campaign isn’t performing the way you had intended, it may be because of problems with
your bidding, ads, targeting, remarketing, conversion tracking or campaign settings.
One of the ways to fix this issue is by setting a higher CPA target in order to see your ad in the ranking
position you were expecting. However, this change involves bidding more money on the advertisement,
and therefore affecting your overall budget once again.

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6 Smart Campaigns Shortcomings
6. Technology May Still Need to Mature
While automation is an exciting movement towards the future of technology, other facets of Smart
Campaigns’ technology may need more work.
Simple tasks such as placement exclusions still need attention in order for this Google tool to be fully
functioning and effective for all advertisers. While this may be simply a lack of focus in specific areas, it
could also simply mean the technology needs a bit more time to fully mature.

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Now You Know About the Drawbacks of Smart Campaigns
Google is the master of control. While this comes in handy sometimes, it also presents the possibility of
the giant disabling the opt-out option for users in order to obtain maximum control.
For this reason and more, you need to come prepared with a tool that provides insight on what Google is
doing to your Google Ads account, and whether it’s fulfilling its claim on providing you with a highly-
optimized, effective campaign.
PPCexpo’s extensive library of reports allows you to run any report according to your specific needs,
enabling you to receive a detailed analysis on the outcome.
Having a reliable reporting tool at hand is an absolute must for advertisers. With these changes in
motion, keeping an eye on everything will keep you in charge and ahead of the game.

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Wrap Up
Google Smart Campaigns are a powerful tool in the PPC manager’s toolkit. When used carefully, they can
save time, money, and a lot of frustration. They do require a lot of data, and a keen eye to monitor their
performance. Still, Smart Campaigns offer a lot of promising opportunities, making them worth a try, no
matter how much experience you have in PPC advertising.

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