If you’ve been running Google Ads for your business, you’ve likely seen different options for the types of campaigns you can run. Marketers often choose Search or Display campaigns to try and meet people searching for related services. However, additional campaign types can help you reach your goals and better utilize your budget. The primary kind of campaign we’ll be focusing on is Smart campaigns.
What Is a Google Smart Campaign?
A Google Smart campaign differs from your typical Search or Display campaign because of the automated learning done by the Smart campaign. When running a Smart campaign, Google’s AI handles the biddings and management work for you. This means that Google will decide which search terms, locations, and geographies are the best depending on the criteria provided during their initial setup.
What Is The Benefit of a Smart Campaign?
One benefit of using a Smart campaign is that you don’t need to commit hours of optimizing and management to ensure your campaign is running correctly. Because of the automated bidding process, an ads manager only needs to set up the daily or monthly budget, select relevant keyword themes, write a few lines of ad copy, and pick relevant geography. All of these elements are prompted in the set setup of the campaign.
Once all the necessary information is added to the campaign, you can relax and allow Google to self-optimize, displaying your ads anywhere it thinks will result in an incoming lead.
Another benefit of using Smart campaigns is their ability to show up anywhere. Different from Search or Display ads that show only on the Search or Display networks, the Smart campaign will show your ad on both. This means that Google can choose which locations to show your advertisement. You could have an ad shown in Google Search, relevant partner sites such as display ads, YouTube banners, or even Gmail promotions. By allowing Google to choose the best places to advertise, you’ll be able to reach more people who are interested in what your business has to offer.
How To Set Up a Smart Campaign
Setting up a Smart campaign is almost the same process as a Search campaign, taking about 10-15 minutes to set up and enable. You’ll click the blue plus sign on your regular Google Ads dashboard and select “New Campaign.” Once here, you’ll select “Smart” under the choices for Ad Type. Once you’ve chosen the Smart campaign setup, you’ll be prompted to fill out all relevant information for your campaign, including:
- Your website URL
- Locations you want to advertise in
- Keyword themes that align with your offering
- Monthly budget
- Ad copy and headlines
- Ad schedule
Once all this information has been entered into the campaign setup, you’ll connect your website conversion actions via Google Analytics and be ready to start showing your ads to relevant users.
The Takeaway
The primary takeaway is that using Smart campaigns in your Google Ads efforts is an excellent way to get great results without much management work. Once you’ve filled out the prompted information for keywords, ad copy, and budget, you’ll be ready to run your ads. Google will handle almost all of the optimization themselves and find you more qualified leads without staying on top of daily management practices. If you’re looking for an easy entry into the world of Google Advertising, Smart campaigns are a great place to start.