12 min read
What is a Smart Campaign in Google Ads?
The digital marketing world continues to grow, and one way to keep up with the changing times is to get acquainted with how the pay per click works. As a business owner, you seek to employ strategies that work for you to enjoy maximum benefit. One of these ways is to apply the Smart campaigns. The smart campaigns also have Google Ads.
Running a campaign will require you to invest a lot of time as there is a need to master many things. For instance, you have to learn how to bid and what times are best for bidding, geo-targeting, targeting, keywords, custom audiences, and ad extensions.
When running a business and especially the small companies where you have to do most of the work by yourself, it may be hard to find time to learn all these things. Also, it might prove expensive to hire a PPC agency.
With Google Ads Smart campaigns, the process is automated and straightforward. Smart campaigns in Google Ads allow the business to increase sales by leveraging ads on Google properties. The intelligent campaigns’ simplicity enables a user with limited time and experience in pay per click advertising to navigate with much ease.
Features in Google Ads Smart Campaign
Now that you have an answer to the question what is a smart campaign in google ads, let’s look at some of the features of Smart campaigns.
a. Campaign Overview
This feature is the first place you will land when you log into your Google Smart campaigns. It allows you to get a performance review at a glance. You can get meaningful data such as the performance by devices, keywords phrases, remarketing reach, and modem. The feature allows you to make changes to your ad groups and campaigns. Here is an example of a campaign overview:
(Image Credit: AdEspresso)
b. Critical Account Alerts
The tool displays notifications about your account. If Google is having problems with your ad’s delivery, the alerts will be displayed. The latest news of upcoming features or updates is usually announced here. Information about your billing and related issues is shown here.
c. Reported Calls
This feature only appears after your campaign has received some interactions through calls or clicks. Usually, Google assigns your account a Google forwarding number (GFN). The GFN number is usually displayed on your ad instead of your real phone number.
Therefore, whenever a prospective buyer dials that number, he or she is forwarded to you. When you receive the call, you will hear “Google Ads customer call” so that you can know the type of customers attracted by your campaign.
d. Map Actions
This smart campaign google ads tool helps you trace the number of times people took action to visit your business profile after watching your ad. Although the most common metric people are interested in is the number of visitors to the pin location of your business’s physical address, there are other statistics. You may see reports on who viewed your opening hours, photos, and reviews.
e. Tracking
The feature uses the Google Analytics platform to help you in monitoring your website. These metrics are useful since it may be possible that your ad is generating leads, but the landing pages have issues. Tracking allows you to optimize your website so that you can realize the goals of your campaign. For example:
(Image Credit: AdEspresso)
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f. Ad Scheduling
This process is an integral part of Google Ads. It allows you to choose and set the days and times that your ad should run. Scheduling helps you be more efficient and target your audience when you think they may be online.
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Benefits of Smart Campaigns
There are several benefits of using the smart ads in your campaign. Some of these benefits include the following:
i. Easy to Set Up
Creating a smart campaign Google advertisement takes less than twenty minutes. You only require to have a Google My Business account, and you get started. Whether you are a beginner or a veteran in marketing, you only need to follow straightforward instructions.
ii. No Prior Knowledge Required
You do not need to know a smart campaign in Google or have prior experience getting started with intelligent campaign Google Ads. There is no learning curve to have your first campaign up and running in the next half an hour.
iii. See Real-time Results
You can monitor the performance of your campaign as it happens. The dashboard allows you to view all metrics important in measuring the performance of your campaign. Also, Google will enable you to make immediate changes to your campaign based on the insights derived. You may decide to adjust the budget or schedules for your ads after noticing the number of conversions at specific times. The image below shows an example of some real time results:
(Image Credit: Search Engine Watch)
iv. Generate More Customers
Your Google Ads Smart campaign is displayed on Google Maps, YouTube, Google search and other Google partners. With such visibility, you can quickly attract many prospective customers to your website or Google Map listing.
v. No Keyword Research
Nothing is more daunting for marketers than finding the right keywords for their campaigns. Google Ads Smart campaign uses modern machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to determine which keywords are most profitable for your campaign based on your keyword theme.
vi. Free to Set Up
You do not need a prepaid subscription to use the feature. You only need the right Google accounts to explore and even place your ad with Google Ads. Google will only charge you when someone clicks on your ad.
vii. Smart Bidding
With smart campaigns, your ads can’t compete against each other. Google selects keywords for you so that your campaigns do not target the same audience leading to waste of resources and redundancy. Also, Google ensures that all active ads are served and recommendations on how personal ads can perform best.
viii. Broad Audience Reach
Smart campaign Adwords reach a large audience. This reach is attributed to your ads’ display on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices.
ix. Hands-Free Management
Google takes care of most of your ad’s management issues so that you can embark on other aspects of operating your business.
How Google Ads Smart Campaigns Work
Read along to understand how Google smart Ads work. Once you have logged in to your account, you need to select a business category and create an ad. Write a description of your ad and choose the keyword themes you would like to target. This is the campaign type you need to select:
The next step is to select a budget for your ad and launch your campaign. Once your campaign is active, ensure that you closely monitor its performance. This action helps you to adjust your budget according to the results of your campaign.
It is important to note that the algorithm behind smart campaigns uses data to target your ad’s right audience. For better performance, every marketer has to fulfill the following threshold.
- Have a display network with at least 50 conversions in the past thirty days.
- Have a search network with over a hundred conversions.
- The cost per acquisition (CPA) should be sufficient for tracking conversions in Google Analytics.
Common Causes for Disapproving Your Ads
Google may decide to reject your ad because of several reasons that include the following.
- Irrelevant Information – Your ad must have information that is clear and represents your business. You cannot promote products that are not in line with your business.
- Media Quality – The image used must be upright and fit in the space provided. Unclear text, blurry or unrecognizable photos with strobing and distracting quality are unacceptable. Google will reject videos with illegible text, unrecognized visuals, and low sound quality.
- Misleading Content – Information that is not accurate lacking supporting evidence, and is likely to deceive the masses is forbidden.
- Adult Content – All ads must be free and void of adult-oriented content.
- Trademark – As a response to the owners’ complaints on trademark, Google may decide to remove an ad or its extension.
How to Setup and Run Google Smart Campaigns
a. Create a Google Ads Account
If you are new to Google AdWords, the first step in setting up your campaign is to make sure you have a Google My Business (GMB) account. GMB is a business listing for a business that assists Google in populating search results based on user queries.
To own a GMB account, you need to have a Google account popularly called a Gmail account. However, it is essential to note that Gmail is only one feature of a Google account. Other features include Drive, News, Meet, Calendar, Maps, YouTube, Play Store, Photos, Docs, Translate, Classroom, and many more. The image below shows where to go when looking for the different Google apps:
You then need to visit Google Ads, formerly called Google AdWords. Create an account and ensure that you use the same details as those in GMB. The reason is that Google uses the information for credibility purposes and to ensure consistency while accessing their services. It is also crucial to note that images, websites, and geolocation details used in GMB will help in the smart campaign AdWords.
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b. Add a New Campaign
After you have created an account or signed in to a pre-existing account, you will be prompted to add a new campaign. You may also find it worthwhile to select the mode in which you get your customers.
c. Select the Goals of Your Campaign
Google allows you to choose the goals that you want for your campaign. Google provides guidelines that you may select from but gives you the liberty to input your plan. There are six predetermined goals that you can choose. These are sales, leads, website traffic, brand awareness and reach product and brand consideration, and finally, app promotion. For instance:
d. Choose the business you want to Promote
After you have made a selection of the goals, you want to achieve. The next step is to choose the business you want to promote. Your GMB listing will occur at the top; however, you may choose to enter a URL if you’re going to promote a specific business with a completely different website from yours.
e. Setting Your Campaign
Here you need to provide your campaign’s technicalities from the name, location, and products to budget. When selecting the location, Google allows you to input a radius of where you want your campaign served. You may also input zip codes, city names for additional precision.
Narrow down the reach of your campaign by selecting the product or Services you are offering. Select the language you want to advertise in, the business category, and the specific commodity you are promoting.
f. Create Your Ad Group
Suppose you are selling multiple products. You may need to create advertising groups for the various types or particular groups for the most important ones. Such groupings help you during the analysis of each campaign.
g. Create the Ads
Click on the new ad and choose the responsive display to input Ad Asset details. The ad asset allows you to enter headlines and descriptions of the ad. You need to provide precise details of the products you offer and what makes your business unique. For example:
(Image Credit: Marketing Land)
Use appropriate keywords when filling out the data. Upload the right media files for your campaign.
h. The Automated Bid Strategy
The strategy allows Google to use data on your previous ads and conversion details to place bids on keywords with a high likelihood of clicks and conversions.
You can either choose conversions or conversion values. The former places bids based on the cost per acquisition and allows you to select pay per click, modification, or impressions. The latter will place bids depending on the return on ad spend (ROAS), which means you pay by the number of clicks.
i. Budget, Review, and Launch
Determine the amount you are willing to spend per day for the campaign and its lifetime. By default, Google provides you with predetermined budgets along with the estimated number of reach and conversions.
After choosing your budget, you have an opportunity to review the ad before launch. Verify you have input all the correct details, including your phone number. In the event of any errors, click on edit to make necessary changes. Otherwise, if everything is okay, all you need to do is to launch your campaign.
j. Monitoring Your Campaign
The success or failure of a campaign is pegged on its relevance. With Google, things change so rapidly, and thus the need to keep monitoring your smart campaign AdWords’ performance.
Smart campaign Google analytics helps you to see how particular phrases are relevant to your business. Use the on and off toggle for each keyword to see the number of conversions generated. Maintain those words that are performing well and turn off those that are underperforming for better results.
Campaigns that perform exceptionally may require an additional budget for even better conversions.
How to Optimize Your Smart Campaign
a. Select the Right Keywords
Keywords help search engine bots to rank and show your content. However, it is wise to understand that numerous and unrelated keywords may be expensive and irrelevant. Whenever you select keywords, be sure to be precise, accurate, and relevant to your business.
Suppose you are operating a shop in Houston, TX that sells male suits from Italy. Selecting “Italian wears” as a keyword may be reasonably irrelevant to your business. Some of the appropriate keywords in this instance would be “Trendy Italian Mens Suits,” “Italian Male Suits in Houston TX,” and “Italian Designer Suits in Houston TX.”
b. Increase your Budget
Whenever your bid budget is too small, it limits the number of prospective buyers who will see your ad. A reasonable budget plays a crucial role in ranking on Google Ads and SEO.
Your budget will be dependent on the location, business type, and click volume. Research to find out the average fund in your niche based on those parameters. Having a competitive budget allows your campaign to match other competing ads.
You may also want to consider increasing the budget since your funds may have been depleted. Whether you use $500 or $50000 for your ads, Google will use it all. Having regular checks helps in monitoring the daily consumption of your funds. Ensure that it is not running low.When setting or editing your budget it will look like this:
(Image Credit: Severin Web Design)
c. Consider the Business Category
It may be possible for Google to strain to check for relevant search terminology that matches your smart campaign. Change your business category to match current market trends.
d. Consider the Quality of your Ad
Your campaign should provide details about your products and services in many pieces. In our previous case example, instead of just saying you sell suits, provide reasons why customers should consider you over the rest. Let customers know if you offer suit rentals or only purchases, pricing, promotions, and customer experience.
Highlight your selling points. Are the suits best for weddings, proms, events, or business wears?
e. Ensure Campaigns Match with Your Website
The products and the details of the promotions should be in sync with your website. If customers land on your website only to realize different elements, they may leave.
f. Consider the Landing Page
Having a creative ad with lots of click throughs is excellent, but a low landing page will cost you much. Optimize the landing page by checking the quality of images used, ease of navigations, reasonable amounts of pop-ups, loading time, the responsiveness on mobile devices, availability of customer support, and updated content.
g. Be Professional
Use high-quality photos and videos. Check on spelling mistakes, punctuations, and grammar issues. Use the right tone and give a headline and description of your campaign. Check on the texts’ readability on your ad and website by using the right font, spacing, and color.
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Choosing to start a new ad campaign can be a frightening and expensive process, especially if you fully understand it all. However, partnering with Diib Digital can provide you with an added measure of security that you’re getting the job done right. Or, it can alert you to possible weaknesses in your strategy. Here are a few of the features of our User Dashboard that will help:
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FAQ’s
The purpose of a smart campaign in Google ads is to help you pinpoint and utilize the selling points of your business. This means using those selling points in advertisements. Google ads allow you to create one smart campaign or multiple.
Google’s smart campaigns are very effective. They are designed to link with your Google My Business account and to showcase the best parts of your business. Some way that they are three times more effective than other Google campaigns.
The main difference between a smart campaign and a search campaign is this, a search campaign allows you to be in control of the whole campaign. With your search campaign you are in charge of every aspect of your campaign. The smart campaign however, allows you to create an ad, set a category and budget and that is it.
Here are a few ways to optimize your smart campaigns:
- Create effective and creative advertisements.
- Select the best keyword theme for your campaign. You probably won’t get to change it.
- Constantly review your budget and make changes if necessary.
- Be sure your location settings are correct.
- Always make your website experience a great one.
Google’s smart ads are a very effective way to target the advertisers target audience. However, the advertiser doesn’t actually need to do any targeting of their own because the smart ad will do it automatically. The only thing the advertiser needs to do is fill out a few categories and create a compelling ad.
See how to easily grow your traffic!
Robert says:
Awesome writeup Daniel,
“Smart Campaigns” is still a great ad product for “small businesses” with small budgets that lack technical knowledge. It has a much simpler interface than regular campaigns. I love the way you provide info in this article and audience who will come to read or finding such information may also like it.
Tim Tim says:
great post I help for optimised google ad thanks for sharing this information
kya says:
After reading this blog I’m impressed by its thorough coverage of Google Ads Smart Campaigns. The guide is well-structured, making it accessible for beginners, yet detailed enough for seasoned marketers. The practical tips for optimizing campaigns, like choosing the right keywords and managing the budget, are invaluable for anyone looking to enhance their digital marketing strategy.
wordle unlimited says:
What’s new? I can see
tiny fishing says:
The hands-on advice for improving campaigns, such as selecting appropriate keywords and effectively managing the budget, is extremely helpful for individuals seeking to elevate their digital marketing approach.
gptsfocus says:
What’s new? I can see
nytwordlehints says:
The way you presented complex information so simply is remarkable.
half body sexdoll says:
The practical advice on enhancing campaigns, including choosing the right keywords and managing the budget effectively, is invaluable for individuals looking to advance their digital marketing strategies.