With Google Ads changing all the time, it’s important to keep a lookout for the newest updates and features that are being added. Soon, two important features for smart bidding strategies will be released – seasonality bid adjustments & setting conversions at a campaign level.
What is Google Smart Bidding?
Smart bidding is a subset of automated bidding strategies that use machine learning to optimize for conversions or conversion value in each and every auction. Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions, and Enhanced CPC (ECPC) are all Smart Bidding strategies.
Improve Your Smart Bidding Performance with Seasonality Bid Adjustments.
Automated smart bidding strategies have been taking over Google Ads daily management for the past couple years, generating increased performance as Google’s machine learning technology gets smarter. Currently, smart bidding strategies already aim to increase your return on investment during seasonality spikes, although we have no control over it. Soon, Google will release a feature allowing advertisers to fine-tune seasonality bid adjustments based on your own promotional calendar.
Let’s say you’re running a promotion for sweatshirts as people are getting ready for winter. Based on past promotions, you predict seeing a 25% increase in conversion rates during your sales. With seasonality bid adjustments, smart bidding will expect and prepare for this conversion rate increase, resulting in higher performance. Keep in mind, the new seasonality bid adjustments can only be used while using any of the automated smart bidding strategies.
Set Conversions at a Campaign Level.
This can be a very important and overlooked addition to Google Ads. You’ll be able to set conversion goals for each campaign rather than having a conversion goal for the entire account. For example, you may have a campaign where a purchase is the desired conversion action while another campaign has a “contact us” desired conversion action.
With this new campaign setting, you’ll be able to categorize specific campaigns with specific conversion actions, furthering the effectiveness of your advertising goals in Google Ads. This feature is crucial for advertisers dealing with multiple conversion goals while using smart bidding strategies. Additionally, you’ll be able to group conversion actions into conversion action sets and apply those at the campaign level.
Although manual bidding is still available, Google has been really pushing smart bidding strategies and automated management in Google Ads over the past couple years. According to Google, 70% of advertisers are now using automated bidding. While there are currently many different bidding strategies, it’s important to test the bid strategies that are closely related to your advertising goals, since each one of them perform differently.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to take your PPC campaigns to the next level, contact us today.