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SMART Campaigns are the ideal automated campaign approach for small businesses but work well for mid-sized to large businesses. When you set up your campaign, you must select business goals and a location for your advertising. These automated campaigns leverage machine learning technology to help you reach those goals. It uses indicators such as behavior, demographics, and devices to place ads in front of your desired audience.

Let’s say you are a local vendor who only sells handmade products in a physical store, Smart Campaigns can help you advertise locally by displaying ads to your target audience while they are searching for similar products. These ads will direct them to your location.

They are as effective for local ventures as they are for eCommerce stores who have a large amount of inventory they want to advertise for.

Perhaps you are an eCommerce store that sells hundreds of fabrics. Managing bids for 500+ different products on an individual product level isn’t workable for anyone. Google’s technology will help you review data points faster and manage them with more ease than standard campaigns.

It’s because of these complex, helpful features that the campaign set up has several requirements before you can run them. Requirements such as conversion tracking and remarketing lists work together to reveal useful data as the campaign runs. It will take time to learn the ropes, but in the end, it will help you reach your final goal in a more efficient way compared to regular campaigns.

In the example below, you’ll note the difference between the two campaigns. One is a smart campaign, and the other is a regular shopping campaign. You will see the jump in conversions and the drop in cost. The conversion value skyrockets compared to the original campaign!

Read on to learn more about smart campaigns types, features, and requirements that will grant you access to these smarter, more efficient strategy for your business.

Smart Campaigns Subtypes

SMART Shopping

Using machine learning technology, Smart Shopping campaigns will focus on finding customers who are more likely to convert across Google’s sites and networks such as Google Search Network, Display Network, YouTube, and Gmail.

Shopping campaigns feature:

• Product Shopping Ads: These are the ads that allow you to include your basic product information within the ad (an image, title, price, and business information).
• Local Inventory Ads: These are like the one we mentioned in the example above. When a user is conducting a search, Google will showcase your product and store details on a Google-hosted “storefront” page that will provide them with all pertinent information and direct them to your venue.
• Display Ads: Display ads feature ads to interested users throughout the network.

When users search for products similar to yours, Google will determine which product is most relevant from your feed. Remember those Google requirements you must set up before activating your account? Here are two important requirements:

Conversion Tracking is a feature that will help track consumer actions on your website. Google will provide you with a code also known as a “tag” that you will help you track when your ad leads to sales. You will need an “active” tracking tag to set up a Smart Shopping campaign. You’ll need at least 20 conversions over the last 45 days across existing Shopping campaigns.

Besides conversion tracking, you will need to add a global site tag to your website and have a remarketing list. This is a list of website visitors or app users collected by the code added to your site or app. There should be at least 100 active users associated with your account to proceed.

SMART Display

Similar to shopping campaigns, they leverage data from millions of apps and sites to connect your ads with potential customers. However, Smart Display campaigns focus not only on the right timing but also, on the right communication. Once users have jumped off the site and moved on, display ads appear on other platforms to remind them of their interest in your product. Neat, huh?

Some features that optimize your campaign are:

• Automated bidding: These campaigns will set your bids according to the probability of conversions. It will seek to give you the best value for the ad you run.
• Automated targeting: Your ads will leverage insights for placements that will get you the most business.
• Automated ad creation: This creates ads from the creative assets you include such as headlines, descriptions, logos, and images.

Display ads have their own indications and requirements. Here are a few:

• Display ads are ideal for anyone looking to attract customers beyond their manually targeted campaigns.
• A little steeper than shopping, Smart Display campaigns require 50 conversions on the Display Network or 100 conversions on the Search Network in the last 30 days.  
• This is ideal for anyone who wants to invest in remarketing but would like to reach people earlier in their search/buying process.

Monitor the Automation

Designed to optimize themselves, these campaigns require constant monitoring. Your campaigns goals represent the action you want your potential customers to take after they see your ad. So, a regular follow-up of data and insights will change your goals.

The adjustments you make will pave the road to better results and greater ROI. The more data you gain, the more strategic your campaign can become. Tweaking your goals can have a significant impact on performance. Also, it can be done on both an ad group and campaign level.

Conclusion

Smart campaigns are a feature that can set your business on a path to success. Adding this service to your marketing strategy can help businesses display a boatload of products with ease and efficiency. Over time, you can gather the insights to polish your strategies and increase ROI. To learn more about Smart Campaigns and how you can improve your marketing strategies, contact White Shark Media today.