Google Ads Smart Bidding Uses Machine Learning

If you’ve started running Google Ads campaigns for your business, you may have come across terms like “smart bidding” and “machine learning.” What do these mean?

More importantly, how does Google Ads Smart Bidding use machine learning and your account data in your campaigns?

The short answer is this: Google Ads Smart Bidding uses machine learning, along with your account data, to automagically optimize your campaigns for better results.

For the longer answer, read on.

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What Is Google Ads Smart Bidding, and How Does It Work?

Smart Bidding is a set of automated bid strategies within Google Ads that’s focused on optimizing conversions. Smart Bidding uses machine learning (that’s the automated part) to optimize each and every one of your auctions either for conversions, or conversion value.

Smart Bidding strategies include:

Target CPA bidding, which optimizes your bids to maximize the amount of conversions you get while remaining at or below your target CPA.
Target ROAS bidding, which optimizes for conversion value or revenue at a target ROAS you set.
Maximize conversions bidding, which optimizes your bids to achieve the maximum number of conversions.
Maximize conversion value bidding, which optimizes for the maximum conversion value you can achieve within the budget you set.
Enhanced CPC (ECPC), which optimizes your manual bids for clicks with the goal of increasing your overall conversions, while keeping your average CPC below a maximum you set.

4 Benefits of Google Ads Smart Bidding

Smart Bidding is designed to help you be more efficient with Google Ads campaigns, from both a time and ROI perspective.

1. Smarter bids, thanks to machine learning

When you optimize your own Google Ads campaigns, you’re doing so with the tribal knowledge you and your team have built up — and that’s it.

When you leverage machine learning, you suddenly get to tap into the knowledge of the vast Google Ads database. With Smart Bidding, Google optimizes your campaigns based not only on the performance of your campaigns, but that of all campaigns ever.

2. Real-time automatic adjustments personalized to the user

It’s common to make adjustments to your bids based on certain factors you know generally tend to perform better for you. For example, mobile users may respond more or less to certain types of campaigns at different times of day. You can make some of these adjustments manually (like for device and location).

With Smart Bidding, you can let Google make those adjustments for you on an individual basis, depending on where a user is, and what they were just doing, at the time they saw your ad.

These parameters include:

Device
Physical location
Location intent
Weekday & time of day
Remarketing list
Ad characteristics
Interface language
Browser
Operating system
Demographics (Display only)
Actual search query (Search and Shopping)
Search Network partner (Search only)
Web placement (Display only)
Site behavior (Display only)
Product attributes (Shopping only)
Mobile app ratings (coming soon)
Price competitiveness (Shopping only)
Seasonality (Shopping only)

The list is long, we know! That’s a good thing.

3. Customizable settings you control

Don’t let the machine learning aspect of Smart Bidding fool you. You still have say and control over how your ads work.

You can select from a number of Smart Bidding strategies, and you can optimize according to your desired attribution model — including the data-driven attribution model (which we recommend).

4. Reports that help you iterate and improve

The Smart Bidding reports are just as insightful and useful as the other Google Ads reports you’ve come to know and love. You can use these reports to understand how Smart Bidding is positively impacting your ROI, see the inner workings of the Google Ads machine, and make any tweaks or fixes you want to.

In addition to bid strategy reports, you’ll also have access to features like bid strategy status updates, campaign experiments and simulators, and notifications to alert you whenever a problem comes up (and tips on how to fix it!).