Google Ads: How to use smart bidding to improve conversions?

2025-02-12 Publish

Artificial intelligence is becoming an integral part of advertising bidding strategies. The biggest difference between smart bidding and manual bidding is that "machine learning" fully optimizes bidding information, and most importantly - there is no threshold for use, and it has an advantage that traditional manual bidding cannot achieve - precise algorithms, which bring steady growth in conversions and conversion value. Smart bidding is indispensable for achieving the best practices of Google advertising. Today, we will take you to understand "smart bidding" in all aspects, aiming to help B2B companies find a solution to precision marketing in the era of big data.

Why use Smart Bidding

With such a huge data scale, it is not only unreasonable but also time-consuming to bid manually every time. Smart bidding solves this problem by making timely bidding adjustments for the right users at the right time, helping us capture the most potential users.

In addition, smart bidding is suitable for a variety of businesses and there is no restriction on the size of the business. Even accounts without any conversion data can use smart bidding to improve advertising effectiveness.

Advantages of Google Ads Smart Bidding

The “superiority” of Smart Bidding is that for each auction, the bid is adjusted based on the unique combination of signals of each user.

Google Ads Smart Bidding Types

Tips

Smart Bidding is easy to use

Basic settings for smart bidding

To use Smart Bidding, your ad account must first have Conversion Tracking installed (it is recommended to install Conversion Tracking even if you don’t use Smart Bidding).

If you track your own conversion data, pay attention to the conversion value, have your own clear target return on ad spend (ROAS), and aim to improve overall profitability, you can use the "Target ROAS" bidding strategy (note that this bidding strategy requires your campaign to have 15 conversion data per month. If the basic data volume is not reached, the system will not be able to start machine learning). If you cannot set tROAS, you can use the "Maximize Conversion Value" bidding strategy instead.

If you only care about the number of conversions, have no clear goal for the conversion value, and have precise control over the cost of a single conversion, you can use the "Target CPA" bidding strategy. If you cannot set a specific cost target, you can use the "Maximize conversions" bidding strategy, and the system will automatically help you determine the cost expenditure.

Smart Bidding Application

In the actual advertising process, the situation is more complicated. In addition to meeting the rigid requirements of smart bidding, it is also necessary to pay attention to business details and consider advertising strategies in combination with specific business goals. For example:

Different marketing goals correspond to different bidding strategies. If you are just starting to run Google ads and need more exposure for your products and want to increase website clicks, you can use the "target impression share" and "try to get as many clicks as possible" strategies, but they do not belong to the category of smart bidding and are only suitable for accounts that are just starting out. As advertising time accumulates and the business matures, advertisers' focus will shift from focusing on traffic to focusing on conversions, emphasizing the number of conversions and the value of conversions. When advertisers shift from conversion quantity goals to conversion value goals, smart bidding strategies can increase conversion value by an average of 15%, which is a significant contribution to profit margins.

If your smart bidding results are not satisfactory, you can eliminate the reasons from the following 6 aspects: