Pay-per-click advertising is one of the most powerful tactics in digital marketing, but it can also be complex and time-consuming. Using this marketing strategy gives you the opportunity to be noticed by a wider audience online. When PPC is working efficiently, the amount of money you invest in clicks is worth it, because a visit to a landing page is worth more than you pay for it.
All too often, marketers have a hard time maximizing the potential of PPC. Because of the learning curve involved in PPC, many marketers end up not being as successful as they could be using this strategy. To succeed in PPC, there’s a lot to learn such as targeting, keywords, negative keywords, geo-targeting and more, and you have to determine when to bid and when not to bid. It may feel like a full-time job trying to run a PPC campaign.
A Simple User Experience
Google Ads Smart Campaigns are designed to simplify things for marketers, particularly small businesses that may not have a dedicated marketing staff. It’s a smart way for busy marketers to become more effective using PPC. This approach is much easier to navigate, particularly if you have limited time or experience in working with PPC. Whether you’re brand new to the world of Google Ads or an experienced marketer, you can benefit from the smart features in Google Ads.
Smart campaigns have a simple user interface, allowing you to see everything you need at a glance. In the dashboard, you can see a preview of your ad along with the goal of the campaign, impressions, clicks and amount spent. At the bottom of the page is the information needed for location targeting and to control your budget. You don’t have to manage a large number of reports, tools or bidding modifications.
Smart Display Campaigns
Smart display campaigns in Google Ads allow marketers to target ads in a way that’s most likely to lead to conversions without requiring set targeting. These campaigns use the power of machine learning to automatically connect your business to targeted prospects and set the right bids to reach your performance goals.
Smart campaigns are easy to launch, and everything you need to know is easily accessible. This allows you to create targeted ads and connect with relevant customers in minutes. This platform can help you optimize your performance based on the action you specify.
Image Picker
Fresh images can go a long way toward helping prospects get a feel for what products and services your business offers, and they can help your brand stand out. The Image Picker tool within Smart Campaigns suggests images to a business and creates ads using existing ad copy.
This feature can help marketers focus on decision-making and strategies while Google handles testing which image works best. In other words, using this feature you’re able to A/B test up to three images and Google selects the best performers. For business owners who have limited time to manage their accounts, this feature can be extremely helpful.
Automated Bidding Strategies
Smart Bidding in Google Ads isn’t brand new but it’s continuing to evolve and grow more powerful. It’s an important feature for business owners who don’t have time to oversee every keyword bid and ad variation. It takes the guesswork out of bid setting and it eliminates some tedious tasks.
Machine learning is a data-driven approach and is the key to this helpful tool. It’s a method of leveraging a computer’s power to find patterns in data and make informed decisions based on these patterns. Machine learning can pick out tiny variations in user behavior and increase or decrease bids to meet your specific target. Factors that it can identify include:
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Language
- Day of the week
- Time of day
- Prior website interactions
- Interest and preferences
A variety of automated bidding strategies are available to help you meet whatever goal you have, such as increasing visibility, increasing site visits, getting more conversions with target CPA or meeting a target return on ad spend. The advanced machine learning available in Smart Bidding factors in many more variables that affect performance than an individual or even a team of individuals could compute.
Google Smart Shopping
Machine learning is also used in Google Smart Shopping. For this type of campaign, display remarketing and standard shopping are combined, and a variety of ads are shown across networks. Smart Shopping pulls from your product feed in order to test different combinations of the text and images you provide and shows relevant ads across different Google networks including Google Display Network, Google Search Network, Gmail and YouTube.
Product shopping ads, display ads, and local inventory ads are eligible for Smart Shopping campaigns. Machine learning determines which products to advertise and how much to bid and selects the ad with the highest conversion value.
This system of automated bidding and ad placement reduces the amount of time you spend working on optimizing campaigns. It’s a great tool for marketers with limited time or resources. Add as many products as are applicable to your campaign for the best results. The more products there are to pick from within a campaign, the better the chance of increased performance. It takes about 15 days for the system to maximize the conversion rate.
Getting Expert Guidance in PPC Campaigns
When you use the available smart features in Google Ads, it can add simplicity and improve your ability to be smart with your PPC strategies. If you feel like you need help mastering some of the aspects of PPC, having the guidance of experts in the field of PPC can help you to attain your desired ROI.
The PPC experts at Softline Solutions can help take the stress out of your campaigns and also help you take full advantage of this important digital advertising strategy. Get in touch with us today, and we’ll help you determine the best way to improve results and realize your online potential.
