What is Smart Campaigns & How it Works

Google is always up for introducing new things that can help in making the user experience better and better for its users in the future. In the advertisement world, Google is up-to upgrading features frequently too. Since the launch of Google Smart Campaigns, there has been this hype about Google taking over your campaigns to manage your Ads for you by its newly launched feature called Google Smart Campaigns.

So, what exactly is this new edition about?

As per Google, it has brought in “Google Ads experts” to manage your campaigns for you now, which they are naming as Google Smart Campaigns.

Let’s read more on it to know how you can get the best of it.

How it works

You can use Smart campaigns to advertise your website or Google+ page on Google or Google Maps. You will start by writing your own ad, and when someone searches for phrases related to your business, your ad can appear above or below the search results.

You will have to set up your budget first to get started with the Smart Campaigns and based on the type of business you have, Google Ads will come up with a list of search phrases that will trigger your ad and potentially related sites where your ad can appear. Your search phrases will be maintained and updated over time. It requires minimal management so you pay only for those ads that get clicked.

Now let’s get straight to the point,

Being an advertiser, it is one crucial decision for you to whether to integrate smart campaigns into your campaigns or not. For your ease, we have jotted down the benefits and drawbacks of the feature for you, so they can be of help to you in making decisions.

Benefits

• It lets you create an online ad quickly and easy.
• You only get to pay when people click on your ad.
• It lets you attract more customers to your website or Google Maps listing.
• Minimal ongoing management is necessary. Google Ads runs your ads for you.
• It allows you to reach your desktop computers and mobile device using customers.
• Review the effectiveness of your ads on your dashboard.

Drawbacks

• You need to have 100 conversions than it will work
• To have 100 conversions would cost lots of budgets
• Conflict of interest with Google, since it’s giving you a service on its own terms
• Expect to sacrifice some of the granular control over your campaigns
• You might lose the ability to fine-tune aspects which would have previously given a campaign the competitive edge.
• Unless advertisers opt-out, they will be added to the program automatically after seven days of receiving the email

 

Okay, so these are some main points for you to consider whether you should opt for it or not. If you go for it, there are certain benefits it will give you, as listed above and drawbacks are there too. Your decision can also vary on the kind of business you have which may or may not require you to run your ads through smart campaigns.

Yes, the overwhelming trend of automation might push you to just randomly make the decision of choosing smart campaigns to run your ads for you but you don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. Do thorough research before making any decision. Another thing to remember here is that don’t forget to select the opt-out option if you aren’t ready yet or Google will start running your campaigns for you.

Opt it or not, all you need now is an effective reporting tool like PPCexpo:

Whether you decide on using the smart campaigns or not, there is one thing you need to have by your side for sure is a reporting tool to measure the progress of your campaigns. Google is a master at taking control over everything, there is a probability that the opt-out option might not be available sometime in future or it will be designed in a way to give maximum control to Google. For all sorts of such rainy days, you need to be prepared to have something which will give you insights on what’s Google doing to your Google Ads account or whether it’s able to full fill the claim it has been doing to give you maximum benefit from the changes they have opted to do.

To measure the progress, you must be read this guide “ The Definitive Guide to PPC Marketing ” and there must be a tool available for you all the time so you know what’s being done to PPC campaigns. With PPCexpo’s extensive library of reports, you can run any report according to your needs and get a detailed analysis on whether you’ve been able to get your desired results or not. Having an accessible reporting tool is a must for advertisers. Keeping the changes in mind, it should be available to you all the time so you can keep an eye on the things.