Even though they’re designed to reach a wide audience with minimal effort, do Google Smart campaigns work? That depends on your business and campaign goals.

Key Points

• Google Smart campaigns are an effective strategy if you have a low daily budget.
• Smart campaigns may also be a good fit for your business needs if you want to experiment with online advertising.
• Google Ad Search campaigns typically work best for businesses that have larger budgets.
• If you prefer to have greater control of your ad campaigns rather than leaving it up to Google, Google Ads Search campaigns may be the right option for you.

What Is a Google Smart Campaign?

Google Smart campaigns have automatic features that allow you to manage your ads with minimal effort. With a Smart campaign, you can easily set your budget, select location preferences, auto bidding options, and add keyword themes. Based on your selections, Smart Campaigns show your ad to people looking for your products or services. With a Smart campaign, you can get your PPC ads up and running in no time. They use machine learning algorithms to run your ad campaign through a 15-minute, 10-step signup process requiring the following information:

• Keyword themes
• Landing page link
• Service area
• Daily budget

After answering a few questions, Google does the rest and develops an ad for you that includes text, images, and target audiences.

Are Google Smart Campaigns Effective?

Google Smart campaigns are a quick and simple way for small businesses to create promotional ads. Not only do they mitigate risks of online advertising with tightly themed keywords, giving freedom to experiment, they’re more accessible to companies with lower daily advertising budgets than hiring digital marketing agencies.

What Is a Google Ad Search Campaign?

If you’re a new business, it’s a good idea to start with a Google Ad Search campaign and move to a Smart campaign once you have the budget for testing. Google Ad Search typically works best for businesses that would rather directly understand their target markets and take control over their campaigns, rather than leave management to the advertising platforms. However, they require higher budgets to be successful, making them more available to companies able to hire outside digital marketing agencies with experience in PPC campaigns. With a higher ad spend budget, you get higher conversion rates because you’re paying for a wide range of PPC solutions that improve your ROI, such as landing pages, negative keywords, and more targeting options.

Smart Campaigns vs. Search Campaigns

If you’re not sure which campaign type is best for you, below are some key differences:

Improved Keyword Control

Google Ads Search campaigns offer a wide range of keyword match types to help you target the right audience with the right message at the right time. For example, broad match keywords allow your ads to appear when someone searches for anything that includes the terms you specify. However, Smart campaigns don’t allow for controlling keyword match types or ad triggers. While they’re great for businesses just getting started with PPC advertising, experienced marketers may find them limiting.

Better Bidding

Unlike Smart campaigns, Google Ads Search enables you to take advantage of various options to gain more control over your ad spend:

• Device bidding allows you to bid differently based on the device that the user is searching from.
• Location bidding allows you to bid different amounts based on the searcher’s location.
• Keyword bidding allows you to bid on target keywords to use in your ads to get the best ranking possible on search engine result pages.

You also have more flexibility with your budget and bidding with Google Ad Search. For example, you can modify your bids based on time of day and day of week that your target audience is online.

Diverse Targeting Strategies

Google Ads Search campaigns allow you to use a diverse set of ad targeting strategies—demographics, search and purchase behaviors, keywords, location targeting—to reach your hyper-specific audience. Smart campaigns, on the other hand, offer a more automated approach. Rather than relying on specific keywords or geographic areas, they use Google’s AI-driven algorithms to determine who’s most likely to respond positively to your ads.

Improved Conversion Tracking and Optimization

Conversion tracking and optimization for Google Ads Search involves setting up specific goals for each ad, then tracking and optimizing your campaigns to meet them. While Search campaigns require a lot of manual work, they offer more control and can result in more leads, conversions, and revenue. Smart campaigns use an automated process to adjust your ads based on user behavior, so you don’t have to constantly monitor and tweak them.

Are Google Ad Search Campaigns Right for You?

If you’re still not sure which campaign type is right for your company, Google Ad Search campaigns typically work best for businesses that have the ability to hire an outside digital marketing agency. When you hire an agency to handle your campaign, you get a team of experts that know how to develop PPC solutions that drive better results for your business, leading to an increase in leads and sales.

Go Beyond Google With Web Sprout

Web Sprout is a digital marketing agency providing PPC services that go beyond Google. Simply put, we get very granular. We’re a Google Ads certified partner, but our team of PPC specialists have access to about 35,000 other targeting options that reach hyper-specific audiences. Whether you’re at a loss for why your leads aren’t converting, you’re getting low quality leads, paying too much for conversions, or targeting the wrong audience, our PPC services solve all your campaign frustrations. Contact us today—we’re ready to talk paid search strategy with well-established businesses browsing for a new partner.