Bringing more robust reporting and with an eye on boosting performance, Google has launched Smart Bidding; an umbrella term for conversion-based automated bidding strategies.
The tool, powered by machine learning, can process millions of signals to pinpoint the best bid for campaigns linked to Target CPA, Target ROAS and Enhanced CPC in AdWords and DoubleClick Search.
It also continuously refines conversion performance through the trading of insights from different campaigns, as highlighted by a post from Anthony Chavez, product management director, Search Ads, Google.
“Even when it encounters areas with lower conversion volume, Smart Bidding’s learning capabilities quickly maximise the accuracy of your bidding models to improve how you optimise the long tail,” Chavez adds.
Auction-time bidding
In the optimisation phase, Smart Bidding will evaluate patterns in a campaign structure as well as elements such as landing pages, ad text and keyword phrases to find similarities across bidding items. It then borrows learnings to provide recommendations on ways of maximising performance.
While such functionality is available to all AdWords users, it’s easy to see this working best for advertisers with multiple campaigns.
Smart bidding also comes with a swathe of new features for CPA marketers, allowing for the registration of a range of signals to finrom bidding, such as device, location, browser and language.
On the reporting front, Smart Bidding examines performance of strategies and flags issues including already existing bidding-specific alerts. The dashboard has even been tweaked to allow for the highlighting of bidding statuses, which can now be found in the columns for primary campaigns and ad group status.
Google adds that it is continuing to explore new signals and hopes to roll out functions to reflect “seasonality” and “price competitiveness” in the near future.