Smart Bidding Ignores Half the Settings You’re Still Fiddling With

Are you scared of smart bidding in Google Ads? Many advertisers I know don't use smart bidding properly. So in this video I'm going to explain in simple English what smart bidding is and how to use it efficiently. Hello, my name is Uzair and thanks for joining in. So let's dive in. There are six things I'm going to go through today and hopefully it will help you understand what is smart bidding, why you should use it and how it can help you increase your ROI and the rorowaz for your Google Ads.

So the first thing is real time data analysis. When someone goes to Google and puts in a search, Google analyzes millions of data points and signals at that auction time. That is what we call the auction time when somebody is searching for something and potentially it will show you four ads at the top. Now, how does it analyze and decide which four ads to show at the top of Google?

And that is the process of analyzing all these millions of data points and it will show you the the most relevant results as ads in front of you for every single search and it is happening billions and billions of times every day. So it's going to take into account the device, the location, the time, the demographic, the age.

I mean Google has got millions of data points on us. as to am I buying uh bargain based uh cheap items or luxury products. Am I converting on the first time when I go to a website or go to 10 different websites and then convert all of these data points it has and it's going to show the most relevant results um to the searcher.

And this is why we love Google because it gives us the best results pretty much we are looking for. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the maximize conversions or maximize values. So these are two different things and to put it in simple English, maximize conversions is for lead generation and the maximize uh conversion value is mostly for e-commerce businesses.

That's how you would differentiate because a lead generation you need more leads. So, you're going to convert um more uh visitors into leads. Now, a lead can spend $1,000 with you or it can uh spend $10,000 with you. You don't know which service they are going to buy. But with a product, we have got a set price for each of these products.

So if we know our return on ad spend which is the rorowaz that every time I spend one I need to get four back from Google that is 400x back to me and if you keep that number and give that target to Google that I need 4x rorowaz on a on my budget then the AI is going to get you and try to get you um that amount to be profitable because if you're not profitable, you're going to stop uh running ads and Google doesn't want you to do that because it's not in the interest.

So, the AI is going to work damn hard to get you the results. So, that's the difference between the maximize conversions and the maximize conversion value. And the the third thing is to adapt to user intent. you know, it understands the the system or the AI, whatever you want to call it, it understands purchase intent and context to bid higher for likely buyers.

So, as I said earlier on, if I convert in the first instance, every time I click an ad, go to a certain website and make a purchase, Google is going to bid more for me as a potential customer to your website. So you may end up paying higher for that click. And you might wonder why are you being charged more is because of the intent and the context because Google knows that I'm most likely to convert straight away than somebody else who's not going to convert.

So they're going to bid less for that person. So you want those kind of clicks where the conversions happen pretty much straight away. We would all love to do that but obviously in the real world it doesn't happen. So that's the third thing. The fourth thing is is ignore manual guess work. You don't need to do any guess work. going back a few years when we all used to work on manual betting and all this automation start to kick in and the AI um many marketeers were up in arms that Google is taking the control away from us and is bidding ridiculous prices or CPCs for clicks which used to cost a fraction of the price before.

It is because for this reason as well that Google has got Google knows that this person is likely to convert into a lead or a customer. So we have less control, less manual bidding and adjustments saves time and saves human error because if you bid very less then your campaigns are going to come to a pause. They won't run because you're not bidding high enough.

So that kind of issues or problems you don't get uh with um smart bidding and smart bidding takes care of all the headache and saves you a ton of time. Now I'm not saying is the best way or the right way. I'm just saying that this is the only way going forward because we will have less and less control over our campaigns.

Everything is being handed over to the AI and the bots. And in a way it's true that they have got a lot more data points when they are bidding because if we are bidding $1 a click that's the only data point we have whereas Google has got millions of data points to see whether that click is going to convert or not.

The fifth thing is to unlock hidden opportunities. Google is like a chess player or a snooker player. they're working seven eight moves ahead of us. Whereas when we are taking control we are just moving the on the next move just focusing on the next move. So Google knows a lot more about what's going to happen in this auction.

So it finds valuable uh auctions. So, Google is going to find you valuable audiences which you might have missed and you may not have never considered targeting those with manual bidding and you would wonder h this is something which I completely missed out. I'm glad that I uh stuck with uh smart betting. Number six is the continuous learning of the AI. the AI, the bots, the program, it's learning automatically every time by the second, by the minute, by the hour, by the day.

It's constantly learning from the campaign performance, whether it's performing well or not, is going to learn and keep on learning. And over a period of time, it's going to get stronger and stronger and stronger. And it kind of like becomes like a terminator. where it just keeps on going on and on and on. Whatever is thrown at it, it doesn't matter.

A human cannot outperform a terminator. And this is what we are facing against is the machines. We cannot compete against them. Um it works in a you know in a micro of a second. It really is so fast and it's got so much data that there's no way in the world that we can uh outrun them or outperform them.

So don't be scared of going with smart bidding. You've got to embrace the future that this is the future and it has been like this for the last few years. You know, you got to stop guessing, start winning with smart bidding. So, thank you for being here. Hope you enjoyed this video. I truly appreciate a little like and a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel for more videos like this.

Smart Bidding Ignores Half the Settings You’re Still Fiddling With

What Is Smart Bidding, and Why Does It Ignore You?

The Dead Dials

The Live Levers

The conversions you feed it

The target itself

The budget

The searches you allow

The value you declare

The true switches

The Translation Table

When Manual Bidding Still Makes Sense

Questions Owners Ask About Smart Bidding

What is Smart Bidding in Google Ads?

Does Smart Bidding ignore bid adjustments?

How do I stop my ads showing at certain times or places?

How do I tell Smart Bidding some customers are worth more?

How much should I change my CPA target by?

Should I use Target CPA with very few conversions?

Stop Turning. Start Steering.

Written by Uzair Kharawala

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