Adwords Smart Display Campaigns: automatic performance. –

Recently, Google has launched the new Smart Display campaigns, designed to get conversions on Display, without getting too complicated.

This type of campaign is characterized by being mainly automatic. According to Google, the system is responsible for optimizing:

• The bids: We establish a target CPA, from which you will get the maximum possible benefit. This includes aggressive bidding when conversion is most likely. It only requires 2 weeks or 5 initial conversions to work at full capacity.
• Automatic segmentation: the tool continuously optimizes the strategy, which means a dynamic segmentation that changes from moment to moment to adjust to the most optimal configuration.
• The creation of ads: we will only have to include titles, images and logos (same as for the dynamic ads of other campaigns) and Adwords will take care of the rest. They can be shown as text or image ads.

How is it configured?

1. Before you start creating the campaigns, we must consider how we want to group them. We will use for different budgets. As well as different ad groups for product groupings with similar audiences or that work well with each other.
2. Set the CPA for each one of them depending on the value of the sale and the commercial margin that you want to obtain.
3. Set up the campaign as such. It’s still in beta, so it doesn’t appear on all accounts. To check if it’s available in your account, create a new Display campaign with the Marketing objective “Take an action on the website” and see if the option appears a little further down.
4. If you have been lucky, you will be able to add the elements of the advertisements. you will find the specifications of images and texts.
5. The system will take into account general information such as “all users” to find your target audience.
6. Confirm that you do not want to add campaign exclusions at the level of placements, categories and site content. If you prefer to do it, this is the time.
7. Make sure you have a budget at least 10 or 15 times the CPA bid that you have set, otherwise there will not be many results.
8. let the system work at least until you have 40 or 50 conversions (between this and other campaigns). If you’re not getting any conversions in the Smart Display Campaign, raise your Target CPA.
9. Analyze performance after the learning period through the “optimal”, “good” and “low” classification system. So easy? Yes, that’s why it’s “Smart”.
10. Makes small changes gradually and analyzes the variation of the results. The most relevant changes will be the change of creatives, target CPA and campaign exclusions.

When should we use it?

• If we want to expand the scope of the usual campaigns.
• You don’t really know how to find your audience on the Display Network.
• You don’t want to spend too much time on these types of campaigns.
• Your goal is performance.

What advantages does it have?

• Effective campaigns with easy configuration. It also has a configurable part. Despite being an automatic campaign, it maintains configurable features to ensure that we do not appear on unwanted sites (exclusions of placements, categories and web content).
• Unlike other “smart” campaigns like the Universal Campaign for apps; we will be able to analyze the results of the ads and optimize the titles, images and descriptions to continue improving.
• Relevant audience at all times with dynamic targeting. Google Adwords will not miss an opportunity that can bring us conversions and will be very focused on our potential audience.

What drawbacks can it have?

• Surely, the client cannot wait 15 days while spending a budget without return on conversions. So we will have to fight against the uncertainty of whether after the learning period the data will stabilize and compensate for the first few days.
• Low-skilled conversions for the customer. In particular, in the services sector, conversions are not always worth the same. Even if achieved within a target CPA, a lead may not be as suitable as one from a manually managed campaign. And, is that, Smart Display campaigns do not discriminate what enters the bag of conversions.
• The impression share on the Display Network for some campaigns carried out is less than 10%. So a lot of it happens on the search network with text ads. This can be detrimental to the image of the brand, since Google’s responsive designs are sometimes somewhat ugly and, therefore, unprofessional for the company.
• According to the results observed in campaigns, there are large differences in the results of the campaigns depending on the sector or industry of the client. We found some comparison between a regular Display campaign and the new Smart Display that indicates slight differences, although other experiments speak of 36% more conversions.

We have just started working with them and we still do not have a final verdict. We recommend you try and check it for your customers. What we do have, of course, is that if it is still in Beta, Google is still improving it. We will keep you informed.