Smart Shopping Campaign Vs. Standard Campaign: Google Ads in the AI Age

If you hadn’t already noticed, automation and artificial intelligence are shaking up the world of advertising. Over the past year, there has been a lot of significant changes in Google Ads, with Smart Shopping campaign quickly becoming the method of choice for many people in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

In this article, we’ll pit smart shopping campaign vs. standard campaign, giving you the vital knowledge you need to understand which is right for you — and why.

What is a Standard Shopping Campaign?

Google Shopping is a service from Google that enables consumers to search for, compare, and shop for physical products from a vast range of different retailers who have paid Google to advertise their products online.

Imagine you are looking to buy some red shoes. The easiest way to do that in 2020 is to open Google and type the keyword, “red shoes” into the search box.

Within a split-second, Google will generate the search engine results pages (SERPs), filled with listings of red shoes, providing pertinent information such as images, descriptions, prices, and brand names.

What is a Smart Shopping Campaign?

A Smart Shopping campaign will also bring the same results for that search term as mentioned above, but it combines your existing product feed and assets with Google’s machine learning to display a variety of ads across the Google networks. With data insights and AI in play, these smart ads help you maximize the value of each ad.

The Smart Shopping campaign feature can serve display ads and product shopping ads to the Google Search Network, Display Network, YouTube, and Gmail (depending on how relevant the ad is for the audience).

While this is a boon for conversion rates, you should note that Smart Shopping campaigns aren’t going to replace standard campaigns entirely. You can still use both.

So, with that in mind, let’s see how smart shopping campaign differ from standard shopping campaign in Google Ads.

Smart Shopping Campaign Vs. Standard: The Big Differences

From the outset, the most apparent difference between Smart Shopping and Standard Shopping campaigns is automation. Google Smart Shopping campaigns take existing shopping campaigns, then use AI and machine learning to improve them.

Take a look at the table below to compare the features of smart shopping campaign vs. standard:

A Google Smart Shopping campaign uses automation for bidding, ad placement, and targeting. As a result, Smart Shopping campaign require almost zero maintenance.

When you choose to use a Smart Shopping campaign, you can use automated bidding, which hands control to Google. The platform will optimize your bids to make sure your budget goes further.

Furthermore, the Smart Shopping campaign automatically test different image and text combinations and determine the highest-performing combinations for your audience. This feature ensures your ads continually improve, so each user eventually sees the most relevant, personalized version of your ad.

One downside of smart campaign is that you can only use one landing page per campaign. In standard campaigns, you can have multiple landing pages to correlate with multiple ads. However, in smart campaigns, you only have the options of the Catalog page as a landing page.

Two Reasons , Smart Shopping Campaigns could be smart

It is not always true but since the inception of smart campaigns, early evidence suggests that they drive a better return on investment (ROI) than standard advertising campaigns. Here are two reasons why:

Saturation by impression

Research shows that advertisers need to get on averagely around 29 impressions before a purchase. That means your ads must display to the same user 29 times before he or she decides to take action and buy your product or service.

When you consider the competition online, that seems like a long shot. You could be waiting a long time to make a sale!

Smart Shopping campaigns tackle this issue by upping the ante, ensuring users see your ads on multiple networks over a shorter period. This strategy shortens the customer journey, persuading them to make a purchase much sooner.

Google shows ads when a user is ready to see them

Thanks to its data insights, Google can identify people that are most interested in what you have to offer. Better yet, it can pinpoint consumers that are ready to buy now. You can set up smart campaigns to take advantage of this, as Google will show your ads to users who are ready to buy, which ensures you get more bang for your buck.

Smart Shopping Campaign Vs. Standard Bidding Strategies

One of the critical considerations when deciding between smart and standard campaigns comes down to your bidding strategies.

Whereas some other automated bidding strategies focus on increasing conversions, Smart Shopping campaigns focus on maximizing conversion value, rather than on revenue. As such, this bidding strategy aims to earn as high a return as possible with your given budget.

Another bidding option is to use the Target ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend), which also focuses on conversion value but gives you more control over your spending and ROI goal.

Learn More: Your Guide to Google Ads ROAS Bidding Strategy

Common Concerns about Shopping Campaigns

While automation is the future, it isn’t perfect just yet. Making the most out of these smart campaigns takes time, effort, and patience. Here are a few common queries that advertisers have about using Google Smart Shopping campaigns.

Do Smart Shopping campaigns take priority over standard shopping campaigns?

If you are running two separate ads for the same product (or groups of products), Smart Shopping campaign ads will take priority over any standard shopping ads or display remarketing campaigns. That means the smart ads will be displayed to users instead of the other ads.

Therefore, you should pause the ads in the other campaigns, as they will only drain your budget and interfere with the machine learning on the smart campaigns.

What is a good % budget increase or decrease that won’t ruin the campaign?

If you’re using a Smart Shopping campaign, stick to increases of 10-15%, which will ensure your budget doesn’t go bust.

Similarly, you can use the same values in a standard campaign. If it doesn’t work out, reduce your budget by the same percentage. More importantly, you need to analyze your search terms to see what user queries trigger your ad. You can identify keywords that are attracting irrelevant clicks. After you add these terms to your negative keywords list, try increasing your budget again.

Smart Shopping Campaign Vs. Standard Campaigns: Which to use?

Google Ads is relatively easy to learn how to use, but it is incredibly challenging to master. New comers need to begin with standard campaigns, as they won’t have any data for smart campaigns.

You can create a negative keywords list to filter out irrelevant traffic, making sure that your standard shopping campaign ads only display to prospects who are qualified and likely to be interested in your products and services.

Smart Shopping campaigns leverage remarketing strategies, and therefore, they are better when you have been advertising long enough to have some warm prospects. You can use email subscriber data, or data on your previous site visitors to feed Google’s AI. With this information, it’s possible to harness the power of smart campaigns to show your ads to the right people at the right time.

Wrap Up

Ultimately, smart campaigns are best for small businesses who have little time to manage a Google Ads account and have no experience of PPC advertising. You can pass the reins to Google and let machine learning optimize your ads and budget for the best possible return.

However, if you have more time and experience, and feel confident with manual bidding, stick with standard shopping campaigns to exercise full control over your budget.

You can learn more in The Google Smart Shopping Campaigns Crash Course.