Smart campaigns are designed to help business owners make the most of Google Ads in the simplest possible way. These campaigns continuously improve the management of your keywords and spending, so that potential customers can find your business when they need to. Setting up and monitoring your Smart campaigns is as straightforward as choosing your business goals, selecting your location, and keeping an eye on your results. Here's how to get started.

1. Why use Smart campaigns?

2. How to choose your business goals

3. How to select your location

4. How to monitor your results

Smart campaigns in Google Ads are the quickest and easiest way to promote your products or services, and business owners only pay when users click on their ads. This is a form of advertising known as cost-per-click (CPC). Research shows that Smart campaigns are three times better at getting ads in front of the right audience compared to previous ad campaign types.

A Smart campaign can be set up in just a few minutes, and most of the management happens behind the scenes, so your ads are as effective as they can be from the start. This time saving means you can focus on the other aspects of running your business rather than having to optimise your ad campaigns manually.

Let's say the owner of a bridal wear store in Middlesbrough wants to attract new prospective customers using ads, but they don't have a marketing expert on their team. Creating a Smart campaign in Google Ads will give them access to easy-to-use tools for controlling their account budget and selecting which products to promote. The Smart campaign takes care of the rest, fine-tuning the store's ads and delivering the best possible results from the moment the ads are launched. .

To get the most out of their advertising spend, business owners need to understand what type of interactions they want from potential customers. For instance, the primary goal of advertising online for 90% of businesses is to get prospective customers to call, visit a store, or make a purchase. Selecting the goal that is most appropriate for your business is the first step in setting up your Smart campaign for success.

For example, a music shop in Lewes may wish to get more potential customers to buy from their e-commerce store. With online microphone purchases selected as the desired outcome, the Smart campaign in Google Ads will prioritise this type of conversion when it calculates how much to spend on each bid. Over time, the Smart campaign will prioritise spending the store's allocated budget on buying ads directed at Google users who are searching for microphones.

Smart campaigns use information within Google to improve their performance continuously. This means that data will be collected about the performance of your campaign and used to refine the amount it bids on auctions. The direction in which it takes your campaigns will be shaped by the business goals that you define. This means if you want to maximise the number of visits to your website, for example, the Smart campaign will automatically adjust the amount you spend to achieve that.

Every business understands how important location is when it comes to attracting new potential customers, and the same is true of online ads too. When setting up a Smart campaign, specify the places you are interested in so that your search or display ads are as relevant as possible to the people who see them. If you're selling products online, your area of interest will likely be the locations that you ship to. If you sell multiple types of products to different areas, it's best to define each one separately.

A bakery in the coastal town of Southend, for example, might select its immediate vicinity for a Smart campaign in Google Ads. Its advertising will then be aimed at people searching from that location, and their bakery will be more prominent when users are searching for a snack nearby on Google Maps. If the bakery also offers made-to-order cakes for special occasions, it could create a separate set of ads for locations within 50 miles. Those planning a celebration further afield in Essex will then be shown ads for the bakery's bespoke cake-making service too.