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How to transition from manual bidding to smart/automatic bidding in google shopping ads?
Posted by on July 3, 2021 at 10:41 amSo I have a google shopping campaign that has been running for over 6 months on manual enhanced Cpc and is getting decent results, but Im sure that results can be improved if I switch to a smart shopping campaign or automated bidding like target Roas. However, I’m not sure what is the best way to test these strategies using the 6-months worth of conversion data collected from the existing campaign.
If I make a new campaign with target Roas bid strategy will it like start learning from 0 or it use the data from the previous campaign? Or do I have to modify the existing campaign and change its bidding strategy to use that data?
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5 Replies
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Just clone the campaign and test it out. When you clone the campaigns, the history is also cloned so you won’t have to go through the expensive period of gathering enough data for smart bidding to work
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Run the campaign as an experiment. You can run several auto bidding strategies at the same time. After your 2 weeks of testing, you can just tell google to “apply” the test changes of the best one (and end the rest.
Congrats, you’ve successfully implemented the best strategy.
Now you can feel confident to make the same bid optimisations to all other similar campaigns -
Use experiments and read about best practises (make sure u got a good chunk of conversions in the last weeks), your budget is enough (3x cpa daily) and that you are not on a too high or too low demand (seasonality of your product). Then use max conv and after seeing the performance u can try target cpa and keep triying lowering it. Make sure u dont change target cpa too often (max 1x per week) and dont do big changes on it (+/- 10%) otherwise campaign may get in learning phase again.
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Pretty sure experiments can’t be used with Google shopping. Unless that has changed this year. I tried last year and it wasn’t an option.
You can also clone the campaign and then get a script that alternates between one paused campaign and the other active. Keeps switching every hour
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If you have a big list of negatives I would transition your existing campaign to tROAS bidding first. Just make the switch and wait 3-4 weeks to see how it performs. And when you start, choose a tROAS that’s close to your current average, best to go a little lower actually.
In a month you can start to adjust your tROAS.
This method will utilize your existing conversion data since it’s the same account. You can easily reverse this out by switching back to ECPC, Google will remember your original bids.
If this is successful you can try Smart Shopping. Build a campaign in the existing account and leave your existing one running. Wait for about a month and see how it’s performing. If everything looks good you can then turn off your standard shopping campaign.
Smart Shopping will utilize conversion data from the existing campaign to assist in bidding.
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