Smart Shopping takes machine learning to then next level with Google Shopping. It’s also 100% automated. In fact, standard Shopping campaign management involves long and tedious work when setting priorities, product groups, bids and negative keywords. With Smart Shopping Campaigns, this work no longer needs to be done.

There are no targets, audiences, or placements to be set. The system shows the right products in the right place at the right time. It also chooses the targeted audience. Those decisions are based on the chances the ads have to convert into sales.

Where Smart Shopping ads show?

This type of campaign is pretty much self-driving and requires very little maintenance. Smart Shopping Campaigns’ core features have an expanded reach across all Google networks and use the ‘maximize conversion value’ smart bidding strategy.

These ads will show across Google’s display network, Shopping, YouTube, and Gmail through product Shopping ads, Local Inventory ads, and display ads.

Smart Shopping vs. standard Shopping

The difference is automation and data. It’s worth knowing that Smart Shopping and standard Shopping run on two distinct codebases and are managed by two different engineering teams in separate Google offices.

But the actual differences between them are almost entirely automation and data. Google doesn’t provide data on audiences, search terms or placements in Smart Shopping campaigns. The other main distinguisher is how much control you have over each campaign.

Can you run both?

Yes! You can run both campaigns at the same time. But there are some situations where one is more tailored to your needs than the other. Let’s take a look at some scenarios and whether or not Smart Shopping is the right choice:

If you include your whole product catalog in a Smart Shopping campaign, Google recommends you pause your existing regular Shopping and Dynamic Remarketing campaigns.

In fact, although it is said that Smart Campaigns have priority over existing campaigns for the same products, we still recommend you follow Google’s advice. This is in order to avoid ad over-serving and wasting budget.