Smart Bidding for store sales allows you to maximize ROI across all touchpoints of the online to offline journey and use Google’s AI to factor in key signals such as device, location, time of day, and other data points to optimize every single auction, saving you time while driving better results for your business. Value store sales conversions alongside online conversions and include them in Smart Bidding strategies to optimize towards omnichannel sales objectives or optimize directly to store sales conversions and offline sales objectives.
Smart Bidding for store sales is currently available for Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns with omnichannel and offline marketing objectives, and is compatible with both value-based bid strategies like Target ROAS and Maximize conversion, and conversion-based bid strategies like Maximize conversions or Target CPA.
This article explains how Smart Bidding works for store sales (for Search and Shopping campaigns). If you’re interested in Smart Bidding for store sales for Performance Max Campaigns, refer to Create a Performance Max campaign.
Keep in mind
Store sales bidding is currently unavailable for Video and Display campaigns. While store sales may appear in account-level conversion reports, they won't influence bids for these campaigns.
For consistent reporting and bid optimization alignment, track store sales at the campaign level or utilize predefined columns.
Why is it important to use omnichannel Smart Bidding with store conversions?
- On average, advertisers who use omnichannel Smart Bidding with store conversions see a 15% increase in omni ROAS at a similar cost.
Google Data, Global, Mar 1, 2024 to Sep 30, 2024
This claim was developed using Google recommended Store Visit Value.
How to value a store sale
Conversion values reflect how much a store visit or store sale is worth to your business. Values are the lever in value-based bidding to influence relative importance of conversion types. If you are receiving dynamic store sales values through in-store transaction uploads or from automated dynamic values reporting, Google Ads will provide you with a modeled and dynamic store sales conversion value, which you can leverage in Smart Bidding strategies.
However, if you are not eligible for dynamic values reporting, you need to specify an average conversion value for your store sales conversion counts, which you can leverage in Smart Bidding strategies. Learn more on how to assign a default value here.
Learn how to get started with store sales measurement.
Value balancing
Adjust store sales values with conversion value rules
Use conversion value rules to customize store sales values. Set static values per campaign or use the MULTIPLY rule to adjust dynamic or static values by percentage (0.5-10x) to balance online/offline conversions. You can also use the SET rule to override a dynamic value with a static value. For instance, reduce dynamic store sales value by 20% by multiplying by 0.8. Learn how to Set up conversion value rules.
Adjust store sales value through conversion settings
You can also opt to reduce the conversion window (and thereby conversions) as a lever for value balancing. This is especially useful if reported conversions seem high or incrementality is a concern. It can be combined with the MULTIPLY conversion value rule. Keep in mind that store visit and store sales share the same conversion settings, so adjusting the conversion window for store sales will also adjust it for store visits.
Before you get started with Smart Bidding for store sales
1. Review all biddable conversions
Navigate to “Conversion settings” at the account level to identify conversion actions that are included in “Conversions”. You can include store sales conversions at either account or campaign level. Learn more about account-level conversion goals and campaign-level conversion goals.
Setting your store sales conversion goal as the account default allows Smart Bidding to optimize all eligible campaigns towards it. This applies to manager accounts and their linked child accounts. Using a consistent conversion goal across campaigns typically yields the best performance. It's recommended to set your store sales conversion goal as the account-default whenever possible and include store sales in all conversion and value based bid strategies.
2. Set a store sales conversion value
If you’re receiving store sales counts reporting, you’ll need to specify a static store sales conversion value directly in Google Ads. In your Google Ads account, select the “Goals” icon . Select “Conversions” and click the store sales conversion action to edit the value settings.
The Google-provided default value is set to 1. Value the store sales conversion at its actual in-store conversion value. You can use conversion value rules to adjust values at campaign level if needed. Learn how to Set up conversion value rules.
If you’re receiving dynamic values reporting, set a static value as a backup in case of data inconsistency.
3. Review conversion window for store visits and store sales
In your Google Ads account, select the “Goals” icon . Select “Conversions” and click the store sales conversion action to view the conversion window settings.
The default conversion window for store sales and store visits is 30 days.
- A 1-week conversion window is the best practice for omnichannel Smart Bidding. While the default window setting is 30 days, shorter windows allow bidding systems to be more reactive to changes in recent behavior and evaluate results more quickly. Keep in mind, lowering the conversion window is expected to reduce the store sales and value reported.
- If you have a longer purchase cycle (for example, for auto dealerships), you may keep a longer conversion window. In such a case, make sure you account for longer conversion delays when evaluating results.
Learn more About conversion windows.
4. Add predefined columns to monitor performance
Predefined store sales columns are automatically available when your account is allowlisted for store sales. The columns are available at campaign or ad group level, but cannot be added at the account level. View the selection of predefined columns below:
| Column name | Description |
| Store sales conv. count | Store sales conversion count is the number of sales in your physical stores that occur after ad interactions. Ad interactions include clicks for text ads and views for video ads. |
| Store sales conv. value | Store sales conversion value is the total value of sales in your physical stores that occur after ad interactions. |
| Store sales visit-to-purchase rate | Store sales visit-to-purchase rate is the percentage of store visits that lead to a purchase. |
| Store sales interaction-to-purchase rate | Store sales interaction-to-purchase rate is the percentage of ad interactions that lead to a store sale. |
| Store sales avg. conv. value | Store sales average conversion value is the average conversion value of a store sale. |
| Store sales CPA | Store sales cost per action (CPA) is the average amount you paid for a store sale. |
| Store sales ROAS | Store sales return on ad spend (ROAS) is the average conversion value of an ad interaction. |
Get started with Smart Bidding for store sales
1. Pick your bid strategy
If you want to maximize in-store sales value, leverage value-based bid strategies and if you want to optimize in-store conversions, leverage a conversion-based bid strategy.
View different strategies below and learn how to Determine a bid strategy based on your goals.
| Campaign goal | |
| Maximize total sales value within a given target | Maximize total sales value within a given budget |
| Target ROAS | Target CPA |
| Maximize Conversion Value | Maximize conversion |
2. Plan campaigns and targets
Account level activation (Recommended):
If all campaigns have objectives to maximize performance across online and in-store, update store sales to primary conversion actions in conversion settings. Learn how to Manage conversion goals from the conversions summary.
When adding store sales to conversions at the account level, update ROAS or CPA targets in existing Search, Shopping, and Performance Max Smart Bidding campaigns to account for the additional conversions or value from store sales. Smart Bidding strategies consider all conversion actions that are marked as "Primary". Ensure that the conversion actions you'd like to optimize toward alongside your store sales goal are marked as "Primary".
Campaign level activation:
If certain campaigns promote products or services unavailable in stores, or if you want to test omnichannel or offline bidding before expanding, check About campaign-specific conversion goals.
Campaign-level activation allows you to choose the conversion actions that will be reported in “Conversions” and used for bid optimization at the campaign level. The campaign conversion setting allows you to override your account-default goals and specify which goals you’d like to track in your conversion reporting and use for bidding in a particular campaign.Use the campaign-level conversion setting in the following scenarios:
- As an interim solution if you have existing bid strategies that optimize for conversions and would prefer to test and scale adoption of bidding to store sales throughout the account over time.
- If you have campaigns that are only focused on either online or offline conversions.
Best practices on campaign selection if you opt for a campaign-level conversion setting + optimization tips:
- Add a predefined column to understand which campaigns are having higher visit to purchase rates and thereby more offline focused.
- Consider which campaigns perform especially well in-store compared to online. You can compare campaigns by online ROAS or conversion rate compared to offline ROAS or in-store purchase rate.
- We recommend ideal test campaigns or portfolios that:
- Are not constrained by budget. Ideally >=30% budget headroom (average daily spend over past 7 days / current budget <70%)
- Have room to grow your impression share. Impression share is <75% in the last 28 days to provide headroom for offline demand
- Report meaningful volume of store visits or store sales over the past 30 days. When optimizing toward a target ROAS, >100 and without a target ROAS, >30
Plan updated ROAS targets
Value-based Smart Bidding allows you to either maximize conversion value within your given budget or optimize toward a target return on ad spend goal. If you’re using ROAS targets, you may want to update targets when you add store goals into your conversion mix. Counting additional conversion value will allow the bid strategy to meet your existing ROAS goals more efficiently, and therefore may spend more within the campaign budget. As a lever to control campaign spend, you can increase ROAS targets in line with historical omnichannel performance you’re already achieving.
3. Smart bidding for store sales activation
Set up campaign-level conversion setting:
- Go to Campaigns within the Campaigns menu
.
- Select the Settings tab.
- Select the campaign that you want to opt into shop visits bidding.
- Select the Conversion goals drop-down menu.
- From the “Conversion goals are used for reporting” drop-down select Campaign-specific goal settings.
- Select Choose campaign goals, and select the Store Sales conversion goal in addition to other conversion goals you'd like to optimize for.
- Select Save.
Set store sales conversion goal as account-default:
- Go to Summary within the Goals icon
.
- Navigate to the store sales conversion goal you want to update and select Edit goal.
- Select the Use conversion action as an account-default goal radio button.
- Select Save changes.
4. Evaluating performance
- Keep in mind that changes to conversion settings only apply going forward. When you first start optimizing towards store sales, historical values in conversion columns won't change to reflect the current setting.
- Allow time for the bid strategy to ramp up before measuring success. The bid strategy needs time to ramp up, and the full cycle of store conversions coming in after an ad engagement also need to be considered. Make sure that you use data from at least 30 days before the date of this change to help account for the offline conversion delay.
- Optimize store values in line with your goals. Value settings influence the balance of store conversions relative to other conversions and can be used as a lever to balance between your online and offline conversion types. You should set a value that will maximize Omnichannel ROAS, however, value rules allow additional flexibility based on your preferences
- If you’re using default value, use the campaign-level value rules “Set” or update the default value in conversion settings.
- If you’re using dynamic values, use the campaign or account level value rules “Multiply” setting to increase or decrease by a percentage.
