Available for Search, Shopping and video campaigns, Smart Bidding for store visits allows you to optimise for store visits, using the same bid strategies used for online conversions. Learn more about Smart Bidding.
Shop visits are currently supported in Smart Bidding for display campaigns for select advertisers only. If you are running Display campaigns in the same account as Search (or Shopping) campaigns and also report shop visits for Display campaigns, you can include shop visits in Display Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximise conversions and Maximise conversion value bid strategies.
About shop visit conversions
If visits to your physical locations are important to your business, you can use conversion tracking to help you understand how your ad clicks and viewable impressions influence store visits. Learn more about store visit conversions.
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, 1 March 2024 to 30 September 2024
This claim was developed using Google-recommended store visit value.
How to value a store visit
If you are tracking online sales as conversions and value them as the 'revenue' generated, you can also value shop visits to estimate in-store revenue. This way you can measure total revenue and return on ad spend. For more information about how to value a shop visit, review About shop visit conversion value or our video on How to value your shop visits.
Best practices for store visit conversion window
We recommend using a seven-day shop visit conversion window for best performance and evaluation with Smart Bidding. However, for specific business models that require a longer conversion window due to longer purchase cycles (for example, auto dealerships), it's possible to keep the 30-day conversion window. Keep in mind when using a 30-day window that it will take longer after implementation to correctly evaluate the performance of Smart Bidding with store visits. Learn more about store visit conversion window.
Set up Smart Bidding for store visits in your campaigns
Follow the steps below to determine when you can use Smart Bidding for shop visits and how to set up your Smart Bidding strategy.
Bid strategies supported
Smart Bidding for shop visits is supported in the following campaign types and bid strategies:
| Campaign type | Bid strategies |
| Performance Max campaigns |
|
| Search campaigns |
|
| Shopping campaigns |
|
| Video campaigns |
|
|
Learn how to determine a bid strategy based on your goals.
1. Set your shop visits conversion goal as an account-default goal (recommended)
By setting your shop visit conversion goal as an account-default goal, Smart Bidding strategies that optimise for conversions in that account will start optimising towards it. If the conversion is owned by a manager account, that setting will apply to all campaigns using Smart Bidding in client accounts that are opted in to tracking conversions under that manager account. It is recommended to set your shop visit conversion goal as account-default whenever possible since the best overall performance is achieved by optimising for the same set of conversions across all campaigns.
Set store visits conversion goal as account-default:
- Go to Summary within the Goals menu
.
- Identify the store visits conversion goal.
- Select Edit goal.
- Select Use as an account goal.
- Select Save changes.
.Bear in mind, when setting your store visits conversion goal:
- Be sure to update the ROAS or CPA targets of all existing search and Shopping conversion-based Smart Bidding campaigns when you set your shop visit conversion goal at the client or manager account level in order to take into account the additional conversions or conversion value from shop visits.
- Smart Bidding strategies consider all conversion actions that are marked as 'Primary'. Ensure that the conversion actions that you’d like to optimise towards within your shop visits goal are marked as 'Primary'.
2. Set your shop visits conversion goal at the campaign level
This setting allows you to choose the conversion actions that will be reported in 'Conversions' and used for bid optimisation 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. Using the campaign level conversion setting is recommended as an interim solution if you have existing bid strategies that optimise for conversions and would prefer to test and scale bidding to shop visits throughout the account over time.
Set up campaign-level conversion setting for search campaigns:
- Go to Campaigns within the Campaigns menu
.
- At the top bar, select Settings.
- Select the campaign that you want to opt in to shop visits bidding.
- Select the Goals drop-down menu.
- Select Use campaign-specific goal settings.
- Select the Store visits conversion goal in addition to other conversion goals that you'd like to optimise for and select Save.
.Tip: We recommend switching to the account level setting once you’re ready to set your shop visits conversion goal, since optimising for the same goals across all campaigns leads to best overall performance. If you have other biddable conversion actions (such as website purchases, calls, sign-ups), we recommend selecting these in addition to store visits conversion action to optimise for the full value driven by the campaign. Learn more about campaign-specific conversion goals.
Optimise for store visit conversions
If you want to optimise more for shop visit conversions in your search campaigns, use a value-based bid strategy and make sure that shop visit conversions have a higher relative value to other conversion actions. Bid strategies that optimise for conversion volume (like target CPA or maximise conversions) treat each conversion action with equal importance. Learn more about conversion values.
Note: For Shopping ads, only value-based bidding (like target ROAS) will take into account store visits.
Best practices for identifying and updating targets
Bear in mind that changes to conversion settings apply going forward only. When you first include shop visits in 'Conversions', historical values in conversion columns won't reflect the current setting. The best practice is to calculate CPA and ROAS targets manually by incorporating historical data from at least a 30-day period before the conversion delay into the following formulas:
- CPA target = cost / (all biddable conversions + shop visits)
- ROAS target = (conversion value of all biddable conversions + store visits * current conversion value per store visit) * 100 / cost
For ROAS targets in Performance Max campaigns, follow the advice above for ROAS targets unless:
- You aren't using the optional ROAS target: No action is required.
- You are using the ROAS target only as a safety mechanism (your ROAS target is set higher than your achieved ROAS): Consider also setting the new ROAS target higher than the number recommended above.
Be sure to use data from at least a 30-day period before the conversion delay. For example, if your shop visit conversion window and maximum online conversion delay is 30 days, set the historical period to be from 60 to 30 days ago.
Cost impact for adding conversions or conversion value to target-based Smart Bidding strategies
Adding store visits to the conversions used for bidding may cause your target CPA and target ROAS strategies to spend more to continue achieving your targets. To maintain stable spend, follow the above suggestions to identify and update targets. If you want to further ensure that spend is stable, you can decrease your CPA target or increase your ROAS target once you have included shop visits in 'Conversions'.
