Google is rolling out significant updates to its Smart Bidding and budgeting features, including an expanded Smart Bidding Exploration and a new Promotion Mode beta. These changes are designed to help advertisers uncover new conversion opportunities, capitalize on seasonal demand, and achieve more predictable campaign performance. The updates provide greater control and flexibility for managing ad spend.
Updates aim to help advertisers scale campaigns, capture new demand, and manage seasonal opportunities.
Smart Bidding Exploration now allows advertisers to define a return on ad spend (ROAS) tolerance, enabling campaigns to pursue additional conversion opportunities from search queries they might not currently be capturing. Google reports that campaigns utilizing this feature see an average 18% increase in unique converting search query categories and a 19% increase in conversions. This capability is expanding to Performance Max campaigns without product feeds and is now in beta for Shopping ads across both Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns.
A new Promotion Mode beta allows advertisers to temporarily adjust ROAS targets and allocate additional daily budget during high-demand periods. This feature is particularly useful for seasonal events, product launches, and flash sales. Additionally, beginning August 17, Google will update bidding target optimization for campaigns limited by budget, aiming to deliver more consistent performance that better aligns with advertisers’ CPA and ROAS targets. Advertisers will also start receiving notifications in Google Ads from July 6 if campaign adjustments may be needed.
These updates give Google’s AI bidding systems more freedom to identify incremental conversions beyond existing keyword and audience patterns, potentially unlocking new demand that campaigns might otherwise miss. Promotion Mode is especially relevant for retailers and seasonal advertisers, as it facilitates agile adjustments during peak demand periods without requiring extensive campaign restructuring. The bidding optimization changes are intended to make performance more predictable for campaigns operating under budget constraints.
