Store visits now available for Google Ads smart bidding optimization

Advertisers who have store visits measurement in their Google Ads accounts can now incorporate store visits data in their smart bidding strategies.

Why we should care. The update allows stores with physical locations to optimize with and for foot traffic in addition to online conversions with smart bidding. Smart bidding strategies use machine learning aimed at predicting when a conversion action is most likely and adjust bids at the time of auction accordingly.

Search and shopping. Store visits in smart bidding is now available to all advertisers in Search and Shopping campaigns.

How to implement. Advertisers can incorporate store visits conversions into smart bidding at the account level, but many will prefer to test it out at the campaign level first. The relatively new campaign-level conversion action setting allows you to do that in Search campaigns. If you’re interested in this for Shopping campaigns, you’ll have to contact your Google Ads rep at this point.

For background on Google’s store visits measurement works, see: How Google AdWords Measures Store Visits and Google’s Surojit Chatterjee: Here’s Why You Should Trust AdWords Estimated Store Visits.