Google Ads clears up Smart Bidding myths before Black Friday

Changing a Target CPA, Target ROAS or daily budget on an established campaign does not push Smart Bidding back into Learning status or erase its history, according to Tal Akabas, Google Ads' director of product management, speaking on Google's Ads Decoded podcast with Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin. Much of the episode covers the channel controls Google launched in October, but the second half holds the details Australian retailers need before Black Friday and Cyber Monday in late November.

Akabas also said an ordinary holiday spike needs no seasonality adjustment and described a Promotion Mode that schedules a sale window on an existing campaign. Separately, Google's help documentation for the new budget allocation caps carries a maths detail that can let a Low priority channel spend far more than its percentage suggests.

Target changes on steady campaigns do not reset Smart Bidding

The belief that a target change, or a budget move of more than 20 per cent, wipes what Smart Bidding has learned is one of the most persistent in paid search. Akabas said that on an existing, steady-state campaign it is not the case. The system already holds data on how bids and results relate for that campaign and can scale bids in proportion to the new target, so nothing is relearned from zero.

Learning status still appears in some situations: a new or reactivated bid strategy, a change to the campaign's composition, or a significant change to its conversion goals. New campaigns also need time to settle on their own mix of assets, targeting and goals. For a new conversion-focused campaign, Google's advice on the episode was to start on Maximise Conversions or Maximise Conversion Value rather than treat Maximise Clicks as a compulsory first step.

This matches Google's rewritten help page, which caps Learning status at 7 days and says budget or target edits never trigger it; the podcast adds the reason why.

None of this means results hold still. Bids and the traffic mix shift when a target moves, so performance can move for a conversion cycle. Allow for conversion delay, and avoid changing the same target twice inside one cycle unless the business reason is clear.

Seasonality adjustments are for unusual sales

Seasonality adjustments tell Smart Bidding to expect a short-term change in conversion rate, such as during a sale. Akabas said advertisers do not necessarily need one just because it is Black Friday, because Google's year-on-year models already anticipate standard holiday peaks.

Optmyzr's study of Black Friday and Cyber Monday accounts from 2022 to 2024 points the same way. Accounts that used seasonality adjustments saw CPCs rise about twice as much as accounts that did not, and the adjustment group's ROAS fell in each year studied, although its revenue grew faster. The comparison is observational, so it shows an association rather than isolating the setting from differences between advertisers and promotions.

The sensible use is for events Google's models cannot predict, such as a flash sale outside the usual calendar or a storewide discount far steeper than the previous year's. For a promotion that looks like last November's, leave the setting alone.

Promotion Mode can run on existing campaigns

Akabas said Promotion Mode is rolling out to Search and Performance Max. It lets an advertiser schedule a promotional window with dedicated budget and bid changes, and combines a faster ramp-up with Smart Bidding Exploration during that window to capture extra traffic. It can be scheduled on an existing steady-state campaign and pairs with campaign total budgets, which remain limited to brand-new campaigns.

Smart Bidding Exploration is now rolling out to retail Performance Max, and Shopping campaigns can use it in beta. It gives the algorithm a ROAS tolerance, which the advertiser sets between 5 and 30 per cent, to bid into new queries and incremental auctions. The condition is an eligible Target ROAS campaign with a budget that does not limit spend. If the budget becomes constrained, exploration is disabled, so a tightly capped sale budget also switches the feature off.

High daily budgets loosen Low priority caps

Google introduced channel priority tiers and budget allocation caps on 14 October, so advertisers can rank Search partners, Display and other channels as High or Low priority and cap Low priority spend as a percentage of the daily budget. The podcast spells out when each control actually does anything.

On Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns, channel prioritisation only acts on days when the budget limits spend. On a Target CPA or Target ROAS campaign with an uncapped budget, which is the setup Google recommends, it changes nothing: Smart Bidding is already bidding for every conversion it can win at the target, on every network the campaign has opted into. Akabas noted it still kicks in on any day the budget binds, even if the campaign is normally unconstrained.

To hold back a Low priority channel on an uncapped campaign, the advertiser needs budget allocation, and this is where the maths catches people out. Google's help documentation says the percentage is calculated against the campaign's average daily budget setting, not against actual spend. Its own example: a 5 per cent allocation on a $1,000 average daily budget aims to keep that channel at or below $50 a day.

Now apply that to a deliberately high budget. A campaign set to $5,000 a day that typically spends $500 would, with a 10 per cent Display cap, still be allowed up to $500 a day on Display, the whole of its normal daily volume. The cap looks tight on screen and is loose in practice.

Google's help page adds further limits. The cap is best-effort, resets daily and does not roll over, so spend on a Low priority channel can exceed it on volatile days. Shared budgets work, but every campaign on the budget must be the same campaign type. Setting a Low priority channel to 0 per cent stops its spend entirely, which in Performance Max is the closest thing to a channel opt-out.

One inconsistency to check in the account itself: Google's help documentation says budget allocation is not supported for Demand Gen, while Akabas suggested Demand Gen advertisers who had opted out of Display could test it again at a lower priority or with an allocation.

Because enforcement is best-effort, check the reports. In Performance Max, the Channel performance report's "Where your conversions come from" chart has a Cost toggle at campaign level that shows cost and share of cost per channel. For Search, Shopping and Demand Gen, segment by network. Compare the figures with the cap as a share of the average daily budget, not of what the campaign usually spends.

New customer acquisition gets a reporting-only mode

The episode also covered three customer lifecycle updates. New customer acquisition now has a reporting-only mode, so an advertiser can see new versus returning customers and check its data strength before putting bidding money behind it; that view used to require turning on new customer acquisition bidding.

Google said on 22 October that its retention goals are rolling out this month for Performance Max, Search and Shopping. Retention Only Mode limits a campaign to the customer segments you specify, such as a churned customer list, while Re-engagement Mode bids higher for lapsed customers and keeps normal reach. Loyalty mode, now generally available in Performance Max and Shopping, uses loyalty audience lists to bid differently for members and can show member pricing or promotional callouts on Shopping ads.

Five account checks before late November

Akabas made the case for demand-led budgeting: flexible or uncapped budgets paired with strict Target CPA or Target ROAS, so campaigns expand on their own when demand spikes. He added that missing efficient conversions early in the day, week or month can mean paying more for them later. For an Australian retailer heading into late November, that comes down to a short list.

• If the sale needs a different target or budget on a steady campaign, change it. Expect performance to settle over a conversion cycle, and leave the target alone for that cycle.
• Skip the seasonality adjustment unless the promotion is genuinely unlike last year's.
• If a Target ROAS campaign should keep exploring during the sale, confirm its budget is not capping spend.
• For every budget allocation cap, convert the percentage into dollars against the average daily budget setting and compare it with what the channel usually spends.
• Flag every Search campaign with Display Expansion turned on. From February 2027 the current Display behaviour goes away, and Google says setting Display to Low priority at 50 per cent keeps today's configuration. Google's documentation also says Display will no longer serve on Search campaigns using Target Impression Share.

A ten-minute pass through account settings now is cheaper than discovering in late November that a 10 per cent cap was measured against a number the campaign never spends.