What is Smart Bidding in Google Ads?

Smart Bidding is Google's machine-learning bidding: instead of you setting keyword bids, strategies like Target CPA and Target ROAS set a different bid for every auction based on signals no human can act on — device, location, time, audience, query context.

It's genuinely better than manual bidding for most accounts, with one giant dependency: it optimizes toward the conversions it can see. Feed it form fills and it buys form fills; feed it closed revenue via offline conversion imports and it buys customers.

The targets you set are instructions, not aspirations — the system takes them literally, so they should reflect your actual economics, reviewed as your margins and capacity change.