Available for Google Ads Search and Shopping campaigns, automated bidding for Google Ads store visits allows you to optimize for store visits, using the same bid strategies used for online conversions.
Store visits are currently supported in Smart Bidding for Google Ads Display campaigns for select advertisers only. If you are running Display campaigns in the same account as Search (or Shopping) campaigns and also report store visits for Display campaigns, you can include store visits in Display Target CPA, Target ROAS, and Maximize conversions bid strategies.
About Google Ads store visit conversions
If visits to your physical locations are important to your business, you can use conversion tracking to help you see how your ad clicks and viewable impressions influence store visits. Learn more About store visit conversions in the Google Ads Help Center.
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 store 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 store visit, read About store visit conversion value.
Best practices for store visit conversion window
Google Ads recommends using a 7-day store visit conversion window for best performance and evaluation with automated bidding. However for specific business models that require a longer conversion window due to longer purchase cycles (for example, auto dealerships), it is possible to keep the 30-day conversion window. Keep in mind, when using a 30-day window, it will take longer after implementation to correctly evaluate the performance of automated bidding with store visits. For more information about how to set up your conversion window, read About store visit conversion window.
Set up automated bidding for store visits in your Google Ads campaigns
Search campaigns
Bid strategies supported
For Search campaigns, automated bidding to store visit conversions is supported in all bid strategies that optimize for conversions. Learn more about choosing a bid strategy for your specific goals.
Include in “Conversions”
The "Include in 'Conversions’” setting lets you choose whether or not to include a conversion action’s data in the "Conversions" reporting column and use it for optimization in automated bidding. By default, store visits are reported under the “All Conversions” column and not under “Conversions” column. Once “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting is updated, store visits will be counted under “Conversions” in addition to “All Conversions”. There are 2 ways to include store visits in the “‘Conversions” column for Search campaigns:
1. Include store visits in “Conversions” at sub-manager account level
Including a conversion action in "Conversions" at the sub-manager account level, enables bid strategies that optimize for conversions to start optimizing towards them in campaigns that use sub-manager account level conversions.
Include store visits in “Conversions” at the sub-manager account level:
- Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
- From the page menu, under "Tools and settings", click Conversions.
- Click Summary.
- In the “Conversion goals” tab, click on the Store visits (from Google Ads) conversion action.
- Select Edit Settings.
- Click Include in ‘Conversions’ to expand the section, and select the checkbox for "Include these conversions in your “Conversions” column".
- Click Save.
2. Include store visits in “Conversions” for a specific campaign
This setting allows you to choose the conversion actions that will be reported in “Conversions” and used for bid optimization in a campaign. The campaign conversion setting lets you override the sub-manager account-level “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting. Using the campaign-level conversion setting is recommended as an interim solution if you have existing bid strategies that optimize for conversions and would prefer to test and scale adoption of bidding to store visits throughout the account over time.
Set up conversion setting for a specific Google Ads Search campaign:
- Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
- From the page menu, select Campaigns.
- Select the Search campaign that you want to opt into store visits bidding.
- On the "Ad groups" page, above the "Performance graph", click Campaign settings.
- Click Conversions to expand the section. If you don't see this section, click Additional settings.
- Under Search Ads 360, select the button for "Specific conversion actions for this campaign", then click Select conversion actions.
- Choose the Store visits (from Google Ads) conversion action in addition to other conversion actions you would like to optimize for, and click Save.
Shopping campaigns
Bid strategies supported
Automated bidding to store visit conversions is supported by Target ROAS bidding for Shopping and Smart Shopping campaigns.
Include in “Conversions”
The "Include in 'Conversions’” setting lets you choose whether or not to include a conversion action’s data in the "Conversions" reporting column and use it for optimization in automated bidding. By default, store visits are reported under the “All Conversions” column and not under the “Conversions” column. Once “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting is updated, store visits will be counted under “Conversions” in addition to “All Conversions”.
1. Include store visits in “Conversions” at sub-manager account level (default)
Including a conversion action in "Conversions" at the sub-manager account level enables bid strategies that optimize for conversions to start optimizing towards them in campaigns that use sub-manager account level conversions.
Include store visits in “Conversions” at the sub-manager account level:
- Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- Navigate to a sub-manager account.
- From the page menu, under "Tools and settings", click Conversions.
- Click Summary.
- In the “Conversion goals” tab, click a "Store visits (from Google Ads)" conversion action.
- Click Edit Settings.
- Click Include in ‘Conversions’ to expand the section.
- Select the checkbox for “Include these conversions in your “Conversions” column,” then click Save.
2. Include store visits in “Conversions” at campaign level via conversion goals
Selecting the store visits conversion goal in a Shopping Campaign will allow you to opt into store visits bidding at a campaign level, within the campaign settings.
Set up campaign-level conversion setting for Standard and Smart Shopping campaigns:
- Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
- From the page menu, select Campaigns.
- Select the Shopping campaign that you want to opt into store visits bidding.
- On the "Ad groups" page, above the "Performance graph", click Campaign settings.
- On the "Settings" page, click Conversion goals.
- Select Choose conversion goals for this campaign.
- For Smart Shopping Campaigns, you can skip this step.
- Select Store visits.
- Review the conversion value. To make updates to account-level store visits value, select Change Store visits value.
- Click Save.
Optimizing for store visit conversions
If you want to optimize more for store visit conversions in your Search campaigns, use a value-based bid strategy and make sure store visit conversions have a higher relative value to other conversion actions. Bid strategies that optimize for conversion volume (like Target CPA or Maximize conversions) treat each conversion action with equal importance. Learn more about the benefits of setting conversion values.
Best practices for identifying and updating targets
Keep in mind that changes to conversion settings apply going forward only. When you first include store visits in “Conversions”, historical values in conversion columns will not reflect the current setting. 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 + store visits)
- ROAS target = (conversion value of all biddable conversions + store visits * current conversion value per store visit) * 100 / cost
For ROAS targets in Smart Shopping campaigns, follow the advice above for ROAS targets unless:
- You are not 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 setting the new ROAS target also higher than the number recommended above.
Cost impact for adding conversions or conversion value to target-based bid strategies
Adding store visits to the conversions used for bidding may cause your Target CPA, Target ROAS, and Smart Shopping campaigns (if using the optional ROAS target) 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 include store visits in “Conversions”.