Switch. A Smart Campaign bids on Maximize Clicks — it is not optimising toward any conversion outcome at all. Verified on an electrical contractor's account, August 2026.

On this page

• What is a Google Ads Smart Campaign actually optimising?
• What reporting trap do Smart Campaigns set?
• What did I get wrong the first time?
• What should I switch a Smart Campaign to?
• When is a Smart Campaign the right choice?

What is a Google Ads Smart Campaign actually optimising?

Confirmed from the account data, not inferred:

• Channel type: Smart
• Bidding strategy: Target spend — which is Maximize Clicks
• No keyword control
• No search-term report
• No impression-share reporting
• No way to exclude Display

So it is buying clicks, across Search and Display, toward a spend target. It is not trying to get you jobs.

What reporting trap do Smart Campaigns set?

On that same account, all 235 "Local actions — Directions" conversions came from the two Smart Campaigns. Performance Max and Search contributed zero.

Which produces a very natural and completely wrong conclusion: that a large share of the bidding signal is directions taps.

What did I get wrong the first time?

"37% of the bidding signal is directions taps" went into an audit and a client deck. It was wrong.

The campaigns producing those taps do not bid on conversions at all. And the campaigns that do bid on conversions carried no local actions in their goal configuration — only phone call leads and form submissions.

The accurate phrasing is "37% of what the account counts", never "of the bidding signal." Those are different claims, and only one was true.

Before any statement about what a bidder is chasing, run two queries: conversions by campaign and action name, and the campaign conversion goals filtered to biddable.

What should I switch a Smart Campaign to?

A standard Search campaign, and then in order:

1. Keyword control, so you can separate emergency from routine and price-shopper from buyer.
2. Negatives, validated across multiple windows rather than a single snapshot.
3. Real conversion actions — calls of meaningful length at minimum, booked jobs as the destination.
4. A bid strategy that matches your volume. Maximize Clicks with a ceiling while you build history, then a value strategy once you clear a volume gate you set in advance.

When is a Smart Campaign the right choice?

Very small budgets with nobody to manage the account. A Smart Campaign will spend the money and produce some calls with no maintenance.

But be clear about what you are buying: spend, not optimisation. And at that budget, Local Services Ads is usually the better answer anyway.

Related questions

Half the calls I get from Google Ads are junk — is that normal for a plumbing business, or is my tracking set up wrong?

Some junk is normal, but half is a targeting and goal problem rather than a fact of the industry. The most common cause is that the account is optimising toward calls rather than toward booked jobs. Read the full answer.

How much does a plumbing or electrical company need to spend on Google Ads before it starts booking jobs, and how long should it take?

There is no universal floor in dollars — the honest floor is defined by your cost per booked job and the volume Smart Bidding needs to steer, which for most trades means enough budget to produce roughly 15 conversions a month at your local cost per lead. Read the full answer.

Should I turn off Google Search Partners?

Test it rather than assuming. Search Partners performs differently by account, and the only way to know is to segment your own data — but segment it first, because most people turn it off on reputation rather than evidence. Read the full answer.

Written by Usama Khan, who runs Google Ads for e-commerce brands and home-services companies at AdventurAds. Figures are from accounts under active management and are anonymised. Last reviewed 2026-08-26.