Smart Bidding Exploration: What It Is + Who Should Use It

Smart Bidding Exploration is Google Ads’ AI-driven feature that allows advertisers to explore new audiences by making ROAS targets more flexible. This can result in higher revenue in exchange for lower ROAS — but most marketers should proceed with caution.

In May 2025, Google announced Smart Bidding Exploration, their “biggest update to bidding in over a decade.”

The idea?

Many high-potential audiences fly under the radar with traditional targeting. Brands successfully bid on their most reliable queries and audiences.

While this is an effective way to increase conversions, there are likely leads getting missed along the way.

Continuing its push for AI-powered campaigns and bidding strategies, Smart Bidding Exploration allows Google to find brand new leads that wouldn’t have been captured otherwise.

This bidding strategy is experimental by nature, however, and this comes at a cost some campaigns can’t afford.

Below, HawkSEM Director of Account Performance Jessica Weber shares her expert insights on who should (and shouldn’t) use this feature, and best practices for success.

What is Smart Bidding Exploration?

Smart Bidding Exploration is a Google Ads feature that uses AI and relaxed return on ad spend (ROAS) targets to test and explore new traffic opportunities.

This allows advertisers to capture additional, high-value traffic without changing keywords or campaign structure.

Smart Bidding Exploration is only eligible for Search campaigns with target ROAS (tROAS) as the current bidding strategy. (Image: Adobe)

Put simply, this feature lets Google target queries and audiences that advertisers normally wouldn’t to identify new sources of valuable traffic.

How Smart Bidding Exploration works

Smart Bidding Exploration works by enabling a “ROAS target tolerance,” where the advertiser sets a percentage by which their ROAS may decrease in order to bid on queries their existing tROAS strategy excludes.

This adjustment allows Google to use its AI capabilities to explore new opportunities and capture more of the traffic advertisers are already eligible for.

Key features and highlights

Smart Bidding Exploration is only eligible for Search campaigns with target ROAS (tROAS) as the current bidding strategy.

SBE is also compatible with:

• Portfolio bidding (specifically tROAS)
• Drafts and experiments

While the new search terms generated through SBE will appear in your search terms report, they won’t be separated or distinguished from “regular” traffic.

Benefits of Smart Bidding Exploration

The benefit of using Smart Bidding Exploration is a potential increase in overall revenue and net profit by diversifying your traffic.

More specifically:

• Increased conversion volume: According to Google, SME resulted in an 18% increase in unique converting search query categories and a 19% increase in total conversions.
• Untapped growth opportunities: Giving Google the reins can help advertisers find opportunities they otherwise may have missed.
• No campaign structure changes: Show your ads on relevant queries outside of your current keyword list — without making campaign changes.
• A competitive edge: For brands in highly competitive spaces, SBE may give you the leverage you need to gain market share and stand out.
• AI-informed optimizations: SBE continues Google’s push toward machine learning to discover new opportunities.
• (Some) advertiser control: While this feature requires advertisers to loosen their grip on their ROAS goals, they still set the range they are comfortable with “loosening” — between 10% and 30%.

Potential drawbacks of Smart Bidding Exploration

The drawback of using Smart Bidding Exploration is lower profitability per conversion. Because it uses more aggressive bidding on eligible search terms you normally wouldn’t win, your ROAS is likely to take a hit.

Because of this, there is a long list of qualifications a campaign should meet before moving forward with SBE.

When to use Smart Bidding Exploration

“Smart Bidding Exploration should be used when you have an established campaign that is providing consistent performance while running on a target ROAS or CPA strategy,” says Weber.

But that’s not the only condition:

“You should also be looking to scale or would like to understand if adjusting your target may provide better overall performance for you by providing more volume at a slightly looser target (lower ROAS or higher CPA).”

Your data and conversion tracking setup should be accurate, consistent, and free of clutter so Google can optimize properly. (Image: Adobe)

When not to use Smart Bidding Exploration

Conversely, this feature should not be used:

• In an attempt to disrupt or reset current algorithm behavior
• To improve underperforming campaigns
• In an unestablished account or new campaign

Smart Bidding Exploration best practices

If Smart Bidding Exploration is right for your campaign, there are some general rules to follow:

Have a clean data/conversion landscape: Your data and conversion tracking setup should be accurate, consistent, and free of clutter so Google can optimize properly.

Run on a target ROAS or CPA strategy: Target ROAS tells Google the average revenue you want back for every dollar spent. Target CPA (Cost per Acquisition) tells Google how much you’re willing to pay for a conversion.

No budget restrictions: SBE is all about discovery and exploration, which requires some additional budget to strategically raise bids on queries that may be barely out of reach.

Ensure your campaign has established consistent conversions: At least 15 conversions in 30 days — ideally several in the past 7 days.

5 Smart Bidding Exploration mistakes to avoid

While Smart Bidding Exploration is a new feature, Weber offers her suggestions for mistakes to avoid:

1. Don’t use CPC limits: Setting maximum CPCs can restrict the AI’s ability to bid competitively on high-value auctions, limiting conversions and overall performance.
2. Don’t change your original campaign’s target: Keep your existing campaign’s target (ROAS or CPA) unchanged. SBE is designed to test new opportunities without affecting your performance baseline.
3. Be cautious with targeting recommendations: Google suggests using broad targeting, like broad match keywords, Dynamic Search Ads (DSA), or AI Max, to give the algorithm more matching opportunities. However, Weber notes that there isn’t sufficient data yet to confirm whether broad targeting consistently improves exploration results.
4. Avoid overcomplicating conversions: Confining Google’s AI to too many parameters can confuse and slow the machine learning process. Only include meaningful conversion actions and nix unnecessary or low-value actions to maximize effectiveness.
5. Don’t underfund the test: Exploration requires enough budget to collect meaningful data. If your budget is too tight, the algorithm won’t have sufficient opportunities to identify high-value queries.

Future Smart Bidding Exploration predictions

With Smart Bidding Exploration and other AI-powered campaigns like Performance Max (PMax) becoming more prevalent, there may be an influx of competition where there wasn’t prior.

“More competitors may come into your sphere and increase costs as adoption increases, since it opens [up] targeting somewhat,” says Weber.

More expert insights

Weber’s final words of advice?

“Protect your original campaign.” Isolate the results from your SBE campaign as a separate experiment to measure its impact without risking the original campaign’s performance.

And finally, expect the behavior of your campaign to shift.

This feature might make ads show up for people who aren’t as close to buying (top-of-funnel) or “more fringe in contextual targeting based on search terms,” Weber explains.

That said, if you’ve maxed out your current campaign and are ready to scale (without a strict ad spend budget to hold you back), SBE could be right for you.

The takeaway

This new tool in the PPC space is yet another sign that AI and automation are becoming the norm.

However, for most campaigns, Smart Bidding Exploration isn’t the best strategy to use.

If you’re on the fence about SBE or just need help managing your paid search strategy, consider partnering with a search marketing team for some clarity.

From search engine optimization (SEO) to PPC, HawkSEM’s team of experts crafts custom strategies that increase ROAS — even campaigns that use Smart Bidding Exploration.

Reach out to us today.