Glossary
Smart Shopping
Smart Shopping was a Google Ads campaign type that used machine learning to automatically optimize product ad delivery across Google's networks — including Search, Display, YouTube, and Gmail — from a single campaign. Advertisers provided a product feed through Google Merchant Center, set a daily budget and conversion goal, and Google's AI handled bid optimization, placement selection, and creative assembly using product images and details from the feed. Smart Shopping combined the reach of standard Shopping campaigns with automated display remarketing, dynamically showing the most relevant products to users at each stage of the purchase journey. It was particularly effective for ecommerce advertisers who wanted broad cross-surface coverage without managing separate Shopping and Display campaigns. Smart Shopping was the direct precursor to Performance Max, which expanded the AI-driven, goal-based campaign model to all campaign objectives and inventory types beyond just Shopping. Google began automatically upgrading Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max and officially sunset the standalone Smart Shopping campaign type, making the term a historically significant marker in the evolution from manual, siloed campaign management to AI-driven, cross-surface advertising.