Google Launches Smart Bidding Exploration

First announced at Google Marketing Live 2025, Google has launched a new feature called Smart Bidding Exploration, now available across tROAS bidding.

Currently, tROAS favors higher-volume, reliable search queries to generate ROAS and restricts exposure to lower-volume or unproven queries due to uncertainty about their performance. Over time, this can create a self-fulfilling cycle, as the system learns from past successes and continues to optimize within that framework. However, as search behavior changes in the age of AI-enabled search and growth across longer-tail, lower-volume queries, this could lead to revenue being left on the table—even if the bid strategy is delivering to target.

When activated, Smart Bidding Exploration reduces your tROAS target by 10 to 30 percent on a sliding scale you choose, allowing the algorithm to deprioritise efficiency in favour of exploring incremental growth through these lower-volume or unproven queries. The impact on your target is a key consideration for testing, as it provides the system more flexibility to experiment and potentially generate additional revenue by relaxing the usual tROAS constraint.

Although Smart Bidding Exploration may seem similar to manually lowering your tROAS target, that method keeps the system working within its current framework and prioritising the most reliable, efficient queries. In contrast, Smart Bidding Exploration alters how the system operates by giving it more authority to test lower-volume, newer queries, trading short-term ROAS for potential growth.

What This Means for Advertisers

This setting is ideal for experienced advertisers who have already achieved consistent performance and are now aiming to accelerate additional growth. These advertisers have likely optimized their search queries, refined their campaign structure, and have a solid understanding of performance, placing them in a strong position to carefully test Smart Bidding Exploration. 

Smart Bidding Exploration reflects Google’s broader shift toward automation that favours long-term growth over short-term efficiency. For advertisers with well-optimized accounts, it provides an alternative way to achieve incremental performance by targeting low-volume, high-potential search queries that might otherwise go unnoticed.

While Smart Bidding Exploration was announced alongside AI Max, the current recommendation is to test these features separately, as both aim to expand an advertiser's scope, allowing for a clearer view of what is truly effective.

We recommend testing this in a controlled environment and using features like campaign experiments to measure the incremental impact on the account. Proceed gradually, develop a solid test plan, and consider factors such as conversion cycles while attempting to isolate external influences as much as possible.