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The Madison Avenue Field GuideA field guide to marketing & advertising, by Brandon Mina

GlossaryAI in MarketingAI Bidding (Smart Bidding)

AI in Marketing

AI Bidding (Smart Bidding)

Automated bid strategies that use machine learning to optimize toward a goal.

By Brandon MinaCEO, BrandPilot AIUpdated November 2026

Short answer

AI bidding, known in Google Ads as Smart Bidding, is a set of automated bid strategies that use machine learning to set bids for each auction toward a goal, such as conversions, target cost per acquisition or target ROAS. It weighs many signals in real time, and works best with accurate conversion data.