🧭 Overview
Search Atlas Smart Ads is designed to work with both new campaigns you create inside the platform and campaigns that already exist in your Google Ads account. You do not need to rebuild your campaigns from scratch. Once your Google Ads account is connected, Smart Ads pulls in your existing campaigns automatically, so you can manage and optimize everything from one place.
🔗 Step 1 — Connect Your Google Ads Account
Before Smart Ads can access your existing campaigns, your Google Ads account must be linked to Search Atlas.
- In the left sidebar, go to Smart Ads → Campaign Hub.
- If no account is connected, you will see a prompt to link your Google Ads account. Click it and follow the OAuth authorization steps.
- Once authorized, Search Atlas will sync your account data. This may take a few minutes depending on the size of your account.
If your account is already connected and you want to verify the connection, click Refresh data in the top-right area of the Campaign Hub to force a fresh sync.
📥 Step 2 — View Your Imported Campaigns
After a successful sync, your existing Google Ads campaigns appear automatically in the Campaign Hub. There is no separate import button — the sync happens in the background when your account is connected.
- Go to Smart Ads → Campaign Hub.
- All campaigns from your connected Google Ads account will be listed, including active, paused, and ended campaigns.
- Use Group by brand to organize campaigns if you manage multiple brands or clients.
Campaigns created outside of Search Atlas are fully visible and editable within the platform alongside any campaigns you create directly in Smart Ads.
⚙️ Step 3 — Optimize Your Existing Campaigns
Once your campaigns are visible in the Campaign Hub, you can apply Smart Ads optimization features to them immediately.
- In Smart Ads → Campaign Hub, select the campaign you want to optimize.
- Click Optimize Campaigns to trigger AI-powered recommendations. Smart Ads will analyze performance data and surface actionable suggestions such as bid adjustments, keyword changes, and budget reallocation.
- Review the recommendations and apply the ones that match your goals.
You can also use the following tools to deepen your optimization work:
- Campaign Performance — Go to Smart Ads → Campaign Performance to review metrics like impressions, clicks, conversions, and cost across your imported campaigns.
- Campaign Audit — Go to Smart Ads → Campaign Audit to identify structural issues, wasted spend, and missed opportunities in your existing campaign setup.
- Negative Keywords — Go to Smart Ads → Negative Keywords to add or manage negative keyword lists that apply to your campaigns, including those created outside the platform.
- Reports — Go to Smart Ads → Reports to generate performance reports for any campaign in your account.
⚠️ Compatibility and Limitations
Before optimizing existing campaigns, keep the following in mind:
- Read and write access: Search Atlas requires full read and write permissions on your Google Ads account to apply optimizations. If you granted read-only access during setup, changes made in the platform will not push back to Google Ads.
- Campaign types: Smart Ads supports standard Search and Display campaigns. Performance Max and other specialized campaign types may be visible for reporting purposes but have limited editing support within the platform.
- Data freshness: Campaign data syncs regularly, but there can be a short delay. Use the Refresh data button in the Campaign Hub to pull the latest data on demand.
- Historical data: Smart Ads displays performance data from the point your account was connected forward. Historical data prior to the connection date may have limited availability depending on your Google Ads account settings.
- Retargeting: You can apply retargeting to existing campaigns. Use the Set Up Retargeting option in the Campaign Hub to configure audience lists and attach them to your campaigns.
💡 Best Practices
- Run a Campaign Audit on your imported campaigns before applying any optimizations. This gives you a clear baseline and highlights the highest-impact issues to fix first.
- Use Negative Keywords early. Campaigns that were running outside the platform often accumulate irrelevant search terms. Cleaning these up quickly reduces wasted spend.
- Check Campaign Performance regularly after applying optimizations to measure the impact of each change.
- Use Group by brand in the Campaign Hub if you are managing campaigns for multiple clients or product lines — it keeps your workspace organized as your campaign list grows.
🆘 Need Help?
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.