Automated Search Intent is a Marin-exclusive cross-channel feature that combines the power and specificity of Search campaigns with the reach of Social ones. By aligning your Search and Social campaigns with Automated Search Intent, you can see benefits in terms of cost-per-conversion, total volume, and of course, plenty of saved time.

In a nutshell, Automated Search Intent uses Marin's Dimensions to categorize Search campaigns that are driving traffic to your website based on user intent. It then uses this information to generate both remarketing and prospecting campaigns, along with Website Custom Audiences (WCAs) and related Lookalike Audiences (LAL) in Marin Social/Marin Social. The final step is for Automated Search Intent to create new Social campaigns, targeting the relevant audience (WCA or LAL), using ad copy from your Search campaign ads and images sourced from your landing pages. In this way, Automated Search Intent allows you to seamlessly and effortlessly retarget (and prospect) users on Facebook using a universal brand experience.

Want to get started with Automated Search Intent right away? This article will guide you through the essential steps necessary to get the ball rolling on your cross-channel strategy.

1. Pre-Requisites

Before you can begin setting up Automated Search Intent, you'll first need to check a few figurative boxes. Be sure that you meet the following criteria, then head to step two to continue with the setup process.

1. Before anything else, reach out to your Marin account representative or our Customer Support team and ask them to enable Automated Search Intent for your account.
2. The API should be enabled for your Social account at the Agency level. Again, our Customer Support team can do this for you, so please just reach out. 
3. The standard Meta, previously known as Facebook, pixel should be deployed on your website.

2. Search: Creating And Tagging Dimensions

This is where the fun begins. For your new Social campaigns to be created and properly targeted, you'll use a Marin dimension called Search Intent Classifier. This dimension is used to define the intent of the user when clicking your ad. This intent is entirely definable by you, but could potentially encompass different keyword themes and strategies such as:

• Brand vs. non-brand
• Product categories (e.g. “Shoes”, "SUV", promotional items, etc.)
• Product value (e.g. high-value vs. on-sale products, etc.)

Bear in mind that the visitors who click on your Search ads will form the seed audience for your Search campaigns, forming both the remarketing and prospecting audiences. This means that for every different Search Intent Classifier, two audiences will be created in Marin Social/Marin Social.

3. Search: Tagging Your URLs

With dimensions all done and dusted, you'll now need to ensure that the intent values are included in your URLs. To do this, you'll need to update your Tracking Templates via the URL Templates. So let's get cracking!

Note: The process outlined below will work for Google and Microsoft. For other publishers, please reach out to your platform representative. 

1. Click on the Settings ('gear' icon) in the top-right corner of the platform.
2. Then, click on Revenue & Tracking.
3. From here, click on the Custom Parameters sub-tab.
   You'll need to ensure that within your list of Custom Parameters, you have a parameter which is set up to refer to the Search Intent Classifier dimension, tagged at either the campaign or group level. This will look something like this:
   Name: {_intent}
   Value: [Search Intent Classifier]
4. If you need to create this Custom Parameter from scratch, you can do so by clicking on the + button and filling in the name and value pairing. Remember that dimension values must always be referenced in square brackets.
5. The next step is to ensure that your Tracking Template properly refers to the {_intent} Custom Parameter. To do so, click on the URL Templates sub-tab and simply click on the desired Tracking Template. 
   
   Assuming there are no character count considerations, just add a reference to the newly created intent parameter to the end of your Tracking Template. If you set everything up as suggested above, this would look like: &intent={_intent}.
6. Once you've finished making edits to your Tracking Template, have applied your changes, and are happy with the Final URL at the bottom of the page, click Save in the bottom right-hand corner of the page.

Now that you've set up your URL tagging, you'll need to push your updated Tracking Template to the publisher. To do this, just follow these steps:

1. Click on the level of the Tracking Template you wish to apply. For example, if you'd like to apply an account-level Tracking Template, click on Account > Publishers. If you'd like to apply a campaign-level Tracking Template, click on Account > Campaigns, etc.
2. Next, select the check boxes next to one or more Google objects where you wish to apply your Tracking Template. 
3. Click on the Edit button and kick off any single or multi-edit you wish. This could be a small adjustment to the Search Bid or Daily Budget -- any single or multi-edit on the selected objects will do the trick. 
   Note: It is not currently possible to edit your Tracking Template directly from a single or multi-edit, however, kicking off any single or multi-edit on the objects where you wish to apply your Tracking Template will trigger the URL Templates to run and the Tracking Template to be applied. 
4. Then, hit Apply.
5. Once you've applied your changes, check the Activity Log, find and select the corresponding activity, and post the Tracking Template to Google. If you do not manually post this activity to the publisher, not to worry -- it will post automatically during the nightly sync.

4. Social: Create Media Plan And Retrieve Media Plan ID

Time to get a little cross-channel. For this step, you'll need to head over to the Marin Social platform. From here, you'll be setting up a Media Plan to host your newly ported campaigns, then retrieving its ID. If that sounds complex, don't worry -- just follow these steps. 

6. Search: Kick Off Automated Search Intent

The time has finally come to give Automated Search Intent the green light and actually kick off the process. To do this, you'll need to edit a dimension value, just as you did in step 2 above. 

1. The value you'll need to tag in order to kick off Automated Search Intent is the Search Intent Status dimension. Again, follow the process outlined in step 2 above, but instead add the value "ENABLED" for each of the objects you've already tagged, then Save each one. 
   
   Note: It's a good idea to enable just one of your campaigns to start. This way, you can troubleshoot any issues and quickly identify the newly created campaigns. Once you're sure everything's worked as expected, you can return to this step for the remainder of your campaigns. 
    
2. Once you've tagged your objects, and assuming you're opted in for Automated Search Intent correctly, you'll soon see the Search Intent Status column updated in Marin. The Automated Search Intent process runs regularly in the background, so you should see the value "COMPLETED" within the Search Intent Status column for each of your tagged objects, signifying that Automated Search Intent is set up correctly.
   
   Note: If your Search Intent Status shows as "FAILED", please double-check the above steps and, if necessary, reach out to our Support team for assistance.

7. Social: Checking The Output

With the Automated Search Intent background process kicked off, the finish line is in sight. Now you'll need to double-check that the process completed successfully by checking the output. To begin this step, first head back to Marin Social/Marin Social.

To check that everything has gone to plan, you'll need to double-check three specific aspects of the output within Marin Social:

1. Your newly created Social campaigns. You'll need to check the targeting settings for each one. Please note that you'll have two campaigns for every one Search campaign: One for remarketing, one for prospecting. 
2. Your new carousel ads. These ads should be using the copy and images migrated from your Search campaigns. Automated Search Intent uses a proprietary tool that grabs images from your landing pages. Of course, if you don't like the images the system selects, you can replace them with your own in the final step below.
3. Your new audiences. You should have two audiences per imported Search campaign: remarketing and prospecting (also known as 'lookalike').

Let's go ahead and check each of these in order. Just follow these steps:

1. First, navigate to the Marin Social Media Plan that you created in step 4 above.
2. Assuming that everything went according to plan with the Automated Search Intent process, and you're seeing "COMPLETED" across the board in the relevant dimension, you should now see a selection of new campaigns in this Media Plan. Each one will be named as per the Search Intent Classifier that created it.
   
3. If you click into a few of your campaigns, you'll see that the ad sets within them have a naming convention relating to the audience they're targeting: Either a "WCA" prefix for remarketing campaigns, or "LOOKALIKE" for prospecting campaigns.
   
4. To spot-check specific ads that have been ported from Search, you can also click into any of your ad sets to review the individual carousel ads within it. For more info about making changes to your new carousel ads, please see step 8 below. 
5. Finally, let's check on your newly created audiences. In the upper-right corner of Marin Social, click Audiences, then Custom Audiences.
   
6. On the Custom Audiences grid, you should quickly be able to spot your newly created website custom audiences, as each will have the prefixes mention above -- either "WCA" or "LOOKALIKE". Note that you can also use these Custom Audiences in other campaigns within Marin Social; they're not restricted to your ported Automated Search Intent campaigns.
   

8. Social: Customize And Sync Your Ported Social Campaigns 

At this point, you should now have a set of freshly pressed Social campaigns which mirror your Search campaigns in Marin Social/Marin Social. With your final checks complete, you should also have a good idea of whether or not these campaigns were ported from Search without a hitch, or whether they need a little tweaking here or there. 

Below we'll offer a few tips for making changes to your new campaigns. If you'd prefer, you can jump straight to the second sub-section where we'll explain the very last step in the process -- syncing your campaigns to Facebook.