Migrating Smart Campaigns to the optimizer

Access from: Advertising → Ad Agents · Migrate campaigns button

If you created Smart Campaigns before the Smart Campaigns Optimizer, each one is made up of four Amazon campaigns working together: one automatic, one for categories, one for validation and one for performance.

The optimizer works differently: a single campaign per goal, with all the budget and all the targets concentrated in it. Migrating is the step that turns the former into the latter.

Beta feature

Migration is enabled account by account. If you don't see the Migrate campaigns button or the selection checkboxes in the Ad Agents table, it isn't enabled for your account yet.

What the migration does

For each Smart Campaign you choose:

1. Picks the best-performing campaign between validation and performance. It compares whether they have active targets, whether they have data from the last 14 days and, among those that qualify, keeps the one with the best ACOS.
2. Pauses the other three. They are paused, not archived: you can reactivate them whenever you want.
3. Moves the targets from the paused campaigns into the surviving one and publishes them to Amazon. Duplicates are dropped.
4. Applies the budget to the remaining campaign (see below).
5. Links the campaign to the workflow you chose, which will optimise it from that night on.

The original Smart Campaign is marked Migrated to v2.0 in the table and can no longer be edited there: from that point on it is managed through the campaign and its workflow.

Before you start

You need a Smart Campaigns Optimizer workflow already created. Choosing one is mandatory when migrating, because it is what does the work every night; without it the campaign would be left with nobody optimising it.

If you don't have one, the dialog itself tells you and takes you there: in Processes → Workflows, click Add and pick the Smart Campaigns Optimizer template. The details are in How it works.

How to migrate

1. Go to Advertising → Ad Agents.
2. Tick the checkboxes of the Smart Campaigns you want to migrate. The button shows how many you have selected: Migrate campaigns (3). Already-migrated ones cannot be ticked.
3. Click Migrate campaigns.
4. In the dialog, choose the Workflow that will optimise it.
5. Confirm.

The migration runs in the background and takes a few minutes per campaign, because it has to publish the targets to Amazon. You can keep working meanwhile; when it finishes, the row switches to Migrated to v2.0.

Right after confirming, a notice appears above the table with how many went in and, if any was left out, why.

Where the budget comes from

The surviving campaign absorbs the traffic of all four, so it needs a matching budget. It is looked up in this order:

1. The Smart Campaign's own budget, if it has one.
2. If not, the sum of the budgets of the campaigns that were active. Paused ones don't count: they would give a budget the group never actually spent.
3. If there is still none, the value you type in the Daily budget if there is none field of the dialog.

That field is optional and never replaces an existing budget: it is only used when there is nothing to derive it from, which is common in Smart Campaigns that have been switched off for a while. If you leave it empty and one needed it, the migration still completes but that campaign keeps whatever budget it already had in Amazon, and the notice tells you so.

Simulating before migrating

If your account has simulation enabled, the dialog includes the Simulate the migration option, ticked by default.

With it ticked, Epinium runs through every step and records what it would do, but changes nothing: not your campaigns, not their targets, not Amazon. It is there to confirm the migration can complete without errors before applying it for real.

To migrate for real you have to untick it deliberately. The dialog's button always tells you what it is about to do: Simulate or Migrate.

What can be undone and what cannot

The three paused campaigns	Reversible — reactivate them whenever you want
The applied budget	Reversible — edit it on the campaign
The workflow link	Reversible — change it from AI Settings
The moved targets	They stay in the surviving campaign
The conflicting negatives	Not reversible — they are archived so the moved targets can serve, and Amazon does not allow reactivating an archived negative

That last one only happens when there are negatives that would block a migrated target. In most migrations there are none.

What happens if a Smart Campaign cannot be migrated

The notice afterwards tells you how many were left out and why:

• Was already migrated — it isn't migrated again, that would be a no-op.
• Cannot be migrated: it has no validation or performance campaigns — there is no candidate to keep. This usually happens with Smart Campaigns created half-way or edited by hand.

The rest of the batch migrates normally; one skipped campaign doesn't stop the others.

After migrating

The surviving campaign now behaves like any campaign managed by the optimizer:

• You'll find it in Advertising → Campaigns. To see only the ones on your workflow, use the table's Workflows filter.
• Its goal, its bid limits and the autonomy mode are edited from AI Settings, on the campaign itself.
• The optimizer starts working on its next run. The first 14 days are a warming period: it moves more cautiously while it gathers data.

What it decides each night and how to review it is covered in Autonomy modes and variables and What the workflow did.