Google Ads Bidding Strategies: Choose by Monthly Conversions

Pick the strategy by how many conversions your product campaigns bring a month, once purchases and their order values reach Google correctly. The portal’s minimum is about 30 conversions a month per campaign. Below that, run one main Performance Max campaign on Maximize conversion value and steer it with the budget, not a target. With a steady 30 or more, split products into two or three campaigns, each with its own Target ROAS and at least 30 conversions a month. In standard Shopping, Google allows Target ROAS only with at least 15 conversions per Merchant Center ID in the last 30 days.

Which bidding strategies can a store use in Shopping and Performance Max?

Most strategies a store uses belong to Smart Bidding: Google sets the bid for every auction based on the conversions and order values you report. According to Google Ads Help (About Smart Bidding), that covers Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value. What the algorithm learns from, and which problems no bid can solve, is in how Smart Bidding works.

For a store, the main choice is Maximize conversion value: it buys as much order value as the budget allows. Add a Target ROAS and it aims for that return instead of spending the whole budget. The other options aim for the number of orders or clicks.

The Performance Max column follows the Google Ads API guide (Create a Performance Max campaign). It allows only Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value, each with an optional target. The Shopping column lists the strategies you can set on a standard Shopping campaign itself (Create a Shopping campaign). Shared portfolio strategies are a separate case.

How to build and split the Performance Max campaigns themselves is covered in our Performance Max guide for online stores.

Watch the names. From June 2026, Google Ads is relabelling “Maximize conversion value with a Target ROAS” as plain “Target ROAS”. Google says bidding behaviour stays the same (Updates to Smart Bidding Strategy Naming and Organization in Google Ads). In the API, a Performance Max target is still an optional field of Maximize conversion value. So a campaign that an export lists as “Maximize conversion value” may still have a target: open the bidding settings and check the target field.

Performance Max takes almost all the budget, so most stores choose between two strategies

Performance Max runs in 141 of 146 stores in our data and takes a median 95.7% of their ad budget (GetProfit data, June 2025 – June 2026). Standard Shopping runs in 74 of the 146, with a median 6.5% of budget. Performance Max offers only Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value, each with an optional target.

So for most stores, “which bidding strategy” comes down to three decisions. Run as many campaigns as your conversions can feed, and no more. Bid on order value or order count. Set a target or steer with the budget.

Why does conversion volume decide the choice?

Smart Bidding learns from conversions, so the fewer it gets, the less it has to learn from. Google sets hard minimums per campaign type. According to About Target ROAS bidding, Search and Shopping campaigns need at least 15 conversions in the past 30 days, counted at the conversion tracking level, to use Target ROAS. The same page lists no such minimum for Performance Max.

Google sets a higher bar for judging results. Its Smart Bidding page recommends measuring over periods with at least 30 conversions, such as a month or longer, and 50 for Target ROAS. The Target ROAS page adds that performance generally improves with fewer, larger campaigns that get more conversions.

The portal counts per campaign, not per account. It treats 30 conversions a month per campaign as the minimum and 50 or more as the ideal. The more conversions a campaign gets, the less its results swing around the target. That is why bidding and campaign structure are one decision: every new campaign splits the same conversions further.

Pace matters more than the total. Fifty conversions over six months is about 8 a month, and the portal treats a campaign at that pace as still learning. The portal measures pace over the campaign’s current run: if you pause a campaign and switch it back on, a new run starts. What to do at 10–30 conversions a month is covered in how many conversions Smart Bidding needs.

Which strategy fits your number of conversions?

The portal places your account on one of four rungs. The rung depends on two things: whether the conversion numbers can be trusted, and how many conversions the product campaigns bring a month. The table is our methodology, not a Google rule.

Rung 0: when the conversion numbers can’t be trusted

If the conversion count includes something other than purchases, or every order carries the same default value, any strategy learns from noise. Here the portal’s rule has no exceptions: plan the new structure, and launch it only once tracking is fixed. Keep the current campaigns running, though. While the numbers are unclear, the ads may still be working; you just can’t see it yet.

A common failure is a ROAS strategy running on a default order value. Then move the campaign to Target CPA or Maximize conversions, or fix how order values reach Google. How to set up tracking you can trust: conversion tracking for online stores.

Rung 1: fewer than about 30 conversions a month

Keep one main Performance Max campaign for products that sell, promising ones, barely shown ones and new arrivals. Move products that spend without selling into a second campaign with its own small budget, or pause them.

Use Maximize conversion value without a target. You set how much to spend through the budget, and the algorithm decides where to spend it. Check the budget before you switch: according to About Maximize conversion value bidding, without a target the strategy tries to spend the full average daily budget. Why we start without a target, and when a target starts to pay off, is in Maximize conversion value vs Target ROAS.

Rung 2: a steady 30 or more a month

Now the conversions can carry a split. Divide products into two or three campaigns by revenue, ROAS or cost per conversion, and give each its own Target ROAS and budget. Split only if each part keeps at least 30 conversions a month. How to divide products so every campaign keeps enough conversions is in Target ROAS by product tier.

Set the first target close to what the campaign already earns: Google’s Shopping guide (Set up Target ROAS bidding for Shopping campaigns) suggests conversion value divided by cost over the last four weeks. A target set too high can limit traffic. Before you set it, Google recommends four weeks or three conversion cycles of reported order values, whichever is longer. How to set, adjust and check the target: Target ROAS guide.

Rung 3: 170 or more a month

Here you grow around a core that already works. When a campaign steadily brings more than 100 conversions a month, move its unproven products into a new test campaign and leave the proven core where it is. Do it only if both parts keep at least 30 conversions a month. The core keeps its learning history; only the new campaign starts from scratch.

The rung can go down too. If conversions fall, the portal moves the account down a rung and points to the assortment first: products that stopped getting impressions or sold out. The structure comes second.

Which strategy fits a standard Shopping campaign?

A standard Shopping campaign can use Manual CPC, Maximize clicks or Target ROAS as its own strategy. Google’s Shopping guide sets the Target ROAS minimum at 15 conversions per Merchant Center ID in the last 30 days. Below that, you choose between the two click strategies.

Manual CPC gives you control, but the same bid applies to a search from a ready buyer and to an accidental one. Enhanced CPC no longer works in Shopping. According to the Google Ads Developer Blog (Google Ads Shopping Campaign Enhanced CPC Deprecation), since early October 2023 a Shopping campaign with Enhanced CPC behaves as if it used Manual CPC. The Google Ads API documentation lists it as deprecated for Search and Display campaigns too. When manual bidding still makes sense in Shopping: manual CPC vs Smart Bidding.

Order value or order count?

Maximize conversions counts every order as one, so a small order and a large one weigh the same. Google’s comparison in About Target ROAS bidding says the same: count-based strategies treat all conversions equally, and value-based ones suit conversions worth different amounts. A store’s orders almost always differ in value, so value bidding is the default. The reasons are in why stores bid on order value.

Count-based bidding fits two cases: your orders are roughly the same size, or order values don’t reach Google correctly yet. Then a Target CPA caps the cost per conversion. The trade-off between a cost-per-conversion target and a ROAS target is in when Target CPA fits a store.

Should you add a Target ROAS at all?

A target pays off when two things hold: the number comes from your margin, and the campaign has the pace to reach it. The portal puts that pace at a steady 30 conversions a month or more. Since 17 August 2026, budget-limited campaigns with a Target CPA or Target ROAS deliver closer to the target, even if they used to beat it. According to Changes to target based bid strategies, Google leaves targets and budgets for you to adjust.

Without a target, the Maximize strategies spend the whole budget, and their ROAS moves with it. What the August change means for a store is in why targets no longer overperform.

Which strategy should a new campaign start on?

A new campaign still learns from the account. According to About Smart Bidding, the strategy can optimise on data from all your campaigns, so even new campaigns without their own history may benefit. In Performance Max we start on Maximize conversion value without a target, or on Maximize conversions if order values don’t reach Google yet.

A new standard Shopping campaign can use Target ROAS only if your Shopping campaigns already have 15 conversions per Merchant Center ID in the last 30 days. Otherwise, start it on Manual CPC or Maximize clicks. More in a new campaign’s first strategy.

How do you change a strategy without losing a month?

A new strategy or a new setting can put the campaign back into the learning period. According to About bid strategy statuses, the “Learning” status may appear after a new strategy, a settings change, or when campaigns are added to or removed from the strategy.

1. Change one thing at a time. If you change the target, the budget and the structure on the same day, you can’t tell what worked.
2. Move in small steps. The portal’s rule: change Target ROAS by no more than 15% at a time, at most once every one or two weeks. Change the budget by no more than 20%.
3. Wait before judging. Google suggests one or two conversion cycles after a target change, and 15 days for a new Target ROAS in Shopping.
4. Read months, not weeks. In GetProfit data (110 stores with at least eight months, June 2025 – June 2026), a store’s monthly ROAS typically deviates 16% from its own median. For the median store, the best month’s ROAS is 3.1× the worst.

Why learning takes as long as it does, and which edits restart it: the Smart Bidding learning phase.

Where does the budget fit?

Without a target, Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value are built to spend the full budget, as Google’s page on the August change to target-based strategies notes. On rung 1, that makes the budget your main lever. How to set it and split it across campaigns is in the Google Ads budget guide.

In our data, ROAS held steady when spend grew. Out of 1,360 store-months (June 2025 – June 2026), in 155 a store more than doubled its spend relative to other stores in the same month. Its ROAS moved a median +0.9% on the same basis, while cost per click rose 9.2%. This is an observation, not an experiment: the stores that add budget may be the ones already growing.

Example: six campaigns, none with enough to learn

Example store, not client data.

A garden supplies shop with 1,200 products got 216 orders from its product campaigns over the last 90 days, or 72 a month. It runs six Performance Max campaigns by category, each with a Target ROAS of 500%. On average, that is 12 orders a month per campaign, less than half the portal’s minimum of 30.

The account as a whole sits on rung 2: 72 a month can feed two campaigns of at least 30 each, not six. The shop merges them into two. The core of 280 products brought 40 orders a month, and the rest of the catalogue brought 32. Each gets a Target ROAS based on its own last four weeks: 620% for the core, 380% for the rest.

The merge brings no new orders by itself. It splits the same 72 orders two ways instead of six, so each campaign now learns on 32–40 orders a month instead of 12.

What to do this week

1. Check tracking first. The campaigns should learn from purchases, and each order should carry its real value, not a default. If either is off, you are on rung 0.
2. Count conversions per product campaign over the last 90 days. If a campaign has run for less, divide by the months it actually ran, not by three.
3. Find your rung by the product campaigns’ total a month: under about 30 is rung 1, a steady 30 or more is rung 2, 170 or more is rung 3.
4. Match the number of campaigns to conversions. If each campaign gets fewer than 30 a month, plan a merge, not a new split.
5. Pick the strategy for your rung. For a first target, start from the last four weeks’ conversion value divided by cost.
6. Check the target field of every campaign labelled Maximize conversion value: a target may be set there.
7. Change one setting, then wait one or two conversion cycles before the next.

The portal’s campaign structure section does this count for you. It places the account on a rung, shows each campaign’s monthly pace against 30, and flags a ROAS strategy running on a default order value.

How many ad campaigns your shop can carry. The portal counts how many conversions your ads bring, says how many campaigns that is enough for, and goes through each of the ones already running. The portal changes nothing without your consent.

Analyse your campaigns →

Sources

• About Smart Bidding — the four Smart Bidding strategies; judging results over periods with at least 30 conversions, 50 for Target ROAS; learning from data across all campaigns. Checked 2 October 2026.
• About Target ROAS bidding — at least 15 conversions in 30 days at the conversion tracking level for Search and Shopping; no Performance Max entry in that list; four weeks or three conversion cycles of values first; a target too high can limit traffic; fewer, larger campaigns; comparison of count-based and value-based strategies. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Set up Target ROAS bidding for Shopping campaigns — 15 conversions per Merchant Center ID in 30 days; first target from the last four weeks; 15 days before judging. Checked 2 October 2026.
• About Maximize conversion value bidding — without a target the strategy tries to spend the full average daily budget. Checked 2 October 2026.
• About bid strategy statuses — when the “Learning” status appears. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Changes to target based bid strategies — the 17 August 2026 change for budget-limited campaigns with a target; Google adjusts neither targets nor budgets; without a target the Maximize strategies spend the full budget. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Google Ads Shopping Campaign Enhanced CPC Deprecation — Google Ads Developer Blog, 21 September 2023: from early October 2023 Shopping campaigns with Enhanced CPC behave as Manual CPC. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Updates to Smart Bidding Strategy Naming and Organization in Google Ads — Google Ads Developer Blog, 16 June 2026: the relabelling to “Target CPA” and “Target ROAS”, bidding behaviour unchanged. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Google Ads API: Create a Performance Max campaign — only Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value, each with an optional target; no portfolio strategies. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Google Ads API: Create a Shopping campaign — a standard Shopping campaign’s own strategies: Manual CPC, Maximize clicks, Target ROAS. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Google Ads API: Bid strategy types — Maximize clicks as TARGET_SPEND; Maximize conversion value with an optional target ROAS; Enhanced CPC deprecated for Search and Display. Checked 2 October 2026.
• GetProfit data: 146 online stores, June 2025 – June 2026 — share of budget by campaign type.
• GetProfit data: 1,360 store-months, June 2025 – June 2026 — ROAS and cost per click in months when spend more than doubled, against other stores in the same month.
• GetProfit data: 110 stores with at least eight months, June 2025 – June 2026 — month-to-month ROAS swing.
• GetProfit portal methodology — the four rungs; 30 conversions a month per campaign as the minimum and 50 as the ideal; pace over the current run; 170 a month for rung 3; a split above 100 a month only if both parts keep 30; steps of 15% for Target ROAS and 20% for budget; the rule for ROAS strategies on a default value.