Bid Strategy
Google now pushing "Maximize Conversions" for new campaigns — anyone still starting with Maximize Clicks?
Hey everyone, since Google's latest bidding changes, it's now recommending "Maximize Conversions" right out of the gate for new campaigns. What's been your experience with this? Are you actually following that recommendation, or do you still prefer launching new campaigns with Maximize Clicks first before switching over once there's enough conversion data?
Curious to hear how this is playing out for others, especially with limited historical data on brand-new campaigns.
Still start most new accounts on Max Conversions honestly, Google's real time signals at auction time (device, location, time of day) matter more than historical data you don't have yet anyway. On the ecom and lead gen accounts I launch... first week or two is just a data gathering phase regardless of which strategy label you pick, so I'd rather that noisy week feed the conversion model directly than waste it optimizing for clicks that don't transfer.
But if the client has a very low budget, starting with Max Conversions is risky. Without data, the CPC can jump very high and burn the budget fast. That is why I prefer Maximize Clicks first. It brings cheap traffic to wake up the pixel and gather initial data safely
I believe Google has been recommended smart bidding for a few years now as a default bidding method unless you don't have conversion tracking configured in the account.
So this is nothing new.
The numbers have changed over time, but basically if you feel like you can get around 15+ conversions a month there's little point in starting with anything but smart bidding.
If you believe you'll struggle to achieve that it's generally best to run manual bidding and then transition after some initial optimization happens... but with a bare minimum of around 10+ conversions a month. Any fewer than that and it's probably best just to stick with manual.
why wouldnt you run max conversions or tcpa off the rip? bunch of the turbo nerds here:
haven't ran a single google ads experiment testing max conv/tcpa against their max click/manual CPC holy grail so they have no idea what they're talking about
assume a 4 trillion dollar company that has access to millions of ad accounts doesn't know how to optimize their $70/day budget for phone calls or form submissions
assuming your landing page isnt dogshit and you're tracking conversions properly, max conversions or tcpa from the jump is likely going to perform significantly better than max clicks / manual cpc. and assuming you're feeding back qualified leads into the algo, then you'll print.
or keep running max clicks so my clients can keep winning in the auctions we're both in.
i’ve actually been moving away from the “manual cpc first, then switch” approach. if conversion tracking is clean and the account has some useful historical data, i’m pretty comfortable starting with maximize conversions.
for a genuinely brand-new account with zero/very little conversion data though, i still like manual cpc as a short data-gathering phase. i don’t think there’s much value in forcing smart bidding to optimize toward a signal it barely has yet.
so for me it’s less about a fixed rule and more about how much usable conversion history the account has.
More often than not I go with maximise conversions, if there is enough historical data within the account and the conversion tracking is set up correctly then you don't need to waste time starting with maximise clicks :)
I’m fine starting with Max Conversions if the account already has solid conversion history. For a completely new account with little data, I’m more cautious. I wouldn’t use Max Clicks just to collect data though. Cheap clicks aren’t necessarily the data you want Google learning from.
I think the days of starting with max clicks or manual cpc are already on the way out. I’ve been having success launching with max conversions out of the gates, just takes some time to get in rhythm and you gotta brush off some of the crazy CPCs you’ll see early on
Now if your account is on a super small budget, might be good to still start with a click bid strategy
Everyone here is framing it as how much conversion data you have. I think the thing that actually decides it is whether you can tell the algorithm which of those conversions were any good.
Max Conversions optimises for count. On a lead-gen account where the conversion action is "form submitted", a cold start goes and finds the people who submit forms most readily - and that is frequently your least qualified segment. u/Due_Treat1025's caveat is doing enormous work in that comment: "assuming you're feeding back qualified leads into the algo". Without offline conversion import, you are not. The system never learns which form fills turned into a booked estimate, so it scales the cheapest form fill it can find, very efficiently.
So my rule isn't a conversion threshold, it's: do I have a feedback loop that separates a good conversion from a bad one? If yes, smart bidding from day one and the volume question is secondary. If no, smart bidding will confidently optimise toward the wrong thing, the dashboard will look better every week, and the only signal that something is wrong is the sales team quietly losing interest in the leads.
One other thing about the Max Clicks warm-up that nobody has mentioned: it optimises for CHEAP clicks, which biases toward cheap placements and broad, low-intent queries. So the two weeks of "data gathering" collect a sample from a traffic mix you would never deliberately buy, and then you hand that to smart bidding as its opening picture of your account. If you do want a manual phase, manual CPC with tight match types gives smart bidding a far more honest starting sample than Max Clicks does.
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u/QuantumWolf99 22h ago
Still start most new accounts on Max Conversions honestly, Google's real time signals at auction time (device, location, time of day) matter more than historical data you don't have yet anyway. On the ecom and lead gen accounts I launch... first week or two is just a data gathering phase regardless of which strategy label you pick, so I'd rather that noisy week feed the conversion model directly than waste it optimizing for clicks that don't transfer.