Are you running Google Ads and feeling like you’re stuck? You’re getting conversions, but your growth has flatlined, or worse, your profits are shrinking. You’ve probably used “Maximise Conversions” or maybe even “Target CPA” to get a decent number of leads or sales. But what if I told you there’s a different approach that can help you move from simply getting conversions to actually maximising your revenue and profit? That’s where the Maximise Conversion Value bid strategy comes in. It’s a bit of a hidden gem, and once you understand it, you’ll see why it’s so powerful.
What’s the Big Idea?
Most people start with a bidding strategy like Maximise Conversions. This strategy is great for getting as many conversions as possible within your budget. Google’s algorithm finds the cheapest conversions and spends your money to get a high volume of them. The problem? Not all conversions are created equal. A $10 sale and a $1,000 sale both count as “one conversion” in this strategy’s eyes. If Google’s algorithm sees an opportunity for a cheap $10 sale, it might spend your budget there instead of going after a more expensive, but much more profitable, $1,000 sale.
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That’s where Maximise Conversion Value changes the game. Instead of just counting conversions, it focuses on the value of each conversion. It tells Google, “Hey, don’t just get me a lot of conversions; get me the conversions that are worth the most money to my business.” This simple shift in focus is the key to unlocking profitable growth.
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Think about it this way. Imagine you’re a car dealership. A lead from someone who downloads a brochure is a conversion. A lead from someone who requests a test drive is also a conversion, but it’s much more valuable. Maximise Conversions might get you a bunch of brochure downloads, but Maximise Conversion Value would be smarter. It would spend more on the user who’s likely to book that test drive, because that’s the conversion with the higher value.
For e-commerce stores, this is even more straightforward. Maximise Conversion Value bidding works with your shopping cart data to see the exact value of each purchase. If one person buys a single t-shirt for $20 and another buys a full outfit for $200, the strategy knows which conversion is more valuable and learns to find more customers like the second one. This is how you stop chasing low-profit sales and start scaling your revenue.
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The Secret Ingredient: Conversion Values
For Maximise Conversion Value to work its magic, you have to do one important thing: tell Google what your conversions are worth.
- For e-commerce, this is easy. You just need to make sure your conversion tracking is set up to dynamically pass the transaction value. The value will be the exact total of the shopping cart.
- For lead-based businesses (like a service provider or B2B company), it’s a bit more of a manual process, but it’s worth it. You’ll need to assign a fixed monetary value to each conversion action. For example, a form submission might be worth $50, while a phone call might be worth $100. You’re giving Google a roadmap to your most profitable customers.
This is the most crucial part. If you don’t assign values, Google won’t know what to optimise for, and the strategy won’t be effective.
“But What About Target ROAS?”
You might have heard of another bidding strategy called Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). It’s very similar to Maximise Conversion Value, and in fact, you can use them together.
- Maximise Conversion Value is all about getting the most value you can out of your budget. It’s a bit more aggressive and is designed to spend your entire budget to get the most revenue possible. It’s great for when your main goal is to scale up your ad spend and revenue.
- Target ROAS is a bit more cautious. You set a specific ROAS goal, like “I want to get $4 in revenue for every $1 I spend.” The strategy will then try to hit that goal and won’t spend money on clicks that it thinks won’t meet that target. This can sometimes limit your growth if you set your target too high, but it’s perfect for when you need to maintain a strict profitability goal.
Here’s the best part: you can use Maximise Conversion Value without a target to let the algorithm figure out what’s possible, and then, once it has a good understanding of your account, you can add a Target ROAS to reign it in and lock in your profitability.
How to Get Started (The Right Way)
Before you jump in, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- You Need Data: This is a “smart bidding” strategy, which means it learns from your account’s history. It needs a good amount of conversion data to work well. I’d recommend you have at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days in the campaign you want to test it on.
- Set Up Your Values Correctly: As I mentioned before, this is non-negotiable. Make sure you’re either passing dynamic values from your e-commerce platform or assigning accurate, fixed values for your lead conversions.
- Be Patient: Don’t expect instant results. When you switch to a new bidding strategy, the Google algorithm goes into a “learning phase.” Give it at least 2-4 weeks to gather data and optimise before you make any big changes or judgments.
- Watch Your Budget: Maximise Conversion Value is designed to spend your daily budget to get as much value as possible. If your previous strategy wasn’t spending your full budget, you might see a jump in your daily spend. Make sure you’re comfortable with this and have a solid budget in place.
The Bottom LineIf you’re running Google Ads and want to move beyond simply getting clicks and conversions, the Maximise Conversion Value bid strategy is an essential tool. It’s the key to making Google’s algorithm work smarter for you by focusing on what truly matters: your business’s bottom line. By giving Google the right data and a clear directive to prioritise value over volume, you can turn a good campaign into a great one and start scaling your profitability in a meaningful way. So, next time you’re in your Google Ads account, consider giving this hidden gem a try. You might just surprise yourself with the results.
Written by Uzair Kharawala
Partner at SF Digital Studios, a Google Premier Partner agency. Uzair has been helping businesses grow with Google Ads since 2002 and teaches it every week on YouTube.
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