Google Ads bidding strategies: which one to use, and when

Most guides to Google Ads bidding strategies rank them as if one were simply the best. In practice, the right strategy depends less on the strategy itself than on how much conversion data your account has. That's also where advertisers in Southeast Asia have an advantage they rarely use.

The questions you're probably asking are practical. Should a new campaign start on Maximize conversions or Target CPA, and when are you ready for Target ROAS? Pick a strategy your data can't support, and you end up paying for Google's guesswork.

This guide covers the bidding strategies Google offers for Search campaigns and which one fits each stage of an account. It also shows how much conversion data each one needs, and what that data costs by market. It draws on Google's own help pages, recent analysis from PPC specialists Andrew Lolk and Mike Ryan, and Keyword Planner data I pulled for five markets in October 2026.

Which Google Ads bidding strategy should you use? The short answer

Use Maximize conversions for a new lead generation campaign once conversion tracking is working, then add a Target CPA when it brings in conversions steadily. Online shops that track sale values should work towards Target ROAS. Keep Target impression share for your own brand name, and avoid Maximize clicks if what you want is enquiries.

Google Ads bidding strategies explained

Google groups its strategies by what you want: conversions, conversion value, clicks or visibility. Its page on choosing a bid strategy for your goals lists them all. Four of them are Smart Bidding, and those are the ones most accounts should end up on.

Smart Bidding strategies

Smart Bidding sets a separate bid for every auction. According to Google's Smart Bidding overview, it uses signals such as the device, location, time of day and the actual search, which you can't adjust for one by one. It needs conversion tracking switched on, because conversions are what it learns from.

• Maximize conversions: gets as many conversions as it can and spends your full budget. You don't set a cost target.
• Target CPA: aims to keep your average cost per acquisition (CPA) at the figure you set. Some conversions cost more and some less.
• Maximize conversion value: chases the highest total value, such as order revenue, and also spends your full budget.
• Target ROAS: aims for a set return on ad spend (ROAS), for example ฿5 of sales for every ฿1 spent.

Click, visibility and manual strategies

Maximize clicks gets the most clicks it can for your budget. Target impression share bids to appear at the top of the page a set share of the time. Manual CPC lets you set the maximum cost per click (CPC) for each keyword yourself.

This is where the experts and Google part ways. Google says Maximize clicks can suit new campaigns that lack the conversion data for Target CPA or Target ROAS. Andrew Lolk, in his October 2026 ranking of bidding strategies, puts it at the bottom: he argues it buys the cheapest, least interested clicks, which rarely convert. If your goal is enquiries, I'd start on Maximize conversions or manual bids instead.

Which bidding strategy to use at each stage

Move to a target-based strategy only when your data can support it. Each step below needs more conversion history than the one before.

1. No conversion tracking yet: fix tracking before anything else. Smart Bidding can't run without it. Until then, Manual CPC with careful bids is the stopgap, and Lolk also accepts it as a start for accounts with no conversion data.
2. Tracking works, conversions are few: use Maximize conversions with a budget you're happy to spend in full. Google lets you turn on Smart Bidding without any history.
3. Conversions arrive steadily: add a Target CPA. On its Target CPA page, Google recommends starting from your average CPA over the last 30 days, adjusted for conversion delays. Setting it lower than that can mean missing conversions you'd have got.
4. You track sale values and have the volume: move to Target ROAS or Maximize conversion value. Lolk ranks Target ROAS first for online shops, and Google's Target ROAS page says Search campaigns need at least 15 conversions in the past 30 days. If you run an online store, the e-commerce page covers where Google Ads fits alongside SEO.

Think of it as levelling up: skip a stage and the campaign has a target it can't hit, so it either spends very little or misses the target.

How much conversion data Smart Bidding needs

You can switch Smart Bidding on with no history, but Google recommends judging it over at least 30 conversions, or 50 for Target ROAS. Target ROAS on Search also needs at least 15 conversions in the past 30 days before you can use it.

How much that costs depends heavily on where you advertise. At a 5% conversion rate, 30 conversions a month means 600 clicks. Here's what 600 clicks cost at the typical bid in each industry, using the same Keyword Planner data as my guide to Google Ads costs:

So what does that mean for you? A Thai software company can give Smart Bidding a month of useful data for under $1,000. The same campaign in the US needs over 20 times as much. A small account in a high-cost market can sit on Maximize conversions for months. A focused Thai campaign could have enough data for a Target CPA within its first month. The SaaS page explains how I'd sequence Google Ads with SEO for software brands.

Your numbers will differ. Real CPCs are usually below these bid estimates, and your conversion rate could be well above or below 5%. For comparison, WordStream's 2026 US benchmark puts the median search conversion rate at 8.18%. Run your own figures through the Google Ads cost calculator.

Target CPA vs Maximize conversions

Maximize conversions spends your full budget to get as many conversions as it can. Target CPA tries to hold your cost per conversion at the figure you set, so with a tight target it may spend less than your budget. The same split applies to Maximize conversion value and Target ROAS for shops.

A change on 17 August 2026 matters here. Google updated its bidding so that budget-limited Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns perform closer to their targets. As Search Engine Roundtable reported, Google's example was a campaign with a $10 Target CPA averaging $5, which would move towards $10. Mike Ryan at Smarter Ecommerce looked at budget-limited Target ROAS campaigns after the change and found median CPCs rose 15.8%.

If your campaign is limited by budget and was beating its target, Ryan's options come down to these:

• Leave it: if beating the target was a bonus rather than the plan, the campaign is now doing what you asked.
• Move the target closer to your real results: a CPA target near what you actually pay keeps costs steadier.
• Raise the budget: if the campaign is profitable, being limited by budget is the problem to fix.
• Switch to Maximize conversions: it has no target, so there's nothing for it to drift towards.

Common Google Ads bidding strategy mistakes

Most bidding problems come from asking a strategy for something the data can't support. These are the ones to check for first:

• Setting targets from wishes: Google warns that a CPA target that's too low can cost you conversions, and a ROAS target that's too high can limit your traffic. Start from what you achieve now.
• Changing the strategy every few days: Google says a strategy's learning period lasts up to seven days after it's created, or after you change its campaigns or conversion goals. Judge over two conversion cycles or two weeks, not overnight.
• Running Target impression share without a cap: Lolk keeps it for brand campaigns only, at roughly 88% to 93% with a maximum bid limit, because without one CPCs can climb steeply.
• Using a US playbook in a Southeast Asian market: advice built for $20 clicks assumes you'll wait months for data. In Thailand you may not need to.

If you'd rather have someone else watch the bids, see how Wincon's Google Ads management works.

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About the author Guy Sanohlam, Founder

Guy founded Wincon Marketing in Bangkok after nearly ten years in SEO, content and paid media, both agency-side and in-house. He moved early into AEO as AI assistants started answering buyers' questions, and now helps brands get found on Google and in AI answers.

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