Learn · How-To

How to Choose a Smart Bidding Strategy

Most Smart Bidding advice starts from the strategy and works backwards. That is the wrong order. The strategy you should run is determined almost entirely by what your account can support — how much conversion data you have, whether every conversion is worth the same, and whether your tracking is telling the truth. Get those three answers first and the choice usually makes itself. This guide also covers the June 2026 interface change, because it caused more confusion than it deserved.

1. 1

   Understand what changed in June 2026, and what did not

   From June 2026, Target CPA and Target ROAS appear as standalone options rather than as settings inside Maximise conversions and Maximise conversion value. Google states plainly that this will not change how your bid strategies work. It is a relabelling. Maximise conversions and Maximise conversion value without a target are unchanged in both name and behaviour. The API, Google Ads Editor and the mobile app lag behind the web interface during the transition, so the same strategy may appear under two names depending on where you look.

2. 2

   Count your conversions before choosing anything

   Automated bidding learns from conversion volume. An account producing a handful of conversions a month cannot support a target-based strategy no matter how carefully you set the target, because there is not enough signal to optimise against. Count the last thirty days at campaign level, not account level — the learning happens where the strategy is applied.

3. 3

   Decide whether your conversions are worth the same

   This single question separates CPA-based from ROAS-based bidding. If every lead or sale is worth roughly the same to you, cost per acquisition is the honest metric. If a conversion can be worth R500 or R50,000, optimising to a flat cost per acquisition tells the system to treat those as equivalent, and it will cheerfully buy you a great many of the cheap ones.

4. 4

   Audit what you are actually counting as a conversion

   Before handing bidding decisions to an automated system, open your conversion actions and read them. Which are primary, which are secondary, what counts as a conversion, and is anything being double-counted? Smart Bidding optimises towards whatever you declared, with no judgement about whether you declared something sensible. This step catches more problems than any bidding change will fix.

5. 5

   Set a target you have evidence for

   Base your first target on your actual recent performance, not on what you wish it were. A target materially tighter than your historic cost per conversion will restrict delivery rather than improve efficiency. If you want to move the number, move it in steps of ten to fifteen percent and let each step settle.

6. 6

   Change one thing and wait

   Each strategy change triggers a learning period during which performance is not representative. Change the strategy or the target, not both, and do not judge the result inside the first fortnight. The most expensive pattern in paid search is an account where someone adjusts the target every few days and never once sees a stable outcome.

7. 7

   Keep a record of what you changed and when

   Write bidding changes into your account notes with the date. Six months from now, looking at an unexplained step in a performance chart, the answer is almost always a change somebody made and nobody recorded.