Bidding strategy

How you tell an ad platform to spend your budget — manual bids or automated goals like conversions.

What it means

A bidding strategy is how you tell an ad platform to spend your money. You can set bids by hand, or let the platform's automation adjust bids to reach a goal, such as more clicks or more conversions.

The right choice depends on your goal.

How it works

In Google Ads, common options include:

Manual CPC: you set the maximum amount you will pay for a click.
Maximise clicks: Google tries to get as many clicks as possible within your budget.
Maximise conversions: Google tries to get as many conversions as possible within your budget.
Target CPA: you tell Google the average cost per acquisition you want, and it aims for conversions around that cost.
Target ROAS: you tell Google the return on ad spend you want, and it bids more for searches likely to bring higher-value sales.

Automated strategies need accurate conversion tracking and enough conversion data to learn from.

A simple example

A café in Pune starts Google Ads to get table bookings. With no past data, it begins with Maximise clicks and a budget of ₹500 per day to build traffic.

After a month, the café has tracked around 40 bookings at roughly ₹150 each. It switches to Target CPA at ₹150, so Google now focuses on searches more likely to turn into bookings.

Why it matters

The same budget can give very different results depending on the strategy. A strategy aimed at clicks may bring cheap traffic that never books. A strategy aimed at conversions focuses on real business results.

Beginner tips

Match the strategy to your goal: clicks for traffic, conversions for leads or sales.
Give automated strategies a few weeks to learn before judging them.
Avoid switching strategies too often, as each change can restart learning.
Common mistake: setting a Target CPA or Target ROAS far better than your real results, which can make ads stop showing.