Google Ads Bidding Strategies Explained for Australian Small Businesses

Your bidding strategy determines how Google spends your budget and what it optimises for. Choosing the wrong bidding strategy — or leaving it on the default — is one of the most common reasons small business Google Ads campaigns underperform. Here’s a clear breakdown of every major bidding option and when to use each.

Manual CPC (Cost Per Click)

What it is: You set a maximum bid for each keyword. Google won’t charge more than your set maximum, but will try to win the auction for as little as possible.

Best for: New accounts with no conversion history, tight budget control, or experienced advertisers who want full control

Pros: Maximum control, predictable costs, doesn’t require conversion data to work

Cons: Time-intensive to manage, misses real-time signals that automated bidding uses

Tip: Use Enhanced CPC (ECPC) alongside Manual CPC — it allows Google to adjust your bids up or down by up to 30% based on conversion likelihood signals, while you maintain overall control.

Maximise Clicks

What it is: Google automatically sets bids to get the most clicks possible within your daily budget.

Best for: Building traffic data in a new account, brand awareness campaigns, or when clicks are your primary goal

Pros: Easy to set up, great for generating data quickly

Cons: Optimises for volume of clicks, not quality — can drive traffic that never converts

Tip: Set a maximum CPC cap to prevent Google from spending your entire budget on a single expensive click.

Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

What it is: You tell Google what you want to pay per conversion (lead, sale, phone call), and it automatically adjusts bids to hit that target.

Best for: Accounts with 30–50+ conversions tracked, service businesses with a clear lead value

Pros: Highly efficient when it has data, directly tied to business outcomes

Cons: Needs significant conversion history to work — will underperform in new accounts

Example: If you set a target CPA of $50, Google will try to generate leads at an average of $50 each — bidding higher for high-conversion-probability searches and lower for low-probability ones.

Maximise Conversions

What it is: Google sets bids to get the most conversions possible within your budget, without a specific CPA target.

Best for: Accounts with some conversion history (15–30 conversions) not yet ready for Target CPA, or when volume is more important than cost efficiency

Pros: Good stepping stone between manual bidding and Target CPA

Cons: Can overspend on individual conversions to hit volume targets

Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

What it is: You set a target revenue return for every dollar spent on ads. For example, a 400% ROAS target means for every $1 in ad spend, you want $4 in revenue.

Best for: E-commerce businesses with consistent transaction values and 50+ conversions tracked

Pros: Directly optimises for revenue, not just volume

Cons: Requires robust conversion value tracking, not suitable for service businesses without consistent deal sizes

Target Impression Share

What it is: Google bids to show your ads a specific percentage of the time — either at the top of the page, above organic results, or anywhere on the page.

Best for: Brand awareness campaigns, or ensuring your ad always shows for your own brand name searches

Pros: Guarantees visibility for critical searches

Cons: Expensive if applied to competitive keywords — can overspend to maintain position

Recommended Progression for Local Service Businesses

1. Months 1–2: Manual CPC or Maximise Clicks with a CPC cap — gather data, find what converts
2. Month 3+: Switch to Maximise Conversions once you have 15–30 conversions tracked
3. Month 5+: Move to Target CPA once you have 50+ conversions and a clear cost-per-lead target

Skipping straight to Target CPA with a new account and no conversion data is one of the most common mistakes — without data, Google’s AI is just guessing.

At Oop Design, bidding strategy is one of the first things we review when auditing a Google Ads account. See our Google Ads management service or get a free account audit.