What Paid Search Bid Strategy Should You Use

A Practical Guide

Choosing the right bid strategy is one of the most important decisions you’ll make in paid search. It directly impacts performance, efficiency, and how much control you have over your campaigns.

This post focuses specifically on paid search bidding strategies (primarily Google Ads, with some notes where Microsoft Ads differs). Google offers a wide range of bidding options, and while that flexibility is powerful, it can also be overwhelming.

The most important thing to understand upfront is this:

The “best” bid strategy depends entirely on what you’re trying to achieve.

Before touching a bid setting, you need clarity on your primary goal — scale, efficiency, revenue, awareness, or control. Different bid strategies offer different tradeoffs between automation and control, and choosing the wrong one can quietly sabotage your results.

Below, I’ll walk through the major bid strategy categories, their pros and cons, and when each one makes sense.

Understanding Bid Strategy Categories

At a high level, paid search bid strategies fall into four buckets, each with a different level of automation and control:

1. Manual bidding
   Maximum control, no automation
   
2. Automated bidding with constraints
   Target CPA and Target ROAS
   
3. Fully automated bidding
   Maximize conversions, revenue, or clicks
   
4. Awareness and visibility bidding
   Target impression share
   

Each can be effective — when used in the right context.

Manual CPC Bidding: Maximum Control

Manual CPC bidding is the original, tried-and-true approach. It’s where many experienced search marketers started, and for good reason.

How it works

You manually set bids at the keyword level and can layer on bid adjustments by:

• Device
• Time of day
• Location
• Audience

While Google rarely says outright that advertisers shouldn’t use manual bidding, the platform is clearly optimized around automation. Features like broad match expansion, Performance Max, and value-based bidding all work best with automated strategies. In practice, many advertisers see weaker performance and fewer optimization levers when sticking exclusively to manual CPC in Google Ads.

When to use it

• New or low-volume campaigns
• When campaigns need to scale up or scale down quickly
• Microsoft Ads, where manual control is still powerful
• Short-term testing or learning phases
  

Target CPA Bidding: Optimizing to a Fixed Outcome

Target CPA (cost per acquisition) bidding tells Google to optimize bids so that, on average, conversions hit a specific cost.

How it works

You define a conversion action (lead, signup, application, etc.) and set a CPA target. Google uses historical data and real-time signals to adjust bids dynamically.

This strategy works best for advertisers with a clear, static value per conversion — for example, lead gen programs where each lead is worth approximately the same amount.

When to use it

• You have consistent conversion volume
• You know what you can afford per conversion
• You want to scale thoughtfully without micromanaging bids
• Operational efficiency matters as much as performance
  

Target ROAS Bidding: Optimizing for Revenue, Not Volume

Target ROAS (return on ad spend) is designed for advertisers whose conversions have variable value.

How it works

Instead of optimizing toward a cost, you feed conversion values back to Google (purchase revenue, policy value, subscription tier, etc.). Google then bids to hit a target return on ad spend.

ROAS bidding is excellent for efficiency but not always for rapid scale. If your goal is “most revenue possible at a specific return,” this strategy shines. If your goal is growth at all costs, it can feel restrictive.

When to use it

• Ecommerce or variable-value conversions
• Strong tracking infrastructure
• Focus on profitability over pure scale
• Mature accounts with stable data
  

Maximize Bidding: Fully Automated, Minimal Control

Maximize strategies (Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value, Maximize Clicks) give Google near-total control.

How it works

You set a budget, and Google bids aggressively to get the most conversions, value, or traffic possible within that budget — without strict efficiency constraints.

This approach works best when your budget is the primary constraint, not efficiency. Think of it as telling Google, “Spend this money as effectively as you can — I trust you.”

When to use it

• Fixed budgets with clear spend limits
• Low conversion density
• Short-term campaigns
• When speed and simplicity matter

Target Impression Share: Awareness and Visibility

Target impression share focuses on where and how often your ads appear, not on performance efficiency.

How it works

You tell Google the percentage of impressions you want and where you want to appear:

• Anywhere on the page
• Top of page
• Absolute top of page
  

This strategy is especially common for branded campaigns, where maintaining top-of-page visibility is more important than efficiency.

When to use it

• Brand defense campaigns
• Competitive brand terms
• Short-term awareness pushes
• Situations where visibility > efficiency
  

Final Thoughts: Start With the Goal, Not the Setting

There is no universally “best” bid strategy — only the one that aligns with your business objective, data maturity, and risk tolerance.

Before selecting a bid type, ask:

• Am I optimizing for scale, efficiency, revenue, or visibility?
• Do my conversions have equal or variable value?
• Do I have enough data to support automation?
• How much control do I actually need?
  

Bid strategies are tools, not shortcuts. When chosen intentionally, they can unlock meaningful performance gains. When chosen blindly, they can quietly drain budget.

If you get the goal right first, the bid strategy choice becomes much easier — and far more effective. 

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