What Is Maximise Conversions?
Maximise Conversions is a Smart Bidding strategy in Google Ads that has one clear goal: spend your budget in a way that generates the most conversions possible. Unlike Target CPA, there is no cost constraint. The algorithm is free to bid whatever it calculates will win the most converting auctions, even if individual conversions cost more than you might expect. Volume is the priority, not efficiency.
The strategy is particularly valuable for newer accounts or campaigns that lack the conversion history needed for more sophisticated strategies like Target CPA or Target ROAS. Because Maximise Conversions does not require a specific cost target, it can start optimising with fewer conversions in the account. Google recommends at least a handful of conversions to begin, though performance improves significantly as data accumulates. It is best thought of as a stepping stone towards more cost-controlled strategies.
Maximise Conversions will spend up to the full daily budget. If your campaign has a daily budget of R500, the strategy will try to use all R500 every day. This is intentional: the system interprets your budget as the amount you are willing to invest, and it tries to extract the maximum number of conversions from it. This makes accurate budget setting important. A budget that is too high relative to the actual available search volume can result in the algorithm bidding aggressively and driving up CPCs unnecessarily.
You can optionally set a Target CPA within the Maximise Conversions strategy itself, which shifts it into a mode that balances volume and cost simultaneously. This is sometimes called "Maximise Conversions with a target CPA" and behaves similarly to a standalone Target CPA strategy. South African account managers often find this a useful transitional setup when moving an account from volume-first towards cost-focused bidding.
Maximise Conversions In Practice
The scenario below is an illustrative example, not a Juicy Designs client result. The figures indicate the scale of effect that Maximise Conversions bidding typically produces, so treat them as indicative rather than measured.
Picture a newly launched solar panel installation company based in Johannesburg running Google Ads campaigns for "solar panels Gauteng" and "home solar installation Johannesburg". In its first month on manual bidding it might generate around a dozen conversions. Switching to Maximise Conversions with a R10,000 monthly budget, an account like this could plausibly reach around 30 conversions in the second month and somewhere in the high forties in the third, as the algorithm learns which auctions convert best. By month four, the account manager might introduce a Target CPA of around R250 to add cost control, by which point the algorithm would typically have enough data to honour it.
For South African businesses in competitive service categories such as insurance, legal, or home services, Maximise Conversions can produce aggressive CPCs during the learning period. It is advisable to monitor the average CPC daily during the first two weeks and adjust the budget downward if individual clicks are becoming disproportionately expensive. If click costs spike without a corresponding improvement in conversion rate, there may be a quality issue with the landing page or a mismatch between ad messaging and user intent that no bidding strategy can fix.
How Maximise Conversions bidding works
Maximise Conversions is an automated Google Ads strategy that sets bids to win as many conversions as possible within your budget. Rather than targeting a specific cost per conversion, it spends the full daily budget seeking the most conversions it can, raising bids where a conversion looks likely and lowering them where it does not. This makes it useful when the priority is volume and you have a fixed budget to spend, and simpler than value-based strategies because it counts conversions equally rather than weighing their value. The trade-off is control: because it aims to spend the whole budget, cost per conversion can vary, so it works best once you know a budget you are comfortable spending fully.
When to use Maximise Conversions
Maximise Conversions fits campaigns focused on volume where each conversion is worth roughly the same, such as lead generation, and where you have a budget you intend to spend in full. It is a sensible starting automated strategy for a campaign gathering conversion data, before moving to a target-based strategy once there is enough history. It is less suitable when conversions vary in value, where value-based bidding fits better, or when you need tight control over cost per conversion, for which Target CPA (now part of Maximise Conversions with a target set) is the tool. Ensure accurate conversion tracking first, since the strategy optimises entirely towards the conversions you report.
FAQ
Is Maximise Conversions the same as Target CPA?
Maximise Conversions and Target CPA are related but distinct. Maximise Conversions prioritises volume and will spend your full daily budget to get the most conversions, regardless of cost per conversion. Target CPA adds a cost constraint. Maximise Conversions is ideal for building conversion data. Once you have enough history, Target CPA gives you more cost control.
Will Maximise Conversions overspend my budget?
Maximise Conversions will spend up to your daily budget limit but will not exceed your monthly budget cap. Google may spend up to twice your daily budget on high-opportunity days and less on slower days. The monthly total will not exceed 30.4 times your daily budget. Set your daily budget based on your actual monthly limit divided by 30.4.
Does Maximise Conversions need conversion tracking?
Yes, and accurate tracking is essential, because the strategy optimises entirely towards the conversions you report. Without reliable conversion tracking it has nothing meaningful to bid towards, so setting up and verifying tracking must come before using it.
What is the difference between Maximise Conversions and Maximise Conversion Value?
Maximise Conversions chases the greatest number of conversions within budget, treating each equally, which suits lead generation. Maximise Conversion Value chases the greatest total value, weighting higher-value conversions, which suits ecommerce where order sizes differ.