How Maximize Conversions Works
Maximize Conversions is a fully automated Smart Bidding strategy in Google Ads. Instead of requiring a target cost-per-action, it simply aims to maximize the total number of conversions within your set daily budget. Google's algorithm sets bids dynamically at each auction based on predicted conversion probability, raising bids aggressively for high-probability opportunities and reducing bids where conversion likelihood is low. The campaign will spend its full budget regardless of whether conversion costs are high or low.
Why Maximize Conversions Matters for B2B Marketing
Maximize Conversions is the recommended starting strategy for new campaigns that lack sufficient conversion history for Target CPA (which requires ~30 conversions per month). It acts as a "data collection" phase — the algorithm learns from actual conversion events and builds signal for smarter strategies later. It's also useful for campaigns with unlimited budget objectives where the goal is pure volume, such as event registrations or content downloads with a fixed timeline.
Maximize Conversions: Best Practices & Strategic Application
The main risk of Maximize Conversions is cost inefficiency. Without a cost-per-action constraint, the algorithm may spend your budget on lower-quality conversions to fulfill its objective. For B2B advertisers, this can mean paying high CPAs for top-funnel form fills without any quality gating. The mitigation is to add a Target CPA constraint — converting the strategy to tCPA mode once you have 30+ conversions — or to optimize for a high-intent conversion action from the start.
Agency Perspective: Maximize Conversions in Practice
At MV3, we use Maximize Conversions as phase one of a three-step bidding progression: Maximize Conversions to build volume (weeks 1-4), Target CPA once conversion data is sufficient (weeks 5-12), and then Target ROAS or value-based tCPA with lead scores once downstream data is available. Skipping phase one and jumping to tCPA in new campaigns frequently causes under-delivery and stalled learning periods.
