How it works
Maximize clicks is an automated bid strategy that adjusts maximum cost-per-click (CPC) and sets your bids to help get as many clicks as possible within your budget. Note that the Maximize clicks bid strategy doesn’t optimize towards impression share.
You can use Maximize clicks for a single campaign, or you can set it up as a portfolio bid strategy. Portfolio strategies group together multiple campaigns into a single strategy.
Maximum CPC bid limit
Maximum CPC (cost per click) allows you to set a cap on bids when using a Maximize clicks bid strategy. It lets you steer the maximum amount you're willing to pay for each click. If you don't enter a maximum CPC bid limit, Google Ads adjusts your bids to try to get you as many clicks as possible while spending your budget, and setting a maximum CPC bid limit can help you to control costs if you find your CPCs are higher than desired.
Instructions
Step 1: Set up a "maximize clicks" bid strategy in your account
- Go to Bid strategies within the Tools menu
.
- To create a bid strategy, select the plus icon
, then select the Maximize Clicks bid strategy. Configure your bid strategy based on the options available for Maximize Clicks.
Step 2: Apply the bid strategy to your campaign
Learn how to apply a bid strategy to your campaign.
Implementation Tips
- Setting maximum bids: Maximize Clicks will adjust your bids to deliver the maximum clicks for your budget. You can ensure that you never pay more than what you’re comfortable with for a click by setting a CPC bid limit. Note that if your CPC bid limits are too low, your bid strategy might not be able to help you achieve your goal.
- Adjusting Maximize Clicks for mobile devices: When Maximize Clicks raises and lowers your bids, it doesn't take into account differences between clicks from mobile devices and clicks from desktop or tablet devices. Since the conversion rate for mobile devices is often different than for desktop and tablet devices, you might want to set a mobile bid adjustment to gain better control over when your ads appear on mobile. Maximize Clicks will incorporate your mobile bid adjustment along with its own bid adjustments.
Monitor performance
Once you apply the Maximize Clicks bid strategy to your campaign, you can start to monitor the bid strategy's performance. Here are some tips for monitoring performance:
- Look at the number of clicks to verify you’re getting more clicks for your budget than before. Note, however, that a before-and-after comparison isn’t the most accurate since clicks can naturally fluctuate over time.
- Make sure that you have enough data to evaluate the strategy’s performance. Ideally, you'd give the strategy a few days or weeks to start performing.
- Consider that a number of factors may affect your results over a period of time. For example, the number of clicks you can get with your budget can be affected by holidays, weekends, special events, changes to your product data, and your competitors in the auction.
- Consider your click share. If your click share is very high, you may be getting all the possible traffic and the Maximize Clicks bid strategy might not bring you significantly more traffic.
