I use conversion-based bidding for many of the lead-generation campaigns I manage, including campaigns with limited conversion history. Before choosing it, I check what the account counts as a conversion and whether that outcome is useful to the business.
I have also had campaigns where Manual CPC was the more practical choice. The decision depends on the tracking, budget, objective, and information available to evaluate results.
What changed my approach
I moved two campaigns that were generating fewer than 15 conversions a month to Manual CPC and left them there for a month. Conversions fell in both. After I moved them back to Maximize Conversions, conversion volume recovered.
That experience made me less willing to treat a low conversion count as an automatic reason to choose Manual CPC. It was a before-and-after observation in two accounts, not a controlled experiment. It does not isolate the effect of the bid strategy from every other factor in those periods.
I have since started new campaigns with Maximize Conversions as well. I judge that choice using the outcomes the business receives, rather than assuming the strategy that delivers cheaper clicks must be better.
What each strategy is trying to do
Manual CPC gives you direct control over click bids. Maximize Clicks aims to get clicks within the budget. Neither objective, on its own, selects for the lead outcome your sales team wants.
Maximize Conversions uses conversion data to set bids. It also aims to spend the available budget. If a campaign currently spends much less than its budget, switching can increase spend substantially. Google's Maximize Conversions guidance.
That does not mean Manual CPC only buys poor traffic, or that Maximize Conversions only buys good leads. If the conversion action fires for an irrelevant enquiry or an incomplete form, conversion-based bidding is still being asked to optimize that event.
What I check before switching
The conversion definition. I test the trigger and inspect recent leads. A phone-button click, a completed enquiry, and a qualified opportunity should not be treated as interchangeable. I check campaign goals as well as the action's Primary or Secondary setting.
The budget. I make sure the business can afford the budget the strategy is intended to spend. A target cost per acquisition also needs to be considered against the account's actual results and economics.
The delay. If an enquiry takes weeks to become qualified or a sale takes months, yesterday's cost and today's revenue are not a fair comparison. I record the normal delay and evaluate completed periods.
The comparison metric. I write down the current spend, conversion definition, qualified-lead count, and cost per qualified lead. If I change several campaign settings at once, I cannot confidently attribute the resulting change to bidding alone.
There is no useful universal rule that every campaign must reach exactly 15 conversions before using Maximize Conversions. Check the requirements of the particular strategy and campaign type. Eligibility to select a strategy is also different from having enough evidence to judge whether it is helping.
Google began changing some bid-strategy labels in June 2026, including how Target CPA and Target ROAS appear. The underlying behavior is unchanged by those naming updates, so check the actual objective and target rather than relying on an old screenshot.
Give bidding a business outcome you can trust
If you can identify qualified leads consistently and report them promptly, consider using that outcome for bidding. If you can supply reliable values, value-based bidding may be appropriate. Assigning the same arbitrary value to every enquiry does not tell Google which leads became better customers.
For website forms, I built FormTrackr to help manage attribution and offline uploads. The definition of a useful lead still comes from the business and its follow-up process.
Before the next switch, record the settings, the outcome you want to improve, and the period you will evaluate after allowing for conversion delay. Then compare the business results with the earlier setup.