Just like the Maximize Clicks bid strategy can lead to low-quality traffic, the Maximize Conversions bid strategy can sometimes bring in low-quality leads—especially if you’re tracking form submissions and phone calls as your primary conversions.

This doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it’s because Google Ads treats all conversions equally. Since it doesn’t inherently know which leads are valuable, it assumes every conversion is a good one. If spam or unqualified leads are easier to generate, Google may start optimizing for them, creating a negative feedback loop.

If you notice this happening, the best solution is to set up offline conversion tracking (OCT) and track marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) or actual sales as your primary conversion instead of form submissions and calls. This provides Google’s bidding algorithm with a higher-quality signal, allowing Maximize Conversions to optimize for leads that are more likely to convert into revenue.

And since your conversions now have assigned sales values, you can also take advantage of other bid strategies like Maximize Conversion Value or Target ROAS to further improve campaign performance.

By refining what you track as a conversion, you help Google Ads work smarter—leading to higher-quality leads and better results for your business.

We go more in-depth on this topic in our course Google Ad Lead Quality Mastery!