What bidding strategy is best for lead generation?

Choose the “best” lead-gen bidding strategy by defining what a “lead” really is

In lead generation, the best bidding strategy isn’t a single setting you apply everywhere—it’s the strategy that optimizes toward the right conversion at the right stage of your funnel. If you tell the platform to optimize for “any form submit,” it will usually find you more form submits. If you tell it to optimize for “qualified leads” (or higher-value leads), it will usually trade some volume for better quality—often improving ROI even when cost per lead rises.

The critical nuance: automated bidding only learns from the conversions you allow it to use for bidding. That’s why lead-gen accounts rise or fall on conversion configuration more than any bidding toggle. Conversion actions can be set as primary (used for bidding and shown in the main Conversions column when the goal is used) or secondary (not used for bidding and typically shown under All conversions).

Get conversion goals and “Primary vs Secondary” right before you judge bidding performance

If you’re running lead-gen across multiple campaigns, align campaigns to the right conversion goals and ensure the specific conversion actions you want to optimize toward are set to Primary. For a campaign to use a conversion action for bidding, the action must be Primary and the campaign must be set to use the goal that contains it.

One advanced “gotcha” worth knowing: if you build a custom goal and include a conversion action marked as Secondary, it can still end up being used for bidding when that custom goal is applied to a campaign. That’s great when intentional, and painful when accidental.

If you use on-platform lead forms, understand what is (and isn’t) counted

If you’re using lead form assets, openings of the form are counted as clicks, while actual submissions are counted as conversions (and the lead form conversion action is created automatically when the first submission happens). This matters when you’re comparing click-through performance versus true lead volume, or when you see “clicks” rise without a proportional lift in leads.

What bidding strategy is best for lead generation? A practical decision framework

For most lead-generation advertisers who have conversion tracking working properly, the best default is Maximize conversions, and then (once performance is stable) add an optional Target CPA to control efficiency. In Search, “Target CPA” behavior is effectively the same as Maximize conversions with a target set, and the interface has been organized around those “maximize” strategies with optional targets.

Best default for lead gen: Maximize conversions (then add an optional Target CPA)

Use Maximize conversions when you want the system to spend your budget in a way that produces the most leads possible. When you add an optional Target CPA, the system aims to get as many conversions as possible while steering toward your average CPA goal; setting the target too low can reduce volume by filtering out auctions that could have converted.

In practice, I recommend Maximize conversions without a target when you’re early (you’re still learning what a realistic CPA is), and Maximize conversions with a target once you have enough conversion volume to know what “good” looks like. The goal isn’t to force your dream CPA on day one; it’s to gradually shape efficiency while protecting learning and volume.

Best for lead quality and ROI: Maximize conversion value (then add an optional Target ROAS)

If lead quality varies a lot (common in B2B, legal, home services, education, and high-ticket medical), you’ll often outgrow “one lead = one conversion.” That’s when value-based bidding tends to win: you assign values (real or proxy, like lead score) and bid to maximize total value, not just raw lead count.

To do this well, you need conversion values that reflect lead quality and you need to feed that value signal back consistently. A strong rule of thumb is to optimize to a single funnel stage with a relatively short delay, maintain at least a baseline level of conversion volume, and keep value reporting meaningful (not everything valued the same).

When you’re short on data: Maximize clicks (or Manual CPC) as a temporary ramp strategy

If you have no reliable conversion tracking yet, conversion-based bidding can’t do its job. In that case, Maximize clicks can be a pragmatic short-term strategy to drive enough traffic to validate keywords, landing pages, and tracking—then graduate into Maximize conversions once you start collecting conversions consistently.

Manual CPC can also be useful temporarily when you need strict control (for example, limited budgets, very spiky CPC markets, or when fixing tracking), but it usually underperforms Smart Bidding once conversions are flowing—because conversion-based strategies set bids per auction using real-time signals, while manual bidding can’t react with that same granularity.

Also note a major operational change: Enhanced CPC was removed for Search and Display campaigns starting the week of March 31, 2025, and campaigns not migrated off it effectively moved to Manual CPC. If you previously used Enhanced CPC as your “bridge” from manual bidding to Smart Bidding, that bridge is gone—so plan a more direct move to Maximize conversions or value-based bidding once measurement is solid.

How to maximize ROI with Target CPA and value-based bidding (without wrecking volume)

Stabilize first, then constrain: how to set a Target CPA that doesn’t choke delivery

The biggest mistake I see with Target CPA is trying to “buy” a CPA by setting a target far below recent reality. When the target is too low, the system will avoid auctions that could have produced conversions, and you’ll often see volume drop first—sometimes dramatically—before efficiency improves (if it improves at all).

A more reliable approach is to let Maximize conversions establish a performance baseline, then introduce a Target CPA close to your recent average and tighten gradually. If you need faster learning, focus on improving conversion rate (landing page, offer, form friction, call handling) rather than forcing the bidder into unrealistic constraints.

Upgrade from “leads” to “qualified leads” using offline signals and enhanced conversions for leads

If your CRM tells you which leads become qualified, booked, or closed, you can import those outcomes so bidding optimizes toward what you actually want. An upgraded approach is enhanced conversions for leads, which supplements imported lead outcomes with hashed first-party user-provided data to improve attribution and measurement durability, and it’s generally recommended over legacy offline conversion imports for new setups.

Two operational details matter a lot for lead gen teams. First, uploads have timing limits: offline conversions uploaded more than 90 days after the associated last click won’t import, and enhanced conversions for leads has a shorter window (63 days). Second, consistency matters: frequent uploads (ideally daily) help the system learn from fresh outcomes instead of stale batches.

Most critical diagnostic checklist when lead-gen bidding “isn’t working”

 
• Confirm the campaign is optimizing to the right goal and the intended conversion action is marked Primary (and not accidentally sidelined as Secondary).
 
• Check whether you’re optimizing to quantity or value: if lead quality varies, consider assigning values (lead score/proxy value) and moving to Maximize conversion value with an optional Target ROAS.
 
• Validate conversion upload freshness if you’re using offline outcomes: late or inconsistent uploads weaken bidding feedback loops, and very late uploads may not import at all.
 
• Don’t fight Smart Bidding with manual bid adjustments: conversion-based strategies don’t require manual bid adjustments, and some manual adjustments aren’t supported in the way people assume.

If you want one “best answer” that works for the widest range of lead-gen accounts: start with Maximize conversions, clean up your conversion goals so the campaign bids only on true business outcomes, then graduate to an optional Target CPA for efficiency control. When lead quality differs meaningfully, shift to Maximize conversion value and feed the system values (lead scoring and offline qualification) so it can optimize for ROI instead of raw lead count.

If you’re weighing bidding strategies for lead generation, the “best” choice usually comes down to whether your conversion tracking and goals are clean enough to let Smart Bidding learn from the right signals: many teams start with Maximize Conversions (and only add a Target CPA once they have a stable baseline), then graduate to Maximize Conversion Value when they can pass meaningful lead values or offline qualification back into Google Ads. If you want a lighter way to operationalize that process, Blobr connects to your Google Ads account and uses specialized AI agents to continuously check what you’re optimizing for, surface wasted spend, and propose concrete improvements—like tightening keyword-to-landing-page alignment with the Keyword Landing Optimizer or refreshing underperforming RSAs with the Headlines Enhancer—so your bidding strategy isn’t fighting misconfigured conversions, mismatched intent, or stale ads.