The Target CPA (tCPA) and Target ROAS (tROAS) Smart Bidding strategies will be bundled with the Maximize Conversions and Maximize Conversion Value bid strategies, respectively, Google announced Tuesday. Moving forward, Maximize Conversions will have an optional tCPA field, and Maximize Conversion Value will have an optional tROAS field.
tCPA and tROAS will remain available. New tCPA and tROAS bid strategies can still be created, but beginning later this year, advertisers will only see the updated options: Maximize Conversions with an optional tCPA and Maximize Conversion Value with an optional tROAS. Google will notify advertisers in advance before automatically switching their current tCPA and tROAS strategies to the new fields.
In February, Google published a soft announcement containing this same information on its Ads Developer Blog, but many PPC professionals misinterpreted this as Google sunsetting tCPA and tROAS. Under the new configuration, you can still optimize your bids like you would with tCPA and tROAS by filling in the optional fields under Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value.
What you should use. Aside from the settings you’ll be using once this update rolls out, not much is actually changing in terms of how bid management works. The table below shows the new settings that will be equivalent to the ones you might already be using now.
Why we care. While this change is really a surface-level tweak to Google Ads’ interface, being unaware of it may lead advertisers to think that the tCPA and tROAS strategies are no longer available or function differently than they’re used to. Additionally, it’s important for advertisers to understand how each Smart Bidding strategy works so that they can select the one that best aligns with their goals.
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