Bidding is the quietest layer in Google Ads, yet it decides, more directly than any other, how much business the same budget brings back. It does not concern itself with what your ad looks like or who it is shown to; it answers a single question: at each auction, how much are you willing to offer, and do you want Google to optimise towards clicks or towards conversions. For a small Vancouver business the payoff of getting this layer right is tangible. Get it wrong and the money is still charged per click while the orders barely move. Get it right and the same budget lands more often on the people who actually buy, rather than buying you a crowd of idle clicks. This article first builds the big picture of the bidding layer: which stage manual and automated each suit, and what each common strategy is chasing, so you can then follow what every specific bidding method is actually working out on your behalf.
Who is this article for? ❓
If you run a business in Vancouver, are already advertising on Google or about to, and have heard terms like "manual bidding", "Smart Bidding" and "Target CPA" without being clear on the difference, this is worth a few minutes. It will not walk you through setting bids in the account. Instead it gives you a judgement, "at my current stage, how much should I let Google automate, versus keep an eye on myself?", so you stop paying for clicks that never convert and can follow what whoever manages your ads is saying. If you have not yet decided whether to advertise at all, start with the overview piece in this series first.
First, be clear which layer bidding is
Google Ads is built in nested layers: the campaign (the ad "type") decides what form the ad takes and which channel it appears on; targeting decides who that ad is shown to; and bidding is a separate layer again, answering "how much to spend on this opportunity, and towards what goal". Each layer does its own job, so keep them apart: type and targeting decide whose screen the ad reaches, while bidding decides whether, in that unseen auction, you can afford the spot and whether it is worth competing for. A common misconception is to treat "a higher bid" as "a better ad". In reality a bid is only the ceiling you are willing to pay; whether you actually win, and at what price, is worked out by a live auction.
One detail of the hierarchy is worth remembering: the bid strategy is chosen at the campaign level (the whole campaign runs on manual or some automated strategy), while under manual mode you can set the ceiling right down to each ad group, or even each keyword. In other words, "which approach to use" is set at the campaign level, "how much to bid on a given word" is adjusted at the ad-group or keyword level.
What the auction looks like: you offer a ceiling, not a price
Every time someone searches, or opens a page that shows ads, Google holds an auction in that instant to decide whose ad appears and in what position. Winning is not down to the bid alone; ad quality and relevance count too, and even when you win, what you are actually charged is usually less than the ceiling you set. So the real question at this layer is never "how high should I bid?", but "which goal do I want the system to bid towards?": bringing in as many clicks as it can, as many conversions, or making sure your important terms always sit near the top. Around that goal, Google Ads' bidding strategies fall into roughly the following groups.
Grouped by goal: what each kind of bidding chases
1. Chasing clicks (more visitors)
If all you want right now is "to get more people to the website", say a new shop just gone live, with no conversion data to go on yet, you can use Maximize Clicks: within your budget, the system adjusts bids automatically to bring in as many clicks as it can. It does not sift for who will actually buy, so it suits getting started and building volume, but is not one to lean on long-term. The most traditional option, Manual CPC, also belongs here: you set the most you will pay per click yourself, for maximum control.
2. Chasing conversions (orders or leads, not just clicks)
Once you have conversion tracking in place, so Google can tell which clicks actually turned into an enquiry or an order, you can switch the goal from "clicks" to "conversions". This group is called Smart Bidding, which uses Google AI to price each auction in the moment, drawing on a wealth of signals. Two common ones. With Target CPA you say "I'll pay at most $X per enquiry", and the system gets as many conversions as it can within that line. With Maximize Conversions there is no cap on the cost of each, just as many conversions as possible within the budget. A note worth flagging: "paying for conversions" is shorthand. In most cases you are still charged per click; what changes is that the system optimises its bids towards conversions, rather than literally billing per sale.
3. Chasing conversion "value" (for businesses where order sizes vary widely)
Some businesses see orders of a few dozen dollars and others of a few thousand, and counting "how many orders" is no longer enough; what matters is "how much money came back". Target ROAS, common in e-commerce, has you set "how many dollars of sales each dollar of ad spend should return"; Maximize Conversion Value grows the total order value as much as the budget allows. Both are Smart Bidding strategies, and both likewise need conversion data (including value) to be in place first.
4. Chasing visibility (being seen, sitting near the top)
There is also a goal that is not immediate conversion but "on the terms that matter, my ad should always sit in the most prominent spot". Target Impression Share is built for exactly that: it adjusts bids automatically so your ad appears at the top of the page a set proportion of the time. If you want to be sure that anyone searching your brand name sees you first, this is the one you would reach for.
So, manual first or automated first?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but there is a clear dividing line: it hinges on whether you have "conversion data" yet. Smart Bidding is clever precisely because it learns from your conversion records; when an account is just starting out, has no conversion tracking, or has too few conversions, it has nothing to learn from, and Manual CPC is steadier: you hold the ceiling on each click yourself, and build up cost control and data first. Once conversion tracking is running smoothly and enough conversion history has accumulated, you move towards Smart Bidding such as Target CPA or Maximize Conversions, letting the system make the real-time, per-auction adjustments you could never make by hand, usually for a better result. That is the reasoning behind the common path of "start manual to control cost, switch to automated to chase conversions once you have data". (As for the old semi-automated "Enhanced CPC / eCPC", Google retired it for Search and Display campaigns from March 2025, so there is no need to dwell on it; the details are left to the dedicated piece in this series.)
Don't forget the person at the other end: how bidding changes what they see
Bidding is the one layer the customer never sees, yet it changes their experience all the same. Picture a resident who has just searched "Burnaby driving school": at that instant several driving schools are in the same auction. The one whose bid is sensible, and which has conversion tracking so the system recognises "people who tend to enrol", has a better chance of appearing right at the top of the results at the moment their intent is strongest, so the one they click is often you. A rival whose bid cannot keep up gets pushed to page two, where they may never scroll to it at all. For you it is "winning this opportunity"; for them it is "one search turning up an option that is right there locally and able to help". What this layer quietly decides is precisely "whether your ad appears in the spot that person is most likely to click".
Where this sits in your business
Bidding is the layer of marketing and customer acquisition that handles "how much to spend, and how to spend it well". It is one of three layers in the same game as ad type and targeting: type decides the form and where it shows, targeting decides who sees it, bidding decides how much you pay for each opportunity and towards what goal. And it works hand in glove with your website: bidding brings the right people to the door at a sensible cost, and the website catches them and turns clicks into real enquiries and orders (it is from there, too, that conversion tracking reads its data and feeds it back to Smart Bidding).
What happens if the bidding is wrong
Two kinds of misstep are common. One is handing it to automation too early: putting Smart Bidding on an account with hardly any conversion data, so the system has nothing to learn from and the money is spent in a fog. The other is picking the wrong goal: wanting orders but using a clicks-only strategy, so the clicks pour in while the enquiries barely do. This is often the real reason someone concludes "Google Ads burns money for nothing". The trouble usually lies not in the ads themselves, but in this layer's goal and stage not matching up.
When it is worth sorting your bidding out
A few common moments: you are just starting out and want to steady the cost rather than burn through it; you have conversion tracking in place and a stretch of conversion data behind you, and feel the system should be allocating the budget more cleverly; you find the clicks plentiful but the enquiries off, and suspect the goal is set wrong; or your budget is limited and you want every dollar to go, as far as possible, to "people who will convert". Meet any one of these, and it is worth thinking carefully about "how the bidding should work".
Leave this to 5U Website
Bidding may look like picking a strategy in the account, but the hard part is the judgement: "how much should I let Google automate right now, and should the goal be clicks, conversions or value?" Choose too early and the system cannot learn; choose wrong and the money goes with no orders to show. Our honest view, after years building websites and doing digital marketing for Vancouver businesses, is that most local service shops never need the fancier options at all. Target ROAS and Maximize Conversion Value are built for online stores that track a dollar value on every sale, and Target Impression Share is mainly for defending your own brand name; unless you run an e-commerce site or are fighting to stay top on a specific term, they are not where your money should go. For a typical local business chasing enquiries and bookings, we recommend the simple path: start on Manual CPC to control cost and gather data, then move to Target CPA or Maximize Conversions once you have enough conversions, and nothing more elaborate than that. What we do for clients is first make sure conversion tracking is set up correctly and the data reads true, then pick the bidding approach that suits your stage and goal, and keep adjusting as the data comes in, so the budget goes, as far as possible, to "people who will convert". If you are about to advertise, or have an account that has long shown no results, take a look at our website design and digital marketing services, or send an email describing your situation. We usually reply within one to two business days.
To see the whole approach more fully, read on: the overview of what Google Ads is and what it can do, the campaign types that decide "where it shows", the targeting methods that decide "who sees it", and the piece best suited to starting out, Manual CPC bidding.
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