Today, I’m ranking every Google Ads bid strategy from best to worst on my own custom tier list. This is going to be a walk through all the bid strategies, ranked from S tier (the best) down to 💩 tier, based on how powerful, profitable, and useful they are.
If you'd rather watch this blog post as a video, click here.
S-Tier: The Best Google Ads Bid Strategies
The first strategy I’ve placed in S-tier is Target ROAS (or tROAS for short).
Google calls it "Maximise Conversion Value with Target ROAS," but we’ll stick with the much simpler tROAS. This bid strategy is a must-have for ecommerce businesses. It optimises your campaigns for revenue, ensuring you get the most return on ad spend (ROAS).
What makes it S-tier?
It's the closest you can get to a strategy that aligns with your actual business goals — maximising revenue at a given Return On As Spend (ROAS)! When set up correctly, it’s incredibly effective at driving profitable growth.
However, there’s a catch.
It’s only great if you’ve got solid data. If your conversion tracking isn’t up to scratch or if you’re not tracking revenue properly in Google Ads, tROAS won’t be the best fit for you. You also need a decent volume of conversions (around 50 per month or more) for Google’s algorithm to work its magic.
Next up in S-tier is Target CPA (tCPA).
While tROAS is a top pick for ecommerce, tCPA is the king for lead gen. It focuses on getting you the best cost per lead. Like tROAS, tCPA requires good data, but it only needs about 30 conversions per month to really shine.
A-Tier: Almost Perfect, But Not Quite
Here, I’ve ranked Maximise Conversion Value and Maximise Conversions.
Both are great options when you're starting a new campaign and/or don’t have enough data to use tROAS or tCPA.
The beauty of these strategies is that they still let you control things like ROAS and CPA indirectly.
For Maximise Conversion Value, Google will aim to spend your daily budget in a way that gets you the most revenue possible. In order to indirectly control ROAS, if you want ROAS to go up then decrease your daily budget (and vice versa).
And for Maximise Conversions, it focuses on driving as many conversions as possible for your budget. In order to indirectly control CPA, if you want CPA to go down then make your daily budget go down (and vice versa).
So, why aren’t they S-tier?
Well, they don’t provide the same level of control and reliability as tROAS or tCPA. But they’re excellent for ramping up new campaigns until you hit the data thresholds needed for the more advanced strategies.
B-Tier: Reliable But Niche
B-tier strategies have their place but aren’t as universally applicable as the ones above. Maximise Clicks is one of these.
This strategy is great for starter campaigns when you want to drive traffic to gather data, but the goal is still to switch to a Smart (conversion focused) bid strategy once you have enough conversion data.
Another one in B-tier is Enhanced CPC (ECPC).
ECPC lets you manually set your bids but allows Google to increase them when it thinks a click is more likely to result in a conversion. While not as effective as the smart bidding options, it can outperform manual CPC if you have decent conversion data coming in.
Manual CPC also sits here.
These days, manual bidding is fairly niche. AI-driven strategies are just better at optimising bids for most businesses. But, in certain cases—like when your tracking is broken or your business operates on very low conversion volumes—it still has its uses.
C-Tier: Approach With Caution
Now we’re getting into the less effective strategies.
Target Impression Share is one of those. It can work well in very specific cases, like brand campaigns or a “buy the market” strategy, where you want to dominate certain keywords for visibility, even if it’s not the most cost-effective. But for most advertisers, this one is a money-drain.
💩Tier: Just Avoid These
At the bottom, we have Viewable CPM and Cost per View (CPV).
These are manual bidding strategies for the Google Display Network and YouTube, respectively. While they sound cheap, they often end up wasting your budget without driving real conversions.
You’re better off using Maximise Conversions or Target CPA for YouTube and Display campaigns if you care about ROI and are tracking conversions.
And that’s my Google Ads bid strategy tier list! Hope you enjoyed it.
Conclusion
In this tier list, we’ve covered the full spectrum of Google Ads bid strategies, from the powerful, revenue-optimising Target ROAS to the inefficient manual strategies like CPV and Viewable CPM. For most ecommerce advertisers, sticking with Target ROAS or Maximise Conversion Value is the best approach, while lead gen advertisers will find more value with Target CPA or Maximise Conversions. If you’re just starting out or don’t have enough data, use Maximise Clicks to gather traffic and build up data before switching to a Smart (conversion focused) bid strategy. Avoid manual bidding strategies unless your situation is particularly niche and you know what you are doing.