I recently had a fascinating Google Ads coaching call with Juliet. She manages Google Ads for multiple clients in a highly restricted industry where, for years, their legal departments had a standing order: No conversion tracking. Period.
Can you imagine? Juliet had to fly blind, managing hundreds of campaigns manually. She had to focus entirely on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page), and had become a master of manual control. Neither she nor her clients knew what was working in Google Ads, or what wasn't, beyond the click.
But the winds changed. Legal finally gave the green light, and Juliet wasn't about to just turn on basic tracking; she would soon be implementing full Offline Conversion Tracking (OCT) with an approved vendor.
Juliet was excited, but also nervous. When you’ve spent years holding the reins tight, how do you trust an algorithm to assist you? That's why she booked the call with me, and here's what I said...
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Since she was about to completely change the data foundation of all of her clients' accounts, she needed a repeatable framework to guide the transition. I put together this strategy for her:
Step 1: Set your conversion actions
Don't bid on everything at once. Set up all the relevant conversion actions (form fill, phone call, qualified lead, appointment booked, etc.) in your Google Ads account, then decide what you'd like to start with as your Primary action. Set everything else as Secondary.
Step 2: Conversions must earn Primary status
This is the most important part of the framework: Data must earn its spot as a Primary conversion action. Many people try to optimize for "Qualified Leads" or "Closed Deals" immediately, but if that data is too sparse or takes months to flow back into the system, the algorithm will starve. Generally, you want a conversion action to be getting about 30 conversions in 30 days at the campaign / bid strategy level before "promoting" it to Primary.
For Juliet, given expected conversion volume and conversion lag dynamics, we decided to start with "Appointment Booked" as Primary, and everything else as Secondary. This will allow Juliet to see that "human" engagement data in her reports, while keeping the bidding algorithm focused on appointments. But Juliet works with relatively high volume accounts; for many clients I work with, it makes more sense to start with a shallower conversion action like "Qualified Lead" first.
Step 3: "Target" as quickly as possible
Once your conversion actions and goals are in place, switch the campaign bid strategies to Maximize Conversions. Then, once your conversion volume hits that 30-in-30 threshold, switch from Maximize Conversions to Target CPA (tCPA).
If you're never going to hit that threshhold, use a Portfolio Bid Strategy to group your campaigns together, so they share this new pool of conversion data. This is what I advised Juliet to do, since each individual campaign wasn't expected to generate more than 10 conversions per month.
An alternative? Keep your campaigns on their current manual bidding while the new conversion data flows in. After the first month, move straight to Target CPA based on the actual CPA numbers you're seeing. Juliet preferred this strategy, since it avoided an extra automation step (Maximize Conversions) in the learning process.
Step 4: Let Impression Share Guide You
Understandably, Juliet was using exclusively Exact Match and Phrase Match keywords. But once conversion tracking was in place and working, she was curious about how to safely test Broad Match. I advised her to watch her campaign-level Search Impression Share. Once it hit about 40%, with steady CPA, she could take that as a sign that her "guardrails" are working, and that it's time to scale into broader keywords.
With this step-by-step framework in place, Juliet will no longer be "managing a SERP." She'll be driving a well-oiled Google Ads machine!
If you’re finally getting your conversion tracking in order, like Juliet, here is how to transition from managing clicks to managing conversions:
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Audit your Conversion Goal Categories: Use Google’s specific labels (Lead, Qualified Lead, Customer) now. This makes your account easier for you - and Google! - to understand, and prepares you to test new features like "Journey Aware Bidding" when they become available.
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Respect the 30-in-30: Resist the urge to "optimize" based on three or four big sales, or 1 slow week. Wait for volume so that your bidding algorithm has a pattern to follow, not just a couple of outliers.
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"Best Practice" doesn't mean "best for you": In this edition, I shared a few examples of what I typically tell my clients, and what Juliet is going to do. These aren't always the same thing! Sometimes, the "usual way" isn't the most profitable way for you. It takes expertise and confidence to know when it's time to deviate.
Do you need a "Juliet Framework" for your business? Book a call with me, and we'll get your Google Ads working the way you need them to.
One more thing...
I'm on my way to Google's global headquarters right now for Google Marketing Live. Be sure you're following me on YouTube for the latest updates and news from the biggest Google Ads event of the year!
