Summary
Define a proxy goal, such as a qualified lead, and assign it a value. A 90-day cycle produces too few closed deals for Smart Bidding to learn from, so a valued mid-funnel action gives the bidder daily signals. Keep the final sale as a secondary conversion and import offline data later to check the proxy still tracks real revenue.
Nitin Batra is a Google Ads Search certified professional who configures conversion actions, proxy goals and value-based Smart Bidding for long sales cycle lead generation accounts.
Last updated: August 22, 2026
- Wait for the final contract signature.
- Define a proxy goal, such as a qualified lead, and assign it a value.
- Switch to Target impression share to maintain visibility.
- Remove all conversion values and use Maximize clicks.
The correct answer is: Define a proxy goal, such as a qualified lead, and assign it a value.
Key Takeaways
- – Define a proxy goal such as a qualified lead and assign it a value so the bidder has daily conversion data to optimise on.
- – Create or edit the action under Goals, Conversions, Summary, mark it Primary, and set a value based on your close rate multiplied by average deal size.
- – Smart Bidding learns from conversion volume, not conversion importance, so a slow-firing bottom-funnel action starves the strategy no matter how valuable it is.
- – A proxy goal only works if it correlates with revenue. Picking a soft action like a page view or newsletter signup teaches the bidder to buy cheap, low-quality traffic.
How many conversions does Smart Bidding need per month to work properly?
Google’s guidance is roughly 30 conversions in the past 30 days for Target CPA and around 15 for Target ROAS at campaign level, though more is always better. A 90-day sales cycle with a handful of closed deals a month will never reach that. That is exactly why a proxy goal is used, to lift daily conversion counts into a range the bidder can actually learn from.
Where do I assign a value to a conversion action in Google Ads?
Go to Goals, then Conversions, then Summary, click into the conversion action and open the Value section. You can use the same value for every conversion, use different values sent from your website or CRM, or choose not to use a value at all. For a proxy goal, a fixed estimated value works well until you have enough offline data to send dynamic values.
Should I remove the final sale conversion once I add a proxy goal?
No. Keep the closed deal as a conversion action but move it to Secondary so it still reports in the Conversions column view without being bid on. The qualified lead becomes the Primary action that Smart Bidding optimises towards. That way you can still measure true revenue and check whether the proxy is holding its correlation with closed business.
What happens if the proxy goal stops predicting revenue?
The bidder keeps buying more of the proxy while your pipeline quality drops, which is the classic failure mode for lead gen accounts. Review the proxy against closed-won data in your CRM every quarter and update the assigned value if the close rate or average deal size shifts. If the relationship breaks down, pick a deeper action such as a booked meeting or a sales-accepted lead and revalue it.
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