Summary
Setting the North Star by determining what the business values is the practitioner's main responsibility. The automation handles auction-time signal analysis and bid setting, which no human can match for speed or scale. Your value comes from defining the right conversion actions, feeding accurate conversion values and setting targets that reflect real business economics.
Nitin Batra is a Google Ads Search certified professional who configures conversion actions, value rules and Smart Bidding targets across live search accounts on a daily basis.
Last updated: August 22, 2026
In this partnership the practitioner’s main responsibility is setting the North Star by determining what the business values, defining the goals, conversion values and targets that Google’s automation then executes against in every auction.
- Setting the North Star by determining what the business values.
- Analyzing every signal present at auction time.
- Manually setting the cost of a click for every keyword.
- Updating bids for specific ad groups daily.
The correct answer is: Setting the North Star by determining what the business values.
Key Takeaways
- – The practitioner’s main responsibility is setting the North Star by determining what the business values, not managing bids at the keyword level.
- – You express that North Star through primary conversion actions, accurate conversion values and the target CPA or target ROAS on the bid strategy.
- – Analysing auction-time signals and setting individual click costs is execution work that Smart Bidding handles far faster than any human can.
- – The common mistake is passing a single flat value for every conversion, which pushes automation towards volume of cheap, low quality leads instead of profit.
Where do I actually define what the business values inside Google Ads?
Start at Goals > Conversions > Summary and decide which actions are primary, because only primary actions are bid towards. Then make sure each action carries a real value, either passed dynamically from the site or set as a default in the conversion action settings. Finally set your target CPA or target ROAS on the bid strategy so the system knows what an acceptable trade-off looks like.
What are conversion value rules and when should I use them?
Conversion value rules sit under Goals > Conversions > Settings and let you adjust the value of a conversion based on device, location, audience or a combination of these. They are useful when a lead from Mumbai is genuinely worth more than a lead from a low intent region, or when new customers carry more lifetime value than returning ones. They change what the bidding system optimises towards without you touching a single bid.
If the practitioner is not setting bids, is there still manual work to do?
Plenty, it is just different work. You are auditing conversion tracking accuracy, importing offline conversions and qualified lead values from the CRM, reviewing search terms, managing budgets, testing creative and checking that targets still match business reality. The job moves from bid maintenance to input quality and strategy.
What happens if the targets or values I set are wrong?
The system will execute your wrong instruction very efficiently. Set a target ROAS far above what your account has ever achieved and delivery collapses, set a target CPA far too high and you overpay for volume you did not need. Review performance after the learning period, compare against your actual margin data, and adjust targets in steps rather than large jumps.