Summary
Maximize conversion value is the strategy to use. It spends the whole daily budget and optimises for the largest total sales value, without applying any efficiency floor on individual clicks or conversions. The moment a return target matters, Target ROAS becomes the correct choice instead.
Nitin Batra is a Google Ads Search certified professional who runs value based Smart Bidding on live ecommerce accounts and manages conversion value tracking setups daily.
Last updated: August 22, 2026
A retailer who wants the highest total sales value within a fixed daily budget, without caring about the return on each individual dollar, should use the Maximize conversion value bidding strategy.
- Target ROAS
- Maximize conversion value
- Target CPA
- Maximize conversions
The correct answer is: Maximize conversion value
Key Takeaways
- – Maximize conversion value is the correct strategy when the goal is the highest total sales value within a fixed daily budget, with no concern for return on individual dollars.
- – The strategy spends the full daily budget by design, so the budget itself becomes the control lever rather than a CPA or ROAS target.
- – Value based bidding only works if the conversion action sends dynamic transaction values, otherwise the algorithm has nothing to optimise towards.
- – Adding a Target ROAS inside Maximize conversion value turns it into an efficiency strategy and it may then underspend the budget, which defeats the purpose in this scenario.
What is the difference between Maximize conversion value and Target ROAS?
Maximize conversion value chases the biggest total revenue the daily budget can buy and accepts whatever return that produces. Target ROAS holds the campaign to a specific revenue per rupee or dollar spent and will pull back on traffic that cannot meet it. Target ROAS is technically an optional setting inside Maximize conversion value, so it is the same engine with an efficiency constraint switched on.
Why is Maximize conversions wrong for this retailer?
Maximize conversions counts every conversion the same way, so a 500 rupee order and a 50,000 rupee order are treated as one conversion each. A retailer with varied order sizes would end up buying cheap, low value purchases. Maximize conversion value reads the actual revenue on each transaction and pushes budget towards the shoppers likely to spend more.
Do I need conversion values set up before switching to Maximize conversion value?
Yes. Go to Goals, then Conversions, then Summary, open the purchase conversion action and confirm the value setting is using different values for each conversion, with the transaction amount passed in the tag or through Google Analytics or the Merchant Center feed. If every conversion reports the same static value, Maximize conversion value behaves almost identically to Maximize conversions and you lose the whole benefit.
Will Maximize conversion value always spend the entire daily budget?
It aims to, and in most accounts with reasonable auction volume it will spend close to the full budget every day. Spend can fall short if the keywords are too narrow, the ads have low ad strength or the campaign has just launched and is still in the learning phase. Check the Status column and the campaign’s bid strategy report to see whether it is limited by search volume rather than by budget.