Bidding Strategies

Enhanced CPC vs Maximize Conversion Value: Count or Revenue

In short: Enhanced CPC scaled manual bids by conversion likelihood and is retired on Search and Display. Maximize Conversion Value bids on predicted revenue rather than predicted conversion, so it will pay well above any bid you would have entered for an auction it expects to produce a large order. Migration requires real conversion values.

By the AdFlint research team · Fact-checked against current Google and Meta platform behavior · Last reviewed July 2026

Enhanced CPC

Legacy Google setting that raised or lowered manual bids at auction time based on conversion likelihood, now retired for Search and Display.

eCPC sat between manual and fully automated bidding, nudging your max CPC on each auction. Google wound it down and moved Search and Display campaigns onto Manual CPC, so campaigns still labeled eCPC in older exports no longer receive the adjustment. If a strategy document still references it, the current equivalent is Maximize Conversions with or without a target CPA, not a manual bid with a multiplier.

Full definition

Maximize Conversion Value

Automated Google strategy that pursues the highest total conversion value within the budget, with an optional target ROAS to constrain efficiency.

It needs genuinely different values passed with your conversions, otherwise every conversion looks identical and it degenerates into Maximize Conversions. Ecommerce accounts and lead-gen accounts with scored leads use it to push toward high-value orders rather than cheap ones. The usual failure is a hard-coded value on the conversion action, which makes the value model meaningless while reports still display a confident ROAS figure.

Full definition

Side by side.

The differences that actually change what happens in your account.

	Enhanced CPC	Maximize Conversion Value
Status today	Retired for Search and Display.	Live and supported.
Signal used	Likelihood of a conversion happening.	Predicted value of the conversion.
Data required	Conversion tracking.	Conversion tracking with accurate, varied values attached.
Relationship to your bid	Scales it.	Replaces it entirely.
Efficiency control	The base bid you set.	An optional target ROAS field.
Treats conversions as	Interchangeable events worth chasing equally.	Different sized outcomes worth different prices.

What actually separates them.

eCPC weighted auctions by whether a conversion would happen; value bidding weights them by how much that conversion is worth, which reorders spend completely.

Value bidding needs a working value stream in conversion tracking, a data project that eCPC never required.

eCPC could not exceed the bounds implied by your base bid, whereas Maximize Conversion Value is free to bid far above your old number on high value auctions.

If every conversion carries the same hard-coded value, Maximize Conversion Value degrades into conversion counting and the migration gains you little.

Cost per conversion typically rises on value bidding, which is intended, so the eCPC era CPA benchmark stops being the right yardstick.

Which one should you use?

Use Enhanced CPC when

Analyzing historical data from campaigns that ran before the migration.
Auditing plans or dashboards that still list eCPC as the configured strategy.
Explaining a bidding label change nobody in the account made.
Not a live option; Search and Display campaigns were moved off it.

Use Maximize Conversion Value when

Transaction values arrive with each conversion and vary meaningfully.
Product margins or basket sizes differ enough that counting conversions hides the real result.
Offline imports supply scored lead values or closed deal amounts.
You are ready to be measured on revenue and return rather than cost per lead.

Common questions.

Is Maximize Conversion Value the natural replacement for eCPC?

Only for accounts with real conversion values. The closer behavioral match is Maximize Conversions, since eCPC weighted by conversion likelihood rather than by value. Move to value bidding when you can pass genuine transaction amounts, otherwise you are adopting a strategy whose main input is missing and reading a ROAS figure with nothing behind it.

Can I migrate straight from eCPC era manual bids to target ROAS?

Technically yes, but two changes land at once: auction-time bidding and a hard efficiency constraint. Safer is Maximize Conversion Value without a target first, so you can observe the return the campaign naturally produces, then add a target ROAS near that observed level and tighten in steps.

Why did conversion volume drop after switching?

Value bidding concentrates spend on fewer, larger conversions, so a falling count beside rising total value is the strategy working. If total value fell too, look at whether values are arriving correctly, whether the conversion window is long enough to credit late revenue, and whether a target ROAS was set above anything the account has achieved.

Or stop choosing between them.

AdFlint picks the setting, writes the ads, and keeps optimizing inside the Google and Meta accounts you already own.

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