Bidding Strategies

Enhanced CPC vs Target ROAS: Retired Multiplier, Live Value Target

In short: Enhanced CPC scaled manual bids by conversion likelihood and is wound down on Search and Display. Target ROAS is the optional target field inside Maximize Conversion Value, constraining the ratio of revenue to spend. The gap is two steps wide: bid ownership goes away, and conversion values become a hard requirement.

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

Target ROAS

Bids automatically toward a chosen ratio of conversion value to ad spend, entered as a percentage in Google Ads.

It is the target field inside Maximize Conversion Value, and it only functions when your conversion values are accurate and varied. Google predicts value per auction and bids up where it expects payback. Raising the target reduces volume, and that trade is the mechanism rather than a defect. The common error is picking an aspirational number the account has never reached, which starves delivery outright.

Full definition

Side by side.

The differences that actually change what happens in your account.

	Enhanced CPC	Target ROAS
Status today	Retired on Search and Display.	Live, as a field inside Maximize Conversion Value.
What you enter	A max CPC that Google adjusted.	A percentage: conversion value divided by spend.
Data needed	Conversion tracking.	Conversion values that are accurate and genuinely varied.
Bid ceiling	Bounded by your base bid and the adjustment.	None on a standard campaign; the target and budget constrain instead.
Effect of tightening	Lower bids lost auctions outright.	A higher target makes the bidder decline auctions below the required return.
Reporting yardstick	CPC, clicks, cost per conversion.	Conversion value and return over a full conversion window.

What actually separates them.

eCPC judged auctions by whether a conversion would occur; target ROAS judges them by how much revenue is expected relative to cost.

Target ROAS cannot exist without Maximize Conversion Value, so there is no path that keeps manual bids and adds a return target.

Value bidding will pay multiples of your old base bid on auctions predicted to be lucrative, which eCPC's bounded adjustment could never do.

A flat hard-coded conversion value makes target ROAS meaningless, whereas eCPC worked fine with valueless conversion actions.

Raising the target reduces volume by design, and that trade has no analogue in an eCPC campaign where volume was governed by bids and budget.

Which one should you use?

Use Enhanced CPC when

Interpreting historical data from before the wind-down.
Auditing plans or dashboards still referencing eCPC.
Explaining why a campaign's strategy label changed on its own.
Not a live option on Search or Display.

Use Target ROAS when

Real transaction values reach the account with each purchase and vary widely.
You can compute break-even return and want a floor above it enforced per auction.
The account already has a stable achieved return you can anchor the target near.
Revenue, not lead count, is the number you are accountable for.

Common questions.

Can I translate my old eCPC bids into a target ROAS?

Not directly, because they measure different things. Derive the target from what the account has achieved: total conversion value divided by spend over a recent representative window. A target built from bid math or from a margin target the account has never hit will decline most auctions, which reads as a delivery collapse rather than an efficiency gain.

Should I go through Maximize Conversion Value without a target first?

Usually yes. Running unconstrained lets you see the return the campaign produces once it spends the budget properly, which eCPC campaigns often did not. That observed figure is a far better anchor for the target than anything derived from the eCPC period, where spend was bounded by conservative base bids.

What has to be fixed in tracking before this migration?

Values must be real transaction amounts rather than a single placeholder, currency must be correct, duplicate and test conversions must be excluded, and the conversion window must be long enough to credit purchases that complete days after the click. eCPC tolerated sloppy values because it never read them; target ROAS reads nothing else.

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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