Bidding Strategies

Target CPA vs Maximize Clicks: Cost Per Conversion or Traffic

In short: Maximize Clicks buys the cheapest clicks inside your budget and never asks what happens next. Target CPA is a field inside Maximize Conversions that holds an average cost per conversion, declining auctions predicted to cost more. One is a volume purchase with a price ceiling, the other is an outcome purchase with a cost constraint.

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

Maximize Clicks

Automated Google strategy that spends the available budget to buy as many clicks as possible, optionally bounded by a maximum CPC limit.

Google buys the cheapest clicks it can find within your budget, which is why it drifts toward wide, low-intent queries when match types are loose. It is genuinely useful on new campaigns with no conversion history, for traffic goals, and as a temporary way to gather data. Always set the max CPC limit; without one, the strategy will pay whatever a single expensive term happens to cost.

Full definition

Target CPA

Bids automatically toward a chosen average cost per conversion, letting individual conversions land above or below that number.

It now lives as a target field inside Maximize Conversions rather than a standalone strategy. Google bids up on auctions it expects to convert near your target and backs off elsewhere, so a target far below recent actual CPA simply throttles volume. Set it close to what the account already achieves, then move it in increments and let the learning period settle before judging the outcome.

Full definition

Side by side.

The differences that actually change what happens in your account.

	Maximize Clicks	Target CPA
What you enter	An optional maximum CPC limit.	An average cost per conversion you want held.
Conversion tracking	Not used.	Required, and it must count the action the business values.
Where it lives	A standalone bid strategy.	A target field inside Maximize Conversions.
Traffic tendency	Widest and cheapest queries available.	Queries with conversion history or predicted intent.
Effect of tightening	A lower CPC limit reduces eligible auctions and slows delivery.	A lower target makes the bidder skip auctions, so volume falls before unit cost does.
Failure mode	No CPC limit, so one costly term absorbs the day.	A target below what the account has ever achieved, which throttles delivery.

What actually separates them.

Maximize Clicks constrains the price of an input; a target CPA constrains the price of an outcome and lets click price float to reach it.

A target CPA cannot be applied without Maximize Conversions, so there is no way to keep click buying and add a cost per conversion target.

Maximize Clicks needs no conversion data at all, which is precisely why it is the reasonable choice on a campaign that cannot yet support a target.

Because a target CPA is an average, individual conversions land above and below it, whereas a CPC limit is a hard per click ceiling.

Loose match types are far more dangerous under Maximize Clicks, since the strategy actively seeks the cheap queries a conversion bidder would decline.

Which one should you use?

Use Maximize Clicks when

No conversion history exists yet and the campaign needs traffic to create some.
Conversion tracking is not installed or not yet verified.
The goal is genuinely sessions rather than leads or sales.
You are validating landing pages and need volume through them quickly.

Use Target CPA when

Conversions arrive steadily and tracking has been verified end to end.
You have an achieved cost per conversion from history to anchor a target to.
Finance judges the campaign on cost per lead or cost per sale.
Cheap clicks have already been shown not to convert.

Common questions.

Can I run Maximize Clicks first and then set a target CPA?

Not directly. You move the campaign to Maximize Conversions, let it run long enough to see the cost per conversion it naturally produces, then enter a target near that number. Setting a target derived from the Maximize Clicks period is misleading, because that traffic mix was selected for cheapness rather than for conversion likelihood.

My cost per conversion looks fine on Maximize Clicks. Why change?

Because the strategy is not defending that number and nothing stops it drifting. It buys whatever is cheap this week, so a favorable CPA is incidental rather than maintained. A target CPA makes the constraint explicit and lets the bidder pay more for the auctions that actually convert instead of avoiding them on price.

Does a max CPC limit work like a target CPA?

No. A CPC limit caps what a single click can cost and says nothing about how many clicks it takes to produce a conversion. A target CPA governs the ratio. A campaign can sit comfortably under a CPC limit while producing a cost per conversion several times what the business can afford.

Or stop choosing between them.

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