Bidding & Budgets
Target CPA (tCPA)
Target CPA is a Smart Bidding strategy that sets bids to generate as many conversions as possible at or near an average cost per conversion you specify.
In practice
Target CPA is the lead-generation counterpart to Target ROAS. You define what a conversion is worth paying for, and Google bids up or down in each auction based on its predicted conversion probability. It works well when the conversion action is a real business event, such as a qualified call or a booked appointment, and poorly when the conversion is a page view or an unfiltered form submission, because the algorithm will find the cheapest version of whatever you told it to find.
Tightening the target means setting a lower number, which reduces volume; loosening it means a higher number. Change it in small steps and give the campaign at least a week between changes. If the campaign has fewer than about 30 conversions a month, Maximize Conversions without a target, or manual bidding, usually outperforms tCPA because there is not enough signal to predict from.
Pair tCPA with offline conversion import wherever the sale closes after the click, so the target is set against real customers.
Why it matters
It directly controls the trade-off between lead volume and lead cost, and it optimizes toward whatever conversion definition you give it.
RELATED TERMS
Smart Bidding
Smart Bidding is Google's set of automated, conversion-based bid strategies (Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value) that set auction-time bids using machine learning signals.
Conversion Action
A conversion action is a defined event in Google Ads (purchase, form submission, call, sign-up) that the account counts as a valuable outcome and that Smart Bidding optimizes toward when set as primary.
Offline Conversion Import
Offline conversion import uploads events that happen after the click, such as qualified leads, booked appointments, or closed deals, back into Google Ads or Meta, matched to the original click so bidding can optimize toward them.
Written by Ilya Bulychev, Founder, Live PPC Ads. Part of the PPC Glossary.
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