We start every campaign on Maximize conversions. Even on day one, with no data.

The standard advice for a brand new Google Ads campaign goes like this: you have no conversion history, so the algorithm has nothing to learn from. Start on Maximize clicks, build up traffic and conversions, then switch to conversion bidding once you have enough data. Google's own help community suggests roughly 15 conversions in 30 days as a baseline before moving to Maximize conversions.

We don't do it that way. We start on Maximize conversions from day one, and we have yet to regret it.

The problem with building data first

The plan assumes the data you build on Maximize clicks is the data a conversion strategy needs. It isn't, quite.

Maximize clicks buys traffic selected to produce clicks cheaply. So the conversions you do record come from a traffic mix that was chosen for cheapness and volume, not for intent. You are not building a clean picture of who converts. You are building a picture of who converts among the people cheap clicks brought you. That is a different and less useful dataset.

Meanwhile, the whole early window, the period where the campaign is forming its habits, is spent optimizing toward an outcome you do not care about.

What each strategy is actually asking for

• Maximize clicks: "Here is my daily budget, get me as many clicks as you can." You are controlling quantity, not quality.
• Manual CPC: "Don't give me clicks above this price." A bid cap is also a quality cap, because you exclude yourself from the auctions where better buyers are.
• Maximize conversions: "Here is what a conversion is. Go and get as many as you can." You have to define the conversion, which is the useful discipline.

That last point matters more than the bidding. Choosing Maximize conversions forces the question most accounts skip: what actually counts? A form submission, a booked meeting, a qualified opportunity in the CRM? Pick the stage that matters commercially and send it back to Google as the conversion goal. The bid strategy is downstream of that decision.

The honest counter-argument

We should state the other side properly, because it is not unreasonable.

With very little conversion data, a conversion strategy has less to model on, so early delivery can be slow, expensive, and volatile. If your budget is small enough that a couple of bad weeks matters, that volatility is a real cost. Some practitioners would rather buy cheap traffic, gather signal, and switch. That is a defensible position and the volume threshold is a judgment call, not a rule.

Our answer is that a strategy pointed at the right outcome and learning slowly beats one pointed at the wrong outcome and performing beautifully. But you should expect a slower, bumpier start, and you should budget for the learning period rather than panicking in week one.

The threshold is real. The question is where you spend it.

Here is the part both sides of this argument usually get wrong. The conversion volume genuinely matters. A conversion strategy with almost nothing to model on really is worse than one with a few dozen conversions behind it, and we have never seen otherwise.

But that is an argument about how much data you have, not about which strategy you should be running while you gather it. You have to get to that volume either way. The only question is whether you accumulate it while the campaign is optimizing toward conversions, or while it is optimizing toward clicks.

What we see in accounts we start this way is a predictable shape: a genuinely expensive first week or two while there is nothing to learn from, then cost per conversion falling steeply as the first few dozen conversions land, then settling. The early weeks look bad enough that a nervous client will ask you to switch. Hold, if the tracking is sound. You are paying for the data either way, and this way it is the right data.

Where we do wait

Target ROAS and Target CPA are different. Those ask you to name a number, and a target set from thin data is a guess the algorithm will obey literally, which is exactly how a low target CPA starves a campaign. Maximize conversions asks for no target at all, which is precisely why it is safe to start there. Add targets once you have the volume to set them honestly.