Is your target ROAS starving your budget?
Under Google's revised target ROAS and bid strategy behaviour, an over-ambitious target quietly stops the campaign from entering auctions. Model the max CPC your target implies, the break-even floor, and how much spend will actually deliver. Nothing leaves your browser.
Pull current ROAS, AOV and conversion rate from the last 28 days at the campaign level — blended account numbers hide the campaign that is actually starving.
The max CPC this target implies is far below what you currently pay per click. In practice the campaign stops entering most auctions: volume collapses, learning resets, and reported ROAS improves only because spend disappeared.
Next safe step: 4.48x. Move in 10–15% increments, hold each step for at least two conversion cycles, and never change target and budget in the same week — you lose the ability to attribute the result.
How to read these numbers
Revenue per click is the ceiling on what a click can ever be worth: average order value multiplied by conversion rate. Every bid decision is a fraction of that number.
Max CPC at your target is revenue per click divided by target ROAS. If it lands below the CPC you currently pay, the bid strategy has been instructed to buy clicks that the auction does not sell at that price — so it stops buying.
Break-even ROAS is the true floor. Anything below it loses money regardless of what the platform reports. Anything far above the ROAS your CPCs support trades volume for a flattering efficiency number.
The failure mode we see most in 2026 accounts: target raised, CPCs climb anyway on the auctions the campaign still enters, budgets go unspent, and revenue falls faster than cost. Fix the target first, then the feed, then the creative.
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