About bid strategy statuses

Your bid strategy status calls attention to the state of your automated bid strategy at any given point in time. When checking your campaign performance, it’s helpful to review the status of your automated bid strategies to be sure they’re running as expected and help resolve any issues, as needed. This article describes what each bid strategy status means.

Before you begin

If you’re not using any automated bid strategies, read About automated bidding to see if any of them are right for you. If you don’t know where to find your bid strategy status, learn how to Find your bid strategy status.

Bid strategy statuses

Inactive

The bid strategy isn't active. Here are some reasons why a bid strategy might be inactive:

  • Campaigns are paused, or there are no campaigns attached to this bidding strategy.
  • All keywords or ads using this strategy are paused.
  • A prepaid budget has been spent.

Active

The bid strategy is active and setting bids to optimize performance. No changes are needed.

Learning

After you make a change to your bid strategy, there may be minor performance fluctuations as Google Ads optimizes your bids. To indicate this, a ‘Learning’ status may be shown. You can hover over the status to see which of the following 5 reasons your bid strategy currently has a "Learning" status.

New strategy

The bid strategy was recently created or reactivated. Google Ads is now adjusting to optimize your bids.

Setting change

A setting for the bid strategy was changed. Google Ads is now adjusting to optimize your bids.

Conversion setting change

You’ve recently set up or updated conversion tracking.

Conversion action setting change

You’ve recently added or removed a conversion action related to one of your bid strategies, changed the "Include in ‘Conversions'" setting, or changed your conversion “Count" setting.

Composition change

Campaigns, ad groups, or keywords have been added to or removed from the bid strategy. Google Ads is now adjusting to optimize your bids.

Next steps

Continue using your account as usual, but be mindful that key metrics may vary during this time, so you may not want to measure performance until the learning period is over.

Limited

Your bid strategy is limited by one of the following 5 factors. You can hover over the status to see which factor is limiting your bid strategy.

Inventory

Your bid strategies are limited by available search volume. Your ads are only eligible to show on a limited number of searches.

Next step

If your bid strategy is limited by inventory, you can expand your targeting by adding relevant keywords, Dynamic Search Ads, broad match keywords, or other forms of targeting.

Bid limits

Maximum and/or minimum bid limits are preventing your bids from being fully optimized.

For example, 95% of spend is limited by your maximum bid limit. This means that for 95% of spend, your bid strategy would have set a higher bid, but was prevented from doing so by the max bid limit.

Next step

If your bid strategy is not performing as well as you'd like, you may want to increase the maximum bid limit and/or decrease the minimum bid limit.

Low priority spend

The target spend for this bid strategy cannot be met. The budgets associated with this strategy may be depleted by other bid strategies or manual keyword bids.

Next steps

  • Increase the budgets associated with this strategy or lower your target spend.
  • You can also remove your target spend entirely. Google Ads will automatically adjust your spend to work with the remaining budget.

Learn how to Avoid a depleted average daily budget.

Budget constrained

Many of the keywords using this strategy are limited by budget. As a result, Google Ads may not be able to raise bids enough to meet your goals.

Next steps

  • Increase the budgets associated with this strategy.

Learn how to Avoid a depleted average daily budget.

Low Quality Score

Many of the keywords associated with this bid strategy have a low Quality Score. As a result, your ads may not be displayed often enough to meet your goals.

Next steps

  • Remove low quality keywords associated with this strategy.

Misconfigured (Maximize bid strategy with shared budget)

Maximize clicks bidding, Maximize conversion bidding, and Maximize conversion value bidding are automated bid strategies that help maximize your performance (clicks, conversions and conversion value) while spending the average daily budget. If these strategies share a budget with another bid strategy, your bid strategy status might show as misconfigured. To prevent this, all campaigns in the same shared budget should be utilizing the same portfolio bid strategy. Below is a list of where your misconfigured status might show up, and what you can do to resolve each issue.

Standard (campaign-level) bid strategy is misconfigured

If your standard bid strategy shows as misconfigured, it means that campaign shares a budget with campaigns that aren't all on the same portfolio bid strategy. To fix this, remove the shared budget from the campaign, or add all campaigns in the shared budget to a single portfolio bid strategy.

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. Go to the bid strategy report. Learn how to Find your bid strategy reports.
  3. Click Fix It.
  4. Fix It will bring you to the Campaigns table and automatically filter to all the campaigns in your shared budget.
  5. Select all your campaigns by checking the box at the top of the “Campaign column.”
  6. Click Edit, then select “Change bid strategy.”
  7. From the dropdown, add your campaigns to a single portfolio bid strategy by selecting either:
    • Maximize clicks
    • Maximize conversions
    • Maximize conversion value
  8. Click Use a portfolio strategy, then select “Create new portfolio strategy.” Set a name and options based on the strategy you have selected.
  9. Click Apply.
Note: There may be multiple shared budgets within a portfolio bid strategy, but all campaigns that have shared the same shared budget need to be using the same portfolio bid strategy.

Note: You can also choose to remove the shared budget from the campaign. Learn how to remove a shared budget.

Portfolio bid strategy is misconfigured

If your portfolio bid strategy shows as misconfigured, it means that your bid strategy shares budgets with campaigns using other bid strategies. You’ll need to remove those campaigns from their shared budgets, or add them to your portfolio bid strategy.

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. Go to the bid strategy report. Learn how to Find your bid strategy reports.
  3. Click Fix It.
  4. Fix It will bring you to the Campaign table and automatically filter to all campaigns in the shared budget.
  5. Select all your campaigns by checking the box at the top of the “Campaign column.”
  6. Click Edit, then select “Change bid strategy.”
  7. From the dropdown, add your campaigns to a single portfolio bid strategy by selecting either:
    • Maximize clicks
    • Maximize conversions
    • Maximize conversion value
  8. Click Use a portfolio strategy then select “Use existing portfolio strategy.” Select the original portfolio strategy that was marked ‘Misconfigured’.
  9. Click Apply.
Note: You can also choose to remove the shared budget from the campaign. Learn how to remove a shared budget.

Misconfigured (conversion setting)

Automated, conversion-based bid strategies--Target cost-per-action (CPA), Target return on ad spend (ROAS), or Maximize conversions, or Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC) with Search and Shopping campaigns -- use your conversion history to optimize bids with precision on each and every auction. But if you don’t have the right conversion actions set up, it could impact the accuracy of your strategy’s automated bids, limiting your conversions.

Below are a few reasons that your conversion tracking settings might be limiting the performance of your bid strategies and what you can do to resolve each issue.

Conversion tracking missing

Your bid strategy targets conversions, but you don’t have any conversion actions that your bid strategy can use.

Note: If you use cross-account conversion tracking and you’re having this issue, it'll need to be resolved in the Google Ads manager account.

Next steps

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to set up conversion tracking.

If you already have conversion tracking set up, then check the following settings to make sure your conversion data is available to your bid strategies:

Verify your conversion action is enabled

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. In the upper right corner of your account, click the tools icon , then under "Measurement," click Conversions.
  3. Find your conversion action in the list that appears, and select it. Check the status icon.
    • If your conversion action is enabled, it will be a green dot.
    • If your conversion action is removed, it will be a red X. To enable the conversion action, click Edit and choose Enable.

Verify the “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting is checked

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. In the upper right corner of your account, click the tools icon , then under "Measurement," click Conversions.
  3. Click the name of your conversion action, and find the “Include in ‘Conversions’” column.
    • If “Include in ‘Conversions’” is marked “Yes,” then no change is necessary.
    • If “Include in ‘Conversions’” is marked “No,” then you’ll need to change the setting to “Yes”.

Learn more About the “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting.

Missing app install conversion actions

Your bid strategy targets app installs, but you don’t have any conversion actions that your bid strategy can use.

Note: If you use cross-account conversion tracking and you’re having this issue, it'll need to be resolved in the Google Ads manager account.

Next steps

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to set up an app install conversion action for Android or iOS.

If you already have mobile app conversion tracking set up, then check the following settings to make sure your conversion data is available to your bid strategies:

Verify your conversion action is enabled

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. In the upper right corner of your account, click the tools icon , then under "Measurement," click Conversions.
  3. Select your conversion action and check its status.
    • If your conversion action is enabled, it will be a green dot.
    • If your conversion action is removed, it will be a red X. To enable the conversion action, click Edit and choose Enable.

Verify the “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting is checked

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. In the upper right corner of your account, click the tools icon , then under "Measurement," click Conversions.
  3. Click the name of your conversion action, and find the “Include in ‘Conversions’” column.
    • If “Include in ‘Conversions’” is marked “Yes,” then no change is necessary.
    • If “Include in ‘Conversions’” is marked “No,” then you’ll need to change the setting to “Yes”.

Learn more About the “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting.

Missing phone call conversion actions

Your bid strategy targets phone calls from ads, but you don’t have any conversion actions that your bid strategy can use.

Note: If you use cross-account conversion tracking and you’re having this issue, it'll need to be resolved in the Google Ads manager account.

Next steps

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to set up conversion tracking to Track calls from ads.

If you’ve already set up conversion tracking to track calls from ads, then check the following settings to make sure your conversion data is available to your bid strategies:

Verify your conversion action is enabled

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. In the upper right corner of your account, click the tools icon , then under "Measurement," click Conversions.
  3. Select your conversion action and check its status.
    • If your conversion action is enabled, it will be a green dot.
    • If your conversion action is removed, it will be a red X. To enable the conversion action, click Edit and choose Enable.

Verify the “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting is checked

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. In the upper right corner of your account, click the tools icon , then under "Measurement," click Conversions.
  3. Click the name of your conversion action, and find the “Include in ‘Conversions’” column.
    • If “Include in ‘Conversions’” is marked “Yes,” then no change is necessary.
    • If “Include in ‘Conversions’” is marked “No,” then you’ll need to change the setting to “Yes”.

Learn more About the “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting.

Missing website conversion actions

Your bid strategy targets conversions on your website, but you don’t have any conversion actions that your bid strategy can use.

Note: If you use cross-account conversion tracking and you’re having this issue, it'll need to be resolved in the Google Ads manager account.

Next steps

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to set up conversions for your website.

If you already have conversion tracking set up for your website, then check the following settings to make sure your conversion data is available to your bid strategies:

Verify your conversion action is enabled

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. In the upper right corner of your account, click the tools icon , then under "Measurement," click Conversions.
  3. Select your conversion action and check its status.
    • If your conversion action is enabled, it will be a green dot.
    • If your conversion action is removed, it will be a red X. To enable the conversion action, click Edit and choose Enable.

Verify the “Include in ‘conversions’” setting is checked

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. In the upper right corner of your account, click the tools icon , then under "Measurement," click Conversions.
  3. Click the name of your conversion action, and find the “Include in ‘Conversions’” column.
    • If “Include in ‘Conversions’” is marked “Yes,” then no change is necessary.
    • If “Include in ‘Conversions’” is marked “No,” then you’ll need to change the setting to “Yes”.

Learn more About the “Include in ‘Conversions’” setting.

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