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 make sure that they’re running as expected and help resolve any issues, as needed. This article describes what each bid strategy status means.
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Before you begin
If you’re not using any automated bid strategies, review About automated bidding to determine 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.
Find your bid strategy status
How to find your portfolio bid strategy status
- In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon
.
- Click the Budgets and bidding drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Bid strategies.
- The 'Status' column shows the status of your portfolio bid strategy.
- Hover over the text to learn more about the status. To learn more, read about bid strategy statuses.
.How to find your standard or portfolio bid strategy status
- In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon
- Click the Budgets and bidding drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Bid strategies.
- Hover over the text in the 'Status' column and click View bid strategy report.
above the table, clicking 'Modify columns' and selecting 'Bid strategy type' under the 'Attributes' category.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 have been paused.
- A prepaid budget has been spent.
Active
The bid strategy is active and setting bids to optimise performance. No changes are needed.
Learning
After you make a change to your bid strategy, there may be minor performance fluctuations as Google Ads optimises your bids. To indicate this, a 'Learning' status may be shown. You can hover over the status to show for which of the following four 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 optimise your bids.
- Setting change: A setting for the bid strategy was changed. Google Ads is now adjusting to optimise your bids.
- Composition change: Campaigns, ad groups or keywords have been added to or removed from the bid strategy. Google Ads is now adjusting to optimise your bids.
Learn moreAbout the learning period for campaigns and what affects it
Next step
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 four factors. You can hover over the status in the Status column to show which factor is limiting your bid strategy.Inventory
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 targetingBid limits
Next step
If your bid strategy isn't performing as well as you'd like, then you may want to increase the maximum bid limit and/or decrease the minimum bid limit.Budget constrained
Next step
Increase the budgets associated with this strategy. Learn how to optimise your average daily budget.Bidding strategy
Limited by bidding strategy – Applicable to campaigns only.
Your bid strategy is currently limited. You can bid more efficiently to get more conversions or conversion value and optimise towards your conversion goals by using a fully automated bid strategy.
Next step
If your bid strategy is limited, consider upgrading your bidding strategy to use a fully automated bidding strategy, to get more conversions at a similar CPA or more conversion value at a similar ROAS. Google Ads will provide a custom recommendation for your campaign directly in the “Status” column of your Campaigns.
Misconfigured (Maximise bid strategy with shared budget)
Maximise clicks bidding, Maximise conversion bidding and Maximise conversion value bidding are automated bid strategies that help maximise 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 utilising 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
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Campaigns drop-down menu, then click Campaigns.
- Go to the bid strategy report. Learn how to Find your bid strategy reports.
- Click Fix It.
- Fix It will bring you to the Campaigns table and filter to all the campaigns in your shared budget.
- Select all your campaigns by ticking the box at the top of the 'Campaign column'.
- Click Edit, then select 'Change bid strategy'.
- From the drop-down, add your campaigns to a single portfolio bid strategy by selecting either:
- Maximise clicks
- Maximise conversions
- Maximise conversion value
- Click Use a portfolio strategy, then select 'Create new portfolio strategy'. Set a name and options based on the strategy that you've selected.
- Click Apply.
.Portfolio bid strategy is misconfigured
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
- Click the Campaigns drop-down menu, then click Campaigns.
- Go to the bid strategy report. Learn how to Find your bid strategy reports.
- Click Fix It.
- Fix It will bring you to the Campaign table and filter to all campaigns in the shared budget.
- Select all your campaigns by ticking the box at the top of the 'Campaign column'.
- Click Edit, then select 'Change bid strategy'.
- From the drop-down, add your campaigns to a single portfolio bid strategy by selecting either:
- Maximise clicks
- Maximise conversions
- Maximise conversion value
- Click Use a portfolio strategy then select 'Use existing portfolio strategy'. Select the original portfolio strategy that was marked 'Misconfigured'.
- Click Apply.
Misconfigured (conversion setting)
Automated, conversion-based bid strategies – target cost per action (CPA), target return on ad spend (ROAS) or maximise conversions – use your conversion history to optimise 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 why your conversion tracking settings might be limiting the performance of your bid strategies and what you can do to resolve each issue.
Missing app install conversion actions
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, check the following settings to make sure that your conversion data is available to your bid strategies:Verify your conversion action is enabled
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
.
- Click the Conversions drop-down menu, then click Summary.
- 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
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop-down menu, then click Summary.
- 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'.
Missing phone call conversion actions
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, check the following settings to make sure that your conversion data is available to your bid strategies:Verify your conversion action is enabled
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop-down menu, then click Summary.
- 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
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop-down menu, then click Summary.
- 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'.
Missing website conversion actions
Next steps
If you haven’t already, you’ll need to Set up conversion tracking for your website. If you already have conversion tracking set up for your website, check the following settings to make sure that your conversion data is available to your bid strategies:Verify your conversion action is enabled
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop-down menu, then click Summary.
- 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
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop-down menu, then click Summary.
- 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'.
