Pay for conversions in Display campaigns

This article applies only to Google Ads accounts in the new Search Ads 360.

You can choose to pay for conversions, rather than clicks, when using a Smart Display campaign or a standard display campaign. Paying for conversions means you only pay when customers convert on your website or app.

The option to pay for conversions is only available when you use Target CPA with display campaigns.

This article explains how to set up pay for conversions for a standard display campaign or a Smart Display campaign in your Google Ads account.

How it works

Pay for conversions uses the same bidding algorithm as when you pay for clicks.

If you choose to pay for conversions, you still use the Target CPA bidding strategy, but you pay for conversions instead of clicks. You will only be billed for conversions received at the Target CPA that you set. For example, if you set your Target CPA to $10 and you get 10 conversions during a month, you would be billed $100. You will not be charged for clicks or impressions leading to the conversions.

Pay for conversions doesn't optimize for offline conversions, conversions from Google Ads Conversion Import, or cross-device conversions. If you use these conversion types, Google Ads recommends paying for clicks.

Also, pay for conversions doesn’t work with shared budgets.

Before you begin

Although your Google Ads experience may show you pay for conversions as an option, your account may not meet the eligibility requirements. You can make sure your account is eligible in a few ways. Expand a section below to see common reasons why your account may be ineligible to use pay for conversions.

Conversion action isn't eligible

To use pay for conversions, exclude the “Import from clicks” and “Store visits” conversion actions from your conversion reporting:

Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
On the page menu, under “Tools and settings”, click Conversions.
Click Summary.
In the table, click the name of the conversion action you want to edit.
Click Edit settings.
Click Include in “Conversions” to expand the section.
Uncheck the box to exclude the conversion action in the “Conversions” column.
Click Save, and then click Done. The conversion action should now show as “No” under the “‘Include in ‘Conversions’” column.

Conversion delays

You can’t use pay for conversions if you have a conversion delay (the time between a click and a conversion) of more than 7 days.

You can use "Conversion delay" reports to understand how long it takes customers who see your ads to complete a conversion. Use the following steps to access conversion delay reports:

Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
From the page menu on the left, click Campaigns, Ad groups, or Keywords.
Check that the date range for your report ends at least 30 days from the campaign start date (or longer if you have a longer conversion window) and make sure the report has complete conversion data. To change the date range, use the date range selector in the upper right corner of the page.
Click the segment icon , select Conversions Days to conversion. This segments the conversion columns in your report into up to 19 rows.

Ineligible for undisclosed reasons

It is possible that your account can be ineligible for Pay for conversions due to undisclosed reasons in Google Ads. In this case, you will receive an error message in the UI that reads, “Your account is ineligible to pay for conversions.” If you receive this message, it means that you will be ineligible to opt in campaigns at this time, although eligibility is refreshed daily.

Making changes to address the issues noted here will not guarantee that the account is eligible. Eligibility is determined by a multitude of factors such as the API, and can change daily.

Conversion requirements

Your account must have more than 100 conversions in the last 30 days to use pay for conversions. You’ll also need 90% of your conversions to occur within less than 7 days after someone clicks your ad. If it often takes customers more than a week to convert after clicking your ad, then you won’t be able to pay for conversions.

Keep in mind, you may see a slight delay between when conversions are reported and when you’re charged. Learn more about conversion delay and conversion windows.

Limit on CPA

You can set a Target CPA less than $200 USD (or equivalent in local currency) for your campaigns and ad groups to use pay for conversions. If you set a CPA higher than $200 (or equivalent in local currency), you will see a warning message in the UI and you will be charged the higher CPA amount that you set. To avoid being overcharged, please reduce the Target CPA below $200 (or equivalent in local currency) for your campaigns and ad groups or switch to pay for clicks.

Budget

Pay for conversions uses more flexible budgeting rules because the number of conversions in a given day varies more than the number of clicks. As a result, if you pay for conversions, your daily spend may exceed your average daily budget by more than 2 times. This gives Smart Bidding room to optimize better across your campaigns.

The initial monthly budget of a pay for conversions campaign is based on the average daily budget that the campaign starts the month, with multiplied by 30.4. If the average daily budget is changed during the month, this monthly budget no longer applies and will be replaced with a new budget based on the remaining days in the month.

You can’t change a day’s budget after it has passed. If you change a day’s budget during that day, your spend on that day will adjust to the budget. If the new budget is lower than the previous one, your ads will stop serving for that day and resume the next day following the new budget.

Say your average daily budget for March starts at $100. This means your monthly budget starts at $3,040 (100 x 30.4). After a week you decide to lower the budget to $75. On the 8th, your earlier budget no longer applies and you’re set with a new budget for the remaining 24 days of March that totals $1,800 (75 x 24). For the last week, you decide to raise the average daily budget to $150. On the 25th, your earlier budget no longer applies and you’re set with a new budget for the remaining 7 days of March that totals $1,050 (150x7). Lastly, you set the average daily budget to $100 effective on April 1. This sets your April monthly budget to start at $3,040, but has no effect on the March budget currently in place.

Over the course of March, your spend may have looked like this:

$700 ($100 for 7 days) +

$1,275 ($75 for 17 days) +

$1,050 ($150 for 7 days) =

$3,025 total for the month

Pay for conversions campaigns will respect monthly budgets, but pacing may not be even. In rare circumstances, this may result in monthly budgets being exhausted before month's end.

Instructions

Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
In the page menu, click Campaigns.
Click the plus button , then select New campaign.
Choose from the Sales, Leads, or Website traffic goals.
Select the Display campaign type.
Select Standard display campaign or Smart display campaign.
Click Continue.
From the page menu on the left, click Budget and bidding.
In the “Bidding” section, select Conversions in the dropdown under "What do you want to focus on?"
In the dropdown under "How do you want to get conversions?", select Automatically maximize conversions.
Select the checkbox next to "Set a target cost per action".
Enter your Target CPA.
In the dropdown under “Pay for”, select Conversions.
Click Create campaign.

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