Max Clicks with a Bid Cap: The ‘Old-School’ Strategy That’s Dominating in 2025

How We Fixed Low tROAS Bidding Inefficiencies (and Why We’re Shifting Away From Performance Max for New Customer Acquisition)

Introduction

In the world of Google Ads, one of the biggest challenges is balancing your cost per click (CPC) against your target return on ad spend (tROAS), especially when you need to attract new customers. Recently, I uncovered a notable inefficiency in low tROAS bidding strategies within Standard Shopping campaigns. After investigating, I found a powerful fix: switching to Max Clicks with a bid cap.

In this post, I’ll walk you through:

1. Why low tROAS bidding can balloon your CPCs
2. How Max Clicks with a bid cap can unlock higher volume
3. Key performance insights after implementing the switch
4. Why I’m moving many clients off Performance Max when new customer acquisition is the goal

Let’s dive in.

Part 1: The Problem with Low tROAS Bidding

Low tROAS = High CPCs

Many advertisers (myself included) have tried lowering tROAS to cast a wide net. The hope is that bidding aggressively for shoppers who haven’t interacted with Google Ads before might yield more conversions and revenue.

However, here’s the catch:

• If Google’s algorithm has limited user data (e.g., first-time clickers), it often places very high bids to secure that conversion.
• Because you’re asking the system to accept a low overall ROAS, it attempts to compensate by aggressively overbidding on uncertain clicks.

This leads to an artificially high average CPC—sometimes jumping over $10 per click—when there might be plenty of potential clicks available in the $2-$5 range.

Partial Attribution to Brand

Low tROAS bidding is also influenced by data-driven attribution, which can over-credit brand searches and returning customers. This partial attribution makes it look like the campaign is hitting its target, but in reality, your brand campaign (or other channels) might be doing the heavy lifting. You end up with inefficient spend on cold traffic because the algorithm doesn’t know each user’s lifetime value just yet.

Part 2: The Switch to Max Clicks with a Bid Cap

“Old School” Strategy, Modern Results

To curb these runaway CPCs, I decided to remove the tROAS-based bidding strategy altogether in some campaigns and revert to Max Clicks with a bid cap. Think of it as going back 10 years to a more manual style of controlling costs—yet it’s surprisingly effective in 2023 and beyond.

Why Max Clicks with a Bid Cap Works:

• Cost Control: You define the maximum you’re willing to pay per click. This eliminates those $10-$12 CPC outliers.
• Increased Click Volume: By focusing on cheaper clicks, you funnel more traffic for the same budget. More visits typically means more potential customers in the pipeline.
• Easier Scaling: As you see good performance, you can gradually raise the bid cap to capture incremental traffic—without sacrificing your entire budget.

Real Results

After just a few days of implementing Max Clicks with a bid cap:

• Cost dropped by 16%
• Clicks increased by 78%
• Conversions jumped by 62%
• Conversion value rose by 56%

When observing a broader 14-day window, everything looked even better. We saw a healthy ramp in both clicks and conversions, while the average CPC held steady below those high, inefficient bids.

Part 3: Measuring the Impact Beyond Google Ads

Brand Campaign Validation

To confirm that these new visitors were ultimately converting, I checked my brand campaign performance:

• Only 4% more in brand campaign spend vs. a large uptick in brand-driven conversions.
• $32,000 more in sales attributed to brand searches compared to the previous period.

This suggests that the top-of-funnel traffic brought in by the Max Clicks approach did come back and convert under the brand campaign at a much lower cost.

Checking Other Channels

• Facebook: Spends remained about the same, with a modest 6.6% boost in results—likely due to other targeting improvements and Advantage Plus campaigns.
• Global CAC: Remarkably stable. Even while sending more paid traffic to the site, the cost to acquire a new customer didn’t balloon.

When we cross-checked our real net profit and multi-touch attribution data, it confirmed that overall performance was ramping up, and new visitors from Google were converting into paying customers without spiking the overall CAC.

Part 4: Why We’re Moving Away from Performance Max for New Customer Acquisition

You might be wondering: “What about Performance Max? Isn’t Google pushing that as the future?” The truth is, Performance Max can work well for re-engagement and branding. However, when the objective is new customer acquisition, it frequently falls short.

Here’s why:

• Budget Allocation to Existing Customers: Performance Max will always reserve a portion of budget to retarget your existing customers (those who are likely to convert).
• Limited Control Over Audiences: If you truly want to isolate brand-new prospects, you need tighter control than Performance Max typically offers.
• Transparency & Reporting Gaps: Performance Max campaigns can obscure exactly where your ads are showing. This makes it harder to refine your approach specifically for net-new acquisition.

The Result

Many accounts find themselves spending valuable budget on existing customer touchpoints or brand-related conversions. Over time, Performance Max might show strong overall ROAS, but it’s partially inflated by returning customers. If fresh leads are your priority, Standard Shopping with Max Clicks (plus some strategic audience exclusions) can deliver a more reliable flow of net-new shoppers.

Key Takeaways

1. Low tROAS Bidding Pitfalls: Despite short-term gains, you may end up paying too much per click and padding your brand conversions.
2. Max Clicks + Bid Cap: A simpler strategy that effectively filters out expensive, unprofitable clicks and scales traffic volume.
3. Validate Results: Monitor your brand campaign and multi-channel analytics to confirm that more budget-friendly, cold traffic is turning into real, paying customers.
4. Performance Max Caveats: Great for remarketing and brand expansion, but not ideal if new customer acquisition is your primary goal.

Conclusion

Shifting from a low tROAS bidding strategy to Max Clicks with a carefully set bid cap can drastically reduce wasted spend and open up a steady flow of high-volume, lower-cost traffic. Paired with strong creative, relevant landing pages, and a solid brand presence, you can attract (and convert) more new customers without breaking the bank.

As for Performance Max—it’s still a useful tool in the box, but if your priority is to actively grow your customer base, relying on PMax alone can be an uphill battle. By harnessing a more transparent and controllable strategy, you can methodically dial up spend where it counts and confidently weed out inefficiencies.

Ready to cut the fat at the top of your CPC range and make your campaigns more efficient? Give Max Clicks (with a bid cap) a try, keep an eye on your multi-channel attribution, and watch as you reduce costs, scale conversions, and ultimately grow your brand.

Author: John Moran

If you found this article helpful, be sure to connect on LinkedIn or leave a comment below. I’d love to hear about your experiences using Max Clicks, Performance Max, or other bidding strategies as you optimize for new customer acquisition.