Start with the account age and the quality of your conversion data
Bidding advice becomes confusing when every Ad Grants account is treated as if it were at the same stage. A newly activated campaign with no trustworthy conversions has a different problem from an established campaign that records useful actions every week.
First confirm that the campaign is in the approved grant account, its goals are meaningful and the conversion actions can actually record. If those foundations are wrong, changing bid strategy only changes how Google reacts to bad information.
Understand the $2 bid limit before changing strategy
The familiar US$2 limit applies to manual and non-conversion bidding in Ad Grants. Conversion-based Smart Bidding can bid above that level when the system predicts that doing so is worthwhile. That is why an account can be technically eligible yet struggle on competitive searches when it is using a click-focused strategy.
Even when Smart Bidding bids higher in an auction, the grant remains capped at the programme allowance; a target CPA is an average goal, not an amount Google promises to spend on every conversion.
Related guide: Google Ad Grants not spending or getting impressions? Start here.
When Google allows Maximize Clicks temporarily
Google’s current account-management guidance says that if an account is deactivated for bidding, you can begin with Maximize Clicks to gather initial traffic and data while implementing conversion tracking, then move to Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value once there is enough data. This is a temporary recovery path, not the steady-state bidding rule for accounts created on or after 22 April 2019.
Maximize Clicks optimizes for visits, not for donations, applications or other meaningful outcomes. Review search terms, landing pages and on-site actions while it runs. If it simply finds cheap irrelevant traffic, more clicks are not progress.
- Use it as a diagnostic phase, not the permanent success metric.
- Keep meaningful conversion tracking running while you collect traffic.
- Avoid adding a low CPC cap unless you have a specific reason; extra restrictions can reduce the very volume you are trying to observe.
When Maximize Conversions is the better default
Once meaningful conversion tracking is trustworthy, Maximize Conversions aligns bidding with the action the nonprofit actually values. For Ad Grants accounts created on or after 22 April 2019, Google requires conversion-based Smart Bidding for all campaigns unless they are Smart campaigns; Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value, target CPA and target ROAS are the named compliant strategies.
My normal Grants setup is Maximize Conversions without an initial target CPA when the campaign already has tested goals. Leaving the target unset gives the system room to bid. It does not guarantee impressions, so low delivery still requires a reach and eligibility diagnostic.
Be careful with target CPA
A target CPA tells bidding the average cost per conversion you would like it to achieve. A target that is materially below what the auction and conversion rate can support may cause the campaign to enter fewer auctions. If a campaign suddenly loses delivery after a target was tightened, the target belongs high on the diagnostic list.
A deliberately permissive target CPA can be tested in a functioning but reach-constrained Grants account. Treat that as an advanced experiment: verify tracking and other restrictions first, record the baseline, change one main variable and judge query quality and meaningful conversions as well as spend.
Do not use bidding to solve the wrong problem
If the keywords have almost no search volume, a new bid strategy cannot manufacture demand. If the location is accidentally tiny, the conversion action is broken, or an account-level negative blocks the theme, fix that constraint first.
Likewise, a campaign receiving relevant clicks but no completed actions may have a landing-page or offer problem rather than a bidding problem. Follow the funnel instead of assuming every weak result begins in the auction.
A practical decision order
For a quiet account, I would work in this order: verify eligibility and measurement; check whether relevant searches exist; inspect geography, negatives and URL controls; then decide whether the current bid strategy is appropriate for the amount and quality of data available.
After a material change, give the campaign time to produce evidence before changing another major setting. I am trying to learn what constrains useful traffic, not defend one bidding strategy regardless of the result.