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The short answer
Smart Bidding pays what a conversion is worth. On searches for your own name, most of those conversions were going to happen anyway. Oppy lists the brand campaigns on automated bidding that spent recently, using the brand words you confirmed.
Why it matters
Someone who searches the company by name has already chosen. The ad collects a customer rather than winning one, and the algorithm bids up to its target for people who would have arrived for a fraction of the price.
The reported cost per conversion stays beautiful the whole time, because the conversions are real. That is what makes it hard to notice: the brand campaign looks like the best campaign in the account.
How Oppy decides
It finds brand campaigns by their names: a campaign named for your brand counts as one. Name brand campaigns plainly so the check can see them.
Checks that weigh money or clicks judge what they find on your own account's numbers, not on one figure applied to every account, so what counts as a problem on a small account is not the same on a large one. Checks on settings read how the account is set up.
When there is too little to go on, the check says so instead of guessing. A finding always comes with the rows behind it, so you can read the evidence before you decide.
| This check | |
|---|---|
| Step of the audit | Spend |
| What it reads | Campaigns, their settings and their results |
| Needs trustworthy conversions | No. It does not wait for the tracking step. |
| What happens next | Reported in the audit with the rows behind it. The decision stays with you. |
Check it yourself in Google Ads
- In Google Ads, open Campaigns and add the Bid strategy type column.
- Find the campaigns that bid on your brand name.
- Note which use target CPA, target ROAS, maximize conversions or maximize conversion value.
- Compare their average cost per click with what the clicks cost when bid manually, if the history shows it.
What to do about it
Consider manual CPC or target impression share for brand campaigns, with a cap on cost per click. You keep the top position for your name without paying conversion prices for it.
Watch competitors in auction insights after the change. If someone starts bidding on your name, adjust the cap rather than going back to automated bidding blindly.
Terms on this page
Other checks in this area
The checks next to this one in Bids and targets, each with its own page.