Limited by bid limits: what the cap is costing you.

Where it shows: in the status of the campaign's bid strategy.

• A maximum CPC limit on a portfolio strategy, such as Target impression share or Maximize clicks.
• A minimum bid limit that forces high bids on cheap auctions.
• Rising competition, which pushes the bids the strategy needs above the cap.

1. Open Tools, then Budgets and bidding, then Bid strategies, and read the strategy's current limits.
2. Compare the maximum CPC limit with the average CPC and the top of page bid estimates.
3. Raise the cap step by step if the clicks you lose are worth the price; keep it if they are not.
4. On conversion-based strategies, prefer a CPA or ROAS target over a hard bid cap.

Lifting a limit raises the cost per click on the auctions that were blocked. Watch cost per conversion for one or two weeks after.

A cap is a safety rail. Keeping it on purpose is fine; the status only says it is working.

Write down why each cap was set and review it every quarter. Caps set for a launch often stay long after they stopped making sense.

Watch impression share lost to rank on campaigns with a cap: a steady rise tells you the cap is now below the market.

Oppy runs these every week, so the status is found early.

• A target set a long way from what the account does: A target CPA or ROAS a long way from what the campaign achieves.
• Portfolio bid strategies nothing is using: Portfolio bid strategies nothing uses, including ones on strategies Google has retired.

• Portfolio bid strategy
• Bid strategy
• Target impression share