tROAS or tCPA?

Why Experiments? Setting up bid strategy experiments is a key tactic for paid media marketers. These experiments help identify the most effective strategies to improve performance and maximize results. They’re relatively simple to implement, yet the insights they provide can significantly influence your next steps and drive meaningful impact. Testing tROAS against tCPA is a valuable approach, especially if your goal is to increase the value generated per conversion. Keep in mind that to effectively use tROAS, you’ll need to assign values to your conversion events or integrate your CRM with Google to enable dynamic conversion values based on your products. If you are focused on lead generation, we recommend assigning values based on each stage of the funnel. Lower values for leads higher in the funnel, and increasing the value for each lead lower in the funnel. If you are testing this for E-commerce, we recommend using dynamic conversion values, as there are likely different prices for each of your products. Setting Up the Experiment Navigate to the experiment section in your Google Ads account, and go through the flow. First, you will need to name the experiment and choose the campaign you want to test. We recommend naming the experiment tROAS vs tCPA Experiment. Once you choose the campaign, Google automatically adds the campaign name before the name of the experiment, so you don’t need to include that in the name. Next, you have to choose the metrics and assign a budget split. We recommend selecting the clicks and conversions for the metrics, then choosing an increase for both metrics.  In the budget split section, we typically leave this at a 50/50 split, but in the advanced options, there is something you should be aware of. There are experiment split options, search, and cookie-based. Search-based means that a single user could see both of the ads from the original and the experiment. Cookie-based means the user will only see one version of the ad. Since we are testing the bid strategies in this case, it is best to use a cookie-based approach. The final step is to open the campaign settings of the experiment you just created and update the bid strategy to tROAS. When determining the target, use the current ROAS of the base campaign, and use that value until you gather more data and make optimizations to the target. This adjustment enables the base and trial campaigns to run simultaneously within the experiment, each using a different bidding strategy. Once the campaign is live, you can track performance and view results directly within the experiment dashboard. From there, continue monitoring performance and make optimizations as needed to drive better outcomes. Something to keep in mind, since this is a brand new experiment, it needs a few days for the learning period, so you should omit the first few days of data, depending on the scale of the spend. Benefits Testing bid strategies against one another allows you to determine whether you can achieve higher conversion value using tROAS vs tCPA. With value-assigned conversion events or dynamic values via CRM integration, Google’s algorithm leverages robust signals to identify higher-value conversions. By testing this through an experiment, you can evaluate the results side by side, with a controlled budget split. Plus, if it doesn’t work out, you don’t need to change anything on the base campaign; simply end the experiment! This approach has proven effective for some businesses, though it may not be ideal for every scenario. Experimentation is key: if you have assigned values to your conversion events and are interested in value-based bidding, this strategy is well worth exploring.