Google has introduced a new update for Standard Shopping campaigns, giving advertisers access to Maximise Conversion Value bidding without needing to set a Target ROAS.
For ecommerce businesses, this is a useful change. It gives advertisers more flexibility when running Shopping campaigns, while still keeping the control and visibility that Standard Shopping is known for.
What has changed?
Previously, advertisers who wanted to optimise Shopping campaigns around conversion value often had to use Target ROAS bidding.
This meant campaigns were working towards a set return on ad spend target, which could be useful, but also restrictive in some cases. If the target was too high, campaigns could struggle to spend, if it was too low, businesses could miss out on stronger revenue opportunities.
With this update, Standard Shopping campaigns can now use Maximise Conversion Value bidding without a Target ROAS being required.
This gives Google’s bidding system more freedom to focus on generating as much conversion value as possible within the campaign budget.
What is Maximise Conversion Value bidding?
Maximise Conversion Value is a Google Ads bidding strategy that aims to get the highest total conversion value from your budget.
Instead of simply focusing on the number of conversions, it looks at the value of those conversions. This can be especially useful for ecommerce businesses selling products at different price points.
For example, a business may sell one product for £20 and another for £300. Both sales count as conversions, but they are not worth the same to the business.
Maximise Conversion Value helps campaigns focus more heavily on the conversions that create stronger revenue, rather than treating every sale equally.
Why does this matter for Standard Shopping campaigns?
Many advertisers still choose Standard Shopping because it offers more control and transparency than Performance Max.
With Standard Shopping, advertisers can manage product groups, review search term data more clearly and make more direct decisions about how their Shopping activity is structured.
Performance Max can be powerful, but it uses more automation and combines activity across different Google channels. For some businesses, that makes it harder to understand exactly where results are coming from.
This update helps close one of the gaps between Standard Shopping and Performance Max. Advertisers can now benefit from value-based bidding while keeping the structure and visibility of Standard Shopping campaigns.
Could this reduce reliance on Performance Max?
For some advertisers, yes, before this update, some businesses used feed-only Performance Max campaigns mainly because they wanted access to Maximise Conversion Value bidding without being tied to a Target ROAS.
Now that this bidding option is available in Standard Shopping, that workaround may no longer be needed in every account.
This does not mean Performance Max is no longer useful, it still has an important role in many paid media strategies, especially where businesses want broader reach across Google’s network.
However, it does give advertisers another option. For accounts where control, feed visibility and product-level management are important, Standard Shopping may now become a stronger choice again.
What does this mean for ecommerce businesses?
For ecommerce businesses, the update creates more flexibility in how Google Shopping campaigns are managed.
It may help businesses:
- Improve revenue-focused bidding
- Make better use of campaign budgets
- Keep more control over Shopping campaign structure
- Reduce over-reliance on Performance Max
- Test value-based bidding without setting a fixed ROAS target
This could be particularly useful for businesses with varied product ranges, different margins or seasonal sales patterns.
Instead of forcing every campaign into a fixed ROAS target, advertisers can give Google more flexibility to find higher-value opportunities.
Does this mean every Shopping campaign should change?
Not necessarily, as with any Google Ads update, the right approach depends on the account, the products, the data and the wider business goals.
For some campaigns, Target ROAS may still be the best option. For others, Maximise Conversion Value without a ROAS target could help unlock more volume and revenue.
The key is testing carefully, advertisers should review campaign performance, conversion tracking, product margins and budget levels before making changes. Strong data is still essential, because automated bidding only works well when Google has accurate conversion information to learn from.
Why conversion tracking matters more than ever
This update also highlights the importance of accurate conversion tracking.
If Google is being asked to maximise conversion value, it needs reliable value data. That means ecommerce tracking, revenue tracking and product feed information must be set up correctly.
Without accurate data, campaigns may optimise towards the wrong outcomes.
For businesses running Shopping campaigns, now is a good time to review:
- Conversion tracking setup
- Revenue values
- Product feed quality
- Campaign structure
- Budget allocation
- Product margins
- Search term performance
A bidding strategy can only perform well when the foundations are strong.
Outrank’s view
This is a positive update for advertisers who want more flexibility from Standard Shopping.
It gives ecommerce businesses another way to focus on revenue, without losing the control that many advertisers value from Standard Shopping campaigns.
However, it should not be treated as a quick fix, the strongest results will still come from a well-structured account, clean product feed, accurate tracking and ongoing optimisation.
Google Ads continues to move towards automation, but strategy still matters. Choosing the right bidding strategy, campaign structure and budget approach can make a big difference to performance.
This update also follows other recent changes across Google Ads, including how Google manages budget pacing for scheduled campaigns. Together, these updates show why advertisers need to regularly review their bidding strategies, budgets, campaign schedules and tracking setup, rather than leaving campaigns to run without active management.
You can read more about that in our recent blog on Google Ads budget pacing changes.
Need support with Google Shopping campaigns?
At Outrank, we help businesses build, manage and optimise paid media campaigns that are focused on real results.
From Google Shopping and Performance Max to search campaigns, conversion tracking and wider PPC strategy, our team can help you get more from your advertising budget.
If you want to improve your ecommerce visibility, increase revenue and make your Google Ads campaigns work harder, find out more about our PPC services or get in touch with Outrank today.