What Is Target CPA (tCPA)?
Target CPA (tCPA) is a Google Smart Bidding strategy that sets bids to hit an average cost per conversion you specify. Google flexes bids up and down auction by auction to average toward that target across the campaign.
Formula
Platform CPA understates fully loaded CAC. Set tCPA below your break-even CAC to leave margin for fees, COGS, and attribution overlap.
tCPA in the wild
A SaaS account runs Search with a 80 dollar tCPA. Average CPA over the last 30 days lands at 82 dollars with 240 conversions. Volume is stable. The buyer wants to scale, so they raise tCPA to 100 dollars. Volume jumps 55 percent, average CPA lands at 96 dollars. That is tCPA working as designed, buying more conversions by accepting a higher price per one.
Benchmarks
- Minimum weekly conversions for stable tCPA: 15 plus, ideally 30.
- Starting tCPA: set at recent 28-day average CPA, do not undercut by more than 20 percent.
- Adjust in 10 to 15 percent steps, never more than once per week.
Why it matters
tCPA is the honest counterpart to Max Conversions. It buys as many conversions as the target allows and stops when the price would exceed it. On mature accounts it caps waste; on new or low-volume accounts it starves delivery.
Common mistakes
- 1.Setting tCPA before the account has 30 weekly conversions. Bidding is unstable.
- 2.Cutting tCPA by 40 percent to force lower CPAs. Volume collapses.
- 3.Judging tCPA in the first 7 days. Learning phase is 1 to 2 weeks.
- 4.Using tCPA on a campaign optimising for the wrong conversion event (form view instead of qualified lead).
FAQs about Target CPA
tCPA vs Max Conversions?
Max Conversions spends the budget to get as many conversions as possible at any CPA. tCPA caps price per conversion, so it may underspend but protects unit economics.
Why did my tCPA stop delivering?
Usually the target dropped below what the auction supports. Raise it 15 percent and volume returns within days.
Related terms
Google auto-bid strategy that targets a specific return on ad spend.
Google's ML bid strategies (tCPA, tROAS, Max Conv, Max Value).
Ad spend divided by conversions, the price of one action.
Total marketing + sales spend divided by new customers acquired.
Meta's ~50-event training period after ad-set launch or major edit.
Google keyword match type that also triggers on related queries.
Feeding CRM/sales data back to ad platforms to optimise on real outcomes.
Google's cross-inventory campaign driven by asset feeds and audience signals.