Skip to content
Academy
Marketing Academy · Field Work●Paid Ads
All projects·From: Google Demand Gen Campaigns: The Mid-Funnel Performance Play
CoreSimulation· 45 minutes

The 8-Week Bidding Decision Log

RXBAR

Objective: Walk an 8-week Demand Gen campaign through its learning phase, the Maximize Conversions to tCPA switch, and the view-through conversion signal, making the same timing decisions a live account manager would face.

You manage paid media for RXBAR, the protein bar brand, and just launched a Demand Gen campaign to warm shoppers who've been engaging with fitness and meal-prep content but haven't searched for a protein bar yet.

Decide when to leave Maximize Conversions alone, when to switch to tCPA and at what target, and how to read view-through conversions once tCPA is running.

Before you start

What you'll need

Free path (everything below is enough to finish)

Google Ads
FreeSet bidding strategy, monitor CPA and conversion volume

Native to the campaign, no export needed for weekly checks

Google Analytics 4
FreePull view-through and assisted conversion data via the linked account

Free once linked to the Google Ads account, no separate license

The process

Simulation

Week 1, first dashboard check

Day 5 of 56

You launched the campaign on Maximize Conversions 5 days ago and are opening the dashboard for the first time.

Sample output
Demand Gen · RXBAR Fitness Content Prospecting · Day 5 of 56

  Impressions        142,000
  CTR                   0.9%
  Conversions              6
  Cost per conv        $31.40
Spend to date:$188.40 of $2,800 (4-week phase 1 budget)
Budget remaining:$2,611.60

Five days in, CPA looks high and volume looks thin. What do you do?

Final deliverable

A week-by-week bidding decision log across the 8-week campaign, documenting when to hold, when to switch to tCPA and at what target, and how the view-through signal was interpreted.

See a reference example
Sample output
Instacart, Demand Gen bidding log (excerpt)

Week 1: Maximize Conversions, CPA $34.80 on 4 conversions. Held, sample too small.
Week 4: 61 trailing-30-day conversions, observed CPA $24.60. Set tCPA at $31 (26% above observed).
Week 8: Direct conversions flat at ~50/week, view-through up 72%, assisted conversions up 64%. Read as mid-funnel success, kept running as a Search feeder.

Success criteria

You're done when you can:

  • Does not switch bidding strategy before the learning phase completes
  • Sets tCPA within the 20-30% above observed CPA band
  • Correctly interprets rising view-through/assisted conversions as a positive mid-funnel signal, not a failure