Google Ads Smart Bidding: Our ₹32L/Month Strategy
Ravi Shankar Karn
Performance Marketing
This is the exact Google Ads campaign structure and bidding strategy we use for a client spending ₹32 lakh per month. No theory, no fluff - just the specific setup that delivers a 5.8x ROAS across Search, Shopping, and Performance Max. We are sharing this because the generic "use Smart Bidding" advice is useless without understanding how to structure an account to make Smart Bidding work.
Account Structure: The Campaign Hierarchy
At ₹32L/month, the account runs 14 campaigns organized into four tiers. Tier 1 (₹12L/month): Brand Search and Brand Shopping - these are your highest-ROAS campaigns and exist to capture demand you have already created. Tier 2 (₹10L/month): Non-Brand Search, segmented by intent level - high-intent transactional keywords in one campaign, mid-intent research keywords in another. Tier 3 (₹6L/month): Performance Max with audience signals - this is your prospecting engine. Tier 4 (₹4L/month): YouTube and Display remarketing - to close the loop on users who visited but did not convert.
The critical rule: never let Google blend Brand and Non-Brand in the same campaign. Smart Bidding will over-allocate to Brand because it converts easily, starving your prospecting campaigns. This is the #1 structural mistake we see in accounts spending ₹10L+ per month.
Bidding Strategy: The tCPA to tROAS Migration
We start every new account on Target CPA bidding. Why? Because tCPA gives you predictable unit economics while the algorithm learns. You set a CPA target that makes your contribution margin work, and Google optimizes to hit it. For this client, we started with a tCPA of ₹1,400 for non-brand search.
After 8 weeks and 300+ conversions, we migrated the non-brand campaigns to Target ROAS. The transition is critical: set your initial tROAS target 20% below your actual ROAS during the tCPA phase. If your tCPA campaigns were delivering a 4x ROAS, set tROAS at 3.2x. This gives the algorithm headroom to explore and prevents the bid strategy from choking volume. Over the next 4 weeks, ratchet the tROAS target up by 5% per week until you reach your true target. Jumping straight to an aggressive tROAS target is the fastest way to kill campaign volume.
Keyword Architecture and Match Types
We use a tiered match-type strategy. High-intent transactional keywords ("buy [product]", "[product] price", "[brand] discount") run on Exact and Phrase match with tight tROAS targets. Research-intent keywords ("best [category]", "[product] vs [product]", "[product] review") run on Broad match with looser tROAS targets - these are upper-funnel and their job is to capture demand at efficient CPCs, not to drive immediate ROAS.
Every Broad match campaign has an aggressive negative keyword strategy. We review search term reports weekly and add negatives in three categories: irrelevant terms (obvious), competitor brand terms (unless we are deliberately bidding on them), and low-intent informational terms ("what is", "how does", "meaning of"). Our negative keyword list for this account has 2,400+ terms and is the single biggest lever for Broad match efficiency.
Performance Max: The Right Way
Performance Max is not a set-it-and-forget-it campaign. We run it with specific audience signals: first-party customer lists (purchasers, high-value cart abandoners), in-market segments aligned to the product category, and custom intent audiences built from competitor URLs and high-performing search terms. Without these signals, PMax becomes an expensive spray-and-pray across YouTube, Display, and Discover.
We also segment PMax by product category with separate asset groups for each major product line. Each asset group has 5 headlines, 5 descriptions, 5 images, and 2 videos - all tested and iterated monthly. One counter-intuitive finding: PMax performs significantly better when you also run dedicated Search campaigns. Google's own documentation buries this, but PMax relies on search data to inform its audience targeting. Turn off Search, and PMax performance degrades within 2-3 weeks.
Negative Keyword Management and Budget Pacing
At ₹32L/month, you are spending roughly ₹1.07L per day. Budget pacing matters - underspending on weekdays and overspending on weekends (or vice versa) can destroy algorithm learning. We use a custom Google Sheets dashboard connected via the Ads API that monitors daily spend deviation from pace. If spend is more than 15% below pace by 2pm, we temporarily loosen tROAS targets on Tier 2 and Tier 3 campaigns. If spend is more than 10% above pace, we tighten Tier 4.
Negative keyword management runs on a weekly cadence: Monday is search term review and negative additions, Wednesday is cross-campaign negative conflict check (making sure negatives in one campaign are not blocking traffic that another campaign should capture), and Friday is negative keyword list cleanup (removing negatives for terms that may have become relevant due to product line changes). This rhythm is boring, repetitive, and absolutely essential at this spend level.
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Key Takeaways
- Never blend Brand and Non-Brand in the same campaign - Smart Bidding will cannibalise your prospecting budget.
- Start on tCPA, migrate to tROAS after 300+ conversions, and set initial tROAS 20% below observed performance.
- Use Exact/Phrase for transactional keywords and Broad for research-intent - with aggressive negative keyword lists (2,400+ terms).
- Performance Max needs audience signals and runs better alongside dedicated Search campaigns, not as a replacement.
- Manage budget pacing daily and review negatives weekly - the discipline compounds into massive efficiency gains.
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