What’s the best way to scale campaigns in Google Ads without breaking performance?
Hi everyone,
I recently shared a post about switching from Maximize Clicks to Maximize Conversions/CPA, and how that completely killed performance right after increasing budgets.
Now I want to focus on something broader — scaling campaigns in Google Ads — because I’m really trying to understand the best practice for doing it safely.
Here’s what keeps happening to me:
Whenever I make a significant budget increase or switch to a new bidding strategy (even in accounts with plenty of conversion history), performance collapses.
Leads stop coming in for days or even weeks.
Spend continues at the same pace.
CPL skyrockets, and it feels like the campaign resets completely.
My most recent example: after months of great results, I doubled the budget and switched to the bidding strategies Google recommends. The outcome? No leads since the change.
So what’s the right way to scale without breaking everything?
I’d love to hear from others managing mid-to-large accounts:
How do you approach scaling?
Do you increase budgets gradually (like 20–30% every few days)?
Do you duplicate campaigns and let them learn separately?
Do you adjust bids first, then budgets?
Or is it just about waiting through the learning phase?
It often feels like scaling in Google Ads breaks what’s already working — so I’m genuinely trying to figure out the most reliable and repeatable approach to scale without resetting performance.
Any insights, frameworks, or examples of what’s worked for you would be super valuable.
The short answer is:
Scaling in Google Ads requires gradual adjustments to both budget and bidding strategy to manage the automated systems’ learning phase and minimize performance shocks.
Major, sudden changes, like doubling the budget or immediately switching from Maximize Clicks to Maximize Conversions, often destabilize the system, leading to a temporary collapse in CPL and conversion volume.
The key is to make small, iterative increases (around 10-20% every few days or weekly) and ensure you have extremely clean, fast, and accurate conversion tracking using solutions like Google Tag Manager and server-side tracking via Stape or Google Cloud Platform, which stabilizes the data quality that the smart bidding algorithm relies on to scale effectively.
The long answer is:
Your experience with performance collapsing after significant budget increases or bidding strategy switches is extremely common and reflects how Google’s smart bidding algorithms react to sudden changes.
When you double the budget, you are telling the algorithm to find double the volume, which forces it to immediately look outside its established, high-performing segment.
This process, known as the learning phase, often involves bidding on less-qualified searches at first, which temporarily tanks your CPL and conversion rate.
To scale safely, you need to think of it as a gradual calibration.
Instead of doubling the budget, try increasing it by no more than 10-20% every three to seven days, provided performance remains stable.
This gives the algorithm time to test new opportunities without spending too aggressively on unproven areas.
When switching bidding strategies, especially from Maximize Clicks to Maximize Conversions, consider using a Target CPA bid initially that is higher than your historical CPA.
This is counterintuitive, but it allows the system to gather more conversion data at the new, higher budget level before you lower the target to your desired CPL.
This bridge period prevents the immediate crash you described.
Duplicating campaigns is an advanced tactic and generally not recommended for initial scaling, as it splits the conversion history and forces both campaigns back into a learning phase.
The best infrastructure for reliable scaling involves a robust tracking setup, which is why using Google Tag Manager and server-side tracking via a tool like Stape or Google Cloud Platform is an excellent and cost-effective solution.
Server-side tracking improves data quality and speed by sending conversion data directly from your server to Google, bypassing issues like ad-blockers and browser limitations.
This gives the smart bidding algorithm the most accurate, real-time picture of performance, allowing it to learn faster and stabilize when you scale.
Furthermore, leveraging the Google Ads API allows you to automate the gradual budget increases.
You can write a script to monitor performance and automatically apply a 15% budget increase only if the CPL has stayed within a specific tolerance over the last three days.
This removes the manual, emotional element and ensures all scaling is data-driven and gradual, making the scaling process repeatable and minimizing the risk of a performance collapse due to a sudden shock to the system.
Finally, always make sure you are tracking advanced conversions like Enhanced Conversions and standard events like purchase, lead, or conversion correctly to give the algorithm the highest quality signal possible.
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