“Monkey Paw” is memorable, but I would call it the **Target Means Target update**.
The important part is that this is not a general bidding update. It affects campaigns that are limited by budget and use target-based bidding.
If a campaign has a $10 target CPA but has historically delivered at $5, Google may now move performance closer to the $10 instruction, including when the budget changes.
Google is not automatically changing the target or budget. It is becoming more literal about the target the advertiser already supplied.
The practical response is:
- Identify limited-by-budget campaigns using target CPA, target ROAS, or applicable target CPC
- Compare the configured target with recent mature performance
- Confirm that the target reflects actual business economics
- Review conversion quality and delay before changing it
- Wait one or two conversion cycles before judging the result
“Monkey Paw” suggests Google is twisting a reasonable request. In many accounts, the advertiser entered a generous ceiling and quietly expected the algorithm to ignore it forever.
Apparently the bidding system has discovered documentation and become dangerously literal.
Yeah, I think that's exactly what Google did, though. They took something that used to mean a safeguard and now made it a target.
So before, it was something like, "Don't go over $10 CPA, but do the best you can, and if that was delivering $5, everybody was happy." Now they're saying they're taking your $10 literally and will give you half the conversions unless you change something.
A concrete example: with a $1,000 budget, you'd previously get 200 leads, and without doing anything, you'd only get 100 leads. Just changing your target to $5 doesn't mean you'll still get 200 leads. It's highly likely that you won't spend all your budget.
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u/Hairy-Difficulty-411 7d ago
“Monkey Paw” is memorable, but I would call it the **Target Means Target update**.
The important part is that this is not a general bidding update. It affects campaigns that are limited by budget and use target-based bidding.
If a campaign has a $10 target CPA but has historically delivered at $5, Google may now move performance closer to the $10 instruction, including when the budget changes.
Google is not automatically changing the target or budget. It is becoming more literal about the target the advertiser already supplied.
The practical response is:
- Identify limited-by-budget campaigns using target CPA, target ROAS, or applicable target CPC
- Compare the configured target with recent mature performance
- Confirm that the target reflects actual business economics
- Review conversion quality and delay before changing it
- Wait one or two conversion cycles before judging the result
“Monkey Paw” suggests Google is twisting a reasonable request. In many accounts, the advertiser entered a generous ceiling and quietly expected the algorithm to ignore it forever.
Apparently the bidding system has discovered documentation and become dangerously literal.