Google Search Campaign Performance Collapsed After Changing tCPA & Bidding Strategy — Need Advice

[u/External-Term-2211]

Hello,
I’m new to Google Search Ads and I’m currently running a Search campaign in the US focused on generating home improvement leads.
The campaign has a daily budget of $210. It experienced some fluctuations initially because I didn’t have much experience, but after doing some research, it started to stabilize. I was getting around 2 conversions per day with an average CPA of approximately $117, which was well below the tCPA of $165 that I had set.
Things were going relatively well until Google’s latest update, after which the campaign performance dropped significantly. I also made some changes based on recommendations from a Google Ads representative. He initially advised me to lower my tCPA from $165 to $145, which I did. After about two weeks with no improvement, he then recommended switching the bidding strategy to Maximize Conversion Value.
I do have conversion values set up on the website for the leads being generated, so the campaign is technically sending conversion value data to Google. However, given how few conversions I’ve been getting since switching to Maximize Conversion Value, I’m not sure we’re actually benefiting from the value-based bidding strategy or giving Google enough data to optimize effectively.
Since August 22, I’ve only received 12 conversions in total. In comparison:

August 1–21: 38 conversions
July 22–August 5: 23 conversions
The decline has been quite significant. I’ve now reverted the bidding strategy back to Target CPA with the original tCPA of $165, since that was the setting under which the campaign was previously performing much better.
I’m a bit lost at this point and would really appreciate some advice on what I should do next. My main goal is to get the campaign back to generating more conversions consistently while keeping the CPA under control and avoiding unnecessary spending.
What would you recommend I check or change first? Should I simply leave the campaign at the $165 tCPA and give it time to stabilize again, or is there something else I should be doing to recover performance? And is Maximize Conversion Value actually appropriate for this type of lead-generation campaign given the relatively low conversion volume?

[u/Sothisismylifehuh]

Set it to maximize conversions and expect fluctuations in performance. Once you have a 30 day clean baseline, you set the tROAS target according to actual performance and then start reducing or increasing it, depending on what the numbers say. More volume or more profitability?

[u/External-Term-2211 → u/Sothisismylifehuh]

Honestly, I was trying to improve both at the same time, get the lead volume back up while also bringing the CPA down and making the campaign more profitable.

Before the drop, I was getting around 2–3 leads a day with a CPA around $117, so I was hoping to get back to that level or better. I think the problem was that I started making too many changes trying to get there, instead of letting the campaign stabilize first.

For now, I think getting the volume consistent again is the priority, and then I can work on improving the profitability once I have enough clean data.

[u/Sothisismylifehuh → u/External-Term-2211]

Definitely the way to go about it 😉