Solved: Manual CPC vs Max Clicks for Dropshipping?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your situation. To be honest, your question about manual CPC and budgets is a common one, but I think you might be focusing on the wrong part of the problem. It's rarely just the bidding strategy that makes or breaks a new dropshipping store. Usually, the issue is a bit deeper, to do with the website, the offer, and how trustworthy you look to a potential customer who's never heard of you before.

Let's get into it.

We'll need to look at your bidding strategy, but not in the way you think...

Alright, let's tackle your first question about bidding. You're asking about Manual CPC, but you only see Maximise Clicks and Target ROAS. This is pretty normal for a new account. Google often limits options until you've got some history.

But here's the brutally honest truth: it doesn't matter. None of these are the right choice for you right now.

Think of Google's advertising AI like a very smart, but very literal, employee. You have to give it a clear goal and the data to achieve it.

• Maximise Clicks: You're telling Google, "Get me the most clicks possible for my budget." Google will say "Okay!" and go find you the cheapest, lowest-quality traffic it can. These are people who click on anything, but rarely buy. You'll burn your $30 a day on window shoppers, not buyers.
• Target ROAS: You're telling Google, "For every £1 I spend, I want £X back." But since you have zero sales (no conversion data), Google has no idea what a typical customer looks like or what a realistic ROAS is. It's like asking a new employee to hit a sales target without telling them what you sell. It just won't work.
• Manual CPC: Even if you had this option, it's an outdated way to run ads for e-commerce. It requires constant management and you'd be guessing what to bid. You'd likely overpay for bad clicks and underbid on good ones.

So what should you do? In theory, you should start with Maximise Conversions. This tells Google your goal is to get sales, and it will use its machine learning to find people most likely to buy. But there's a huge catch: it still needs *some* data to get started. If your website and product page are not optimised to convert, you'll be feeding the algorithm zero sales, and it'll never learn. It's a chicken-and-egg problem. You need sales to make the ads work, but you need the ads to get the sales.

This is why focusing on the bidding strategy is premature. The real work is on your website first. You have to make it as easy as possible for those first few visitors to convert, so you can give Google the data it desperately needs.

I'd say you need to face the harsh reality of a $30/day budget...

Now let's talk about the money. Is $30 a day and a $1.00 bid enough to test? Honestly, no. It's not enough to get meaningful data quickly.

Let's do some quick maths. The pet niche is pretty competative. Your Cost Per Click (CPC) could easily be more than $1.00, it might be $1.50, $2.00, or even higher for good quality traffic. But let's be optimistic and stick with your $1.00 CPC.

A $30 daily budget gets you 30 clicks per day.

A typical e-commerce conversion rate for a new, unknown store is often 1% or even lower. A good, established store might get 2-3%. Let's be generous and say you manage a 1% conversion rate.

You need 100 clicks to get 1 sale. At 30 clicks a day, it will take you over 3 days just to make a single sale. In that time, you've spent around $100. And one sale isn't a pattern; it's an anomaly. You'll need dozens of sales to have any real data to optimise from. At this rate, it would take months.

The real danger here isn't losing $30 a day. The danger is that you'll run the ads for two weeks, spend over $400, get maybe one or two sales, and conclude "this product doesn't work". The reality might be that the product is fine, but you never sent enough traffic to your site to prove it. You're trying to fill a bucket with a dripping tap.

Use this calculator below. Play with the numbers. See how even a small change in conversion rate or CPC drastically changes your profitability. You'll quickly see that with a $30 budget, the numbers are brutal.

You probably should focus on what actually matters: your conversion funnel...

This is the most important part of this letter. Forget the ad settings for a minute. Your success or failure will be decided on your website, long before someone even thinks about clicking "buy".

Every potential customer goes through a funnel. You need to identify where they are dropping off and fix the leaks.

Here's what you need to scrutinise on your store:

• Product Images: Are you using the same generic stock photos from your dropshipping supplier as everyone else? You need to do better. Get some lifestyle shots. Show the cover in a real car, with a real (and happy) dog on it. Show it covered in mud. Show it being easily wiped clean. Video is even better. People need to see it in action to believe in it.
• Product Description: Is your description just a list of features like "waterproof, durable material"? That's boring. You need to sell the benefit. Sell the feeling of relief a dog owner will have knowing their car seats are protected. Use the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework. "Tired of your car seats being covered in fur, mud, and scratches? Worried about that 'wet dog' smell lingering for weeks? Our heavy-duty seat cover creates an impenetrable barrier..." You get the idea.
• Trust Signals: This is massive for a new store. Why should anyone trust you with their $100?
  • -> Do you have customer reviews? (Even if you have to import them to start).
  • -> Do you have trust badges for secure payments (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal)?
  • -> Is your shipping policy clear and easy to find? People hate surprise shipping costs at checkout. Be upfront.
  • -> Do you have an "About Us" page? A contact page? It makes you look like a real business.

Your competitors selling it for $139.95 aren't just selling a product; they are selling a brand and the trust that comes with it. They probably have better photos, a slicker website, and tons of social proof. That's what you're up against. You can't win by just being slightly cheaper. You have to win by looking more professional and trustworthy.

You'll need a better plan...

So, putting it all together, what should you actually do? Here is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is probably a lot to take in, and it might not be the quick fix you were hoping for. But the truth is, successful advertising isn't about finding one magic setting in Google Ads. It's about building a solid foundation with your store and your offer, and then using ads as an accelerator. Trying to scale with a broken foundation just means you'll crash faster.

This is where getting some professional advice can save you a lot of time and money. An experienced eye can spot the leaks in your funnel much quicker and help you build a strategy that actually works, rather than just burning through test budgets.

If you'd like, we can schedule a free, no-obligation consultation call. We can go through your website and your initial campaign plans together, and I can give you some more specific, actionable feedback.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh