DigAd Strategic Account Setup: Conversion Optimization Strategy Explained

Digital Advertising: Optimization Strategy

Overview

When onboarding a new dealership to Digital Advertising, strategy, optimization, and budget should all be discussed upfront. Choosing the right optimization strategy from the start sets the account up to learn and perform effectively.

The Learning Period

The first 45 days are a critical learning window — for Fullpath and for the ad platforms.

During this time, Fullpath is building the dealership's data layer: connecting anonymous website traffic to recognized shoppers, learning the local market, and calibrating cross-channel budget algorithms.

Google and Facebook are doing their own learning simultaneously — identifying audiences, testing bid strategies, and leveraging retargeting data from the dealership's CRM/DMS. Both platforms require a minimum number of active shoppers and a minimum spend level to fully optimize.

Running the account clean during this period — without heavy restrictions, boosting, or customization — gives the system the best chance to learn accurately.

There are 4 bidding strategy statuses you may see in the Dashboard: Inactive, Active, Learning, and Limited.

Optimization Strategies

There are three optimization strategies available for Fullpath Digital Advertising accounts.

1. Max Conversions (Recommended default)

Optimizes Google, Facebook, and DV360 spend toward the highest number of quality conversions — form fills and phone calls tracked on the dealer's website.

Best for:

• Budgets of at least $7,500 (enough to split across channels and complete learning cycles)
   
• Websites where Fullpath can track form submissions (no heavy iFrame or subdomain issues)

2. Max Clicks

Optimizes for volume of website traffic rather than conversions. Good for top-of-funnel, brand awareness goals.

Best for:

• Budgets under $3,500 (splitting a small budget across channels while running Max Conversions can cause performance issues)
   
• Websites where conversion tracking is not possible (e.g., heavy iFrames, subdomains, or DR tools leading offsite)
   

3. Conversion Type Prioritization

Some dealerships receive an imbalance in the type of leads they get — for example, too many phone calls relative to form fills, or vice versa. Conversion Type Prioritization addresses this by letting you assign a weighted value to each conversion type, so Google distributes budget toward the lead types that matter most to that dealership.

Important platform notes:

• This strategy applies to Google only
• When Conversion Type Prioritization is selected, Facebook and DV360 automatically optimize toward conversions (no lead type ratio required)

How weights work:

• Weights can be set between 10% and 90% for each conversion type
• Default ratio is 60% Form Fills / 40% Phone Calls
• Weights are configured in the Dig Ads Settings page under the Optimization Strategy tile (only available after Conversion Type Prioritization is selected in the Onboarding Wizard)

Phone Call Duration Threshold

Regardless of which optimization strategy is selected, you can also configure how long a phone call must last to count as a conversion. Options:
 

This setting lives in the Dig Ads Settings page and is always available, independent of the optimization strategy chosen.

Switching Optimization Strategies

Switching should only happen at the very beginning or very end of a month.

Any switch must be accompanied by a customer conversation where CS clearly explains the required learning period and what the customer should expect.

Max Conversions ↔ Max Clicks

• Switching from Max Conversions to Max Clicks: traffic will likely increase; conversions will likely decrease
   
• Switching from Max Clicks to Max Conversions: traffic will likely decrease; conversions will likely increase

Switching to or from Conversion Type Prioritization

Because Conversion Type Prioritization changes how Google defines and weights conversion success, switching bid strategies triggers a full learning period reset — the algorithm has to recalibrate from scratch.

What to expect during the transition:

• Any change in bidding strategy, goals, conversion definitions, or value logic can cause a learning period where results fluctuate. Value-based bidding in particular can look worse before it looks better, as the system reallocates spend away from low-value conversions that were previously counted as wins.
   
• Switching to a value-based approach takes longer to stabilize than Max Conversions — roughly 2–4 weeks — because value signals are noisier and require higher data thresholds (ideally 30+ conversions in 30 days).
   
• Evaluate results using lead quality and lead mix, not just raw conversion count. The goal of this strategy is better lead distribution, not necessarily more leads.

Learning period after any strategy switch 

This depends on three factors: 

1. volume of conversions
2. length of conversion cycles

3. the bid strategy itself. 

    

It can take up to around 50 conversion events or 3 conversion cycles for the bid strategy to calibrate, although it can be faster depending on the amount of conversion data present.
 

After any switch, a follow-up call is required to review results and confirm whether to proceed or revert.