Glossary
What do Google Ads bid strategy statuses mean?
Melvin Salas1 min readVerified 6 October 2026
Short answer
Google says your bid strategy status calls attention to the state of your automated bid strategy at any given point in time. The statuses are Inactive, Active, Learning, Limited, and two Misconfigured states: one for a Maximise bid strategy with a shared budget, one for a conversion setting.
To find it, Google says to go to Bid strategies within the Tools menu, where the 'Status' column shows the status of your portfolio bid strategy, and to hover over the text to learn more. Bid strategy statuses aren't available for Hotel campaigns.
Learning is the one most people meet. Google says that after you make a change to your bid strategy, there may be minor performance fluctuations as Google Ads optimises your bids, and a 'Learning' status may be shown. The page says there are four reasons and lists three: new strategy, setting change and composition change. Google's learning period page adds a fourth, for Shopping campaigns: in some cases, ad group target changes may trigger a 'Learning' status. A different Google page says changing a target won't trigger a 'learning' status.
Limited has four factors in Google's list: inventory, bid limits, budget constrained, and bidding strategy. Misconfigured (conversion setting) covers conversion-based bid strategies whose conversion actions are not set up for the strategy to use, and Google's checks include whether the action is enabled and whether its 'Include in "Conversions"' setting is marked 'Yes'.
Our reading: a status describes the state of the strategy, not whether it is making money. Active means it is setting bids, and Google says no changes are needed; it does not mean the campaign is profitable. We judge that against the account's own cost ceiling, separately.
Nothing that moves money happens without evidence
At Riibon a bid or budget change starts from the platform's own forecast and the account's history, and no change that touches money goes live without a person signing it off. Every change is written down with what happened after it, so the next decision starts from the last one.
Ask the Riibon app what changed in your account before your numbers moved. It is free, with no time limit and no card. Or book a call and we run it for you.