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Your instinct’s right. Setting page-view as a Google Ads “conversion” tells smart bidding to optimize for the cheapest users that visit that page, which usually means low-intent placements, mobile filler traffic, and bots that survive the page load. The agency’s logic about “filtering bots” doesn’t really hold up, page views are the easiest metric for invalid traffic to inflate, not the hardest.
If they want awareness, run a Display or Demand Gen campaign with reach or impressions as the goal, and use page views or scroll depth as a secondary metric in GA4 not in Google Ads. Keep Google Ads conversion events for real business outcomes, lead form, qualified call, purchase. That’s what the bid algo should be optimizing toward.
If you can, push to mark the page view as “secondary” in Google Ads conversion settings. That keeps it visible for reporting without warping the bid strategy. Pretty common mistake honestly, agencies do it because the conversion column “looks good” on monthly reports.
