Benefits:
- Unlocks new audiences across Google’s channels and networks with ‘audience signals’. Imagine combining custom intent, remarketing, and audiences into a single group.
- Delivers better performance towards your goals by using the entire customer journey, not just the last step when someone searches with an existing need.
- Uses real-time bidding (Google considers all attributes in each search, not just classical ones).
- Utilizes the DSA function but always prioritizes ‘exact match’ keywords in your account and ads with higher quality across various campaign types, such as YouTube, Display, and Search.
- Consolidates data in one campaign rather than spreading it over several campaigns – for example, all data from Search and Shopping is collected and used for smart bidding.
Do you remember when Google Smart Shopping was introduced? Performance Max is, in comparison, a Shopping campaign for Google’s entire product portfolio in one and the same campaign.
Google’s Product Portfolio
Performance Max is activated across six areas in Google’s portfolio: Search (including Shopping), Gmail, YouTube, Display, Discovery, and Maps. This allows you to reach more customers wherever they are. Many today use only Search and Smart Shopping – which are at the bottom of the purchase funnel. You then only reach new customers when the need already exists. With Google’s other platforms, you move higher up the funnel and create demand among potential customers. In theory, your audience expands and over time brand awareness and customer base increase.
Performance Max runs across six areas in Google’s portfolio: Search (including Shopping), Gmail, YouTube, Display, Discovery, and Maps.
Is it risky to leave everything to Google?
Of course, it sounds tempting, but at the same time, it can also feel scary to just hand over your budget and control.
When Google released Smart Shopping, I thought it was a smart move from their side to say: “Just give us the money and we handle the rest.” Google probably earns more this way, as they often push more views and clicks than you would have done yourself. Back then, it felt rather intrusive, and with Performance Max, it sounds even more so.
All this can sound overwhelming. But as we saw with the introduction of Smart Shopping: with the right setup, it worked – and nine times out of ten the results were better. Furthermore, Performance Max opens up many opportunities – you reach further through more platforms. Google has access to enormous amounts of data and a powerful algorithm, allowing some things through automation that you would never have achieved manually. For example, their algorithm uses real-time bidding where all attributes in each search are considered.
Performance Max replaces Google Smart Shopping
Google has announced that Performance Max will replace Smart Shopping and Local campaigns in all Google Ads accounts no later than September 2022. Between July and September, existing Smart Shopping campaigns are automatically upgraded to Performance Max. Local campaigns are upgraded from August to September.
Google is also launching a ‘one-click’ tool in Google Ads for those who want to upgrade specific Smart Shopping or Local campaigns before these dates. The tool is available for Smart Shopping from April and for Local campaigns from June.
In other words: if you are currently using Smart Shopping, it may be wise to get acquainted with Performance Max now – test and learn to optimize this campaign type.
Prioritizes exact match and better quality results
Performance Max always prioritizes ‘exact match’ keywords already in your account. For example, if you have a Search campaign with ‘exact match’ keywords, these will always be prioritized over Performance Max. So you don’t have to be afraid that revenue from exact brand searches artificially inflates ROAS.
Similarly, the ad with the best quality always shows across Search, Display, YouTube, and Shopping. If you already have better results in other campaigns, those are shown. If Performance Max performs better, it is shown instead.
That Performance Max can stand aside for other campaigns with better results still gives you some control.
Negative keywords
Google has announced that currently there are no plans for negative keywords at the campaign level for Performance Max. However, options for negative keywords for brand safety at the account level are coming. It will be easier to filter out brand keywords.
What is required to run Performance Max?
To get started with Performance Max, certain settings are required. Here are some important points:
Set a conversion goal for optimization
Performance Max is based on a final goal – e.g. purchase, contact, call, page view, store visit, or sign-up. Google can then optimize for a goal throughout the user journey and across all platforms.
Conversion goals are understood as groupings of your conversions on the account. You must have correct tracking on your website. If they are grouped incorrectly – change the type in the conversion settings. If you don’t want to optimize against certain goals, remove them.
Performance Max optimizes against a final goal you want to achieve.
Content
Just as with a responsive display ad, you need to provide a lot of content in the form of images, text, logos, etc. More content for Google to test gives better results. Fill everything in and upload as many images and videos as possible. If you don’t upload a video, Google will create one for you. You can add:
- 15 images in different formats
- 5 logos in different formats
- 5 videos
- 5 headlines (30 characters each)
- 5 long headlines (90 characters each)
- 1 short description (60 characters)
- 4 standard descriptions (90 characters each)
- 1 HTML banner
Audience signal
One of the strengths of Performance Max is the audience signal. This is all the data you can provide to Google’s algorithms to reach your goal. It can be, for example, lookalike audiences of visitors to competitor websites, ‘in-market’ audiences, users searching with specific keywords, or your remarketing lists. With all this data, Google knows which audiences can best reach your goal.
Don’t run at the same time with your current CSS partner
If you have a CSS partner connected to Smart Shopping, it’s important not to start Performance Max with the same CSS. Then your current Smart Shopping campaign can stop running. I recommend first running with Google’s own CSS in parallel with your partner. If your new Performance Max performs better than the existing one, you can switch CSS. The process is a bit longer, but you avoid losing sales. Read more about CSS below.
How do you optimize Performance Max?
Since so much is automated, how you optimize also changes.
Tracking
It is super important that your tracking is correct — both for macro-conversions (transactions) and micro-conversions (specific behaviors along the way). By including micro-conversions for various steps in the customer journey, performance improves all along the way, not just at the end. For example, you can assign micro-conversions fictional values for smart bidding.
Structured product data
For e-commerce merchants, it’s important to optimize the product feed for structured data so that Google can maximize your information. Read more about this here.
Strategy
Your overall marketing strategy is crucial. Now, more than ever, it’s important to focus on the entire customer journey, not just the “action-based” part, so you grow instead of standing still.
Save 20% with CSS
For more value, CSS is recommended since you get a 20% discount on click price and improve ROAS. Read more about CSS here.
Creative materials
Automation places greater demands on your creative materials. Invest in creating and updating images/videos – the better the material, the better the performance. This also applies to updates before a season or campaign.
Asset groups
A Performance Max campaign consists of so-called asset groups, equivalent to ad groups. An asset group contains images, text, videos, and an audience signal. By creating asset groups for different categories, products, lists, and landing pages, you can optimize. For example, create your own groups for categories and brands.
Profit (POAS)
As I’ve written in other articles: POAS and profit are the future of e-commerce. Focus on profit and margin, not just revenue or ROAS – then you gain better insights and market share, which is optimal for Performance Max. Read more about POAS here.
My recommendation
I have tested Performance Max for several clients, both for lead generation and e-commerce. I must admit – the results are very good. In general, we are also reaching a broader audience, which is logical as the ad is shown in more places. We have also been able to increase the budget and at the same time improved ROAS and POAS. This is likely because Performance Max is better at finding the right users early in the customer journey (top of funnel) compared to, for example, Smart Shopping or generic search campaigns.
I really recommend that you try Performance Max. Even if everything sounds promising, don’t get too comfortable – there are cases where it doesn’t beat the baseline. As with Smart Shopping, a learning period may be required.
Therefore, I recommend, as with all automation, testing against your regular campaigns and letting the results show what works best. In most cases, Performance Max outperforms other campaigns, thanks to access to more data.
Get started with Performance Max in Google Ads
Do you want to know more about Performance Max or need help getting started? Don’t hesitate to contact us here.
