What marketers should know about Google Performance Max campaigns
Performance Max is Google’s goal-based ad campaign format, built to help marketers target the customers most likely to convert. Its automation handles bidding and placement across Search, Display and YouTube from one campaign, which is why it has become a popular option for marketers looking to improve results.
Getting the most from Performance Max still comes down to feeding it the right conversion goals, creative assets and audience signals, rather than treating automation as a set-and-forget feature.
“It’s a new goal-based campaign aimed at increasing online sales, generating more leads, and driving more store visits to physical business locations,” Rodney Ip, global product lead of Google Ads, explained at SMX Next. “It’s intended to run alongside keyword-based search campaigns, allowing you to easily drive more conversions across the full range of search, display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discover formats from a single campaign.”
“By inputting your specific conversion goals, Performance Max puts your business goals front and center and prioritizes these above other signals,” he added.
Through automated bidding and targeting, Performance Max is intended to supplement keyword-focused search campaigns. Marketers who want to broaden their customer reach and place a greater emphasis on goal completions should take advantage of everything these campaigns have to offer.
Cross-channel optimization allows for automated bidding and targeting.
“Users assist Performance Max in determining which conversions are most important to your business,” Ip explained. “Because of this goal-oriented focus, Performance Max campaigns will use automated bidding and targeting technology, data-driven attribution, and automatically tailored ads to help you find more customers wherever they are across Google Ads.”
“Automation can help you invest your budget more effectively and dynamically allocate spend to the areas with the highest ROI opportunities,” he added.
Ip used a fishing analogy to demonstrate the benefits of cross-channel automation: fishing in multiple ponds versus fishing in the ocean. Using single-channel campaigns is similar to the former; you may catch a big fish, but you don’t know if you’re missing other big fish in other ponds.
“In Performance Max, cross-channel optimization is a lot more like fishing in the ocean,” he says. “By combining all of Google Ads’ inventory, you can use automation and Performance Max to cast a wider net in one body of water and easily catch all of the biggest fish.” Use Performance Max to find new customers anywhere and to simplify campaign management.”
Here are the resources marketers should have on hand to ensure that the Performance Max campaign automation achieves their objectives:
- Reporting conversion value rules
- Audience cues reveal user intent
- Text, videos, and images of the highest quality
Best practices for Performance Max conversion
Ip identified a few best practices to assist marketers in increasing conversion quantity and quality. These can assist marketers in making the most of their campaigns.
Select actionable conversion objectives. Because not all campaigns will have the same objectives, marketers should ensure that those they submit are relevant to their organization.
“For example, if lead farms, phone calls, and store visits all contribute to your sales,” Ip said. “As a result, you will be able to maximize your marketing outcomes.”
Set conversion parameters. To help determine the value of conversions wherever they occur, Ip recommends using value-based bidding strategies.
“Assign values to represent the relative importance of various conversion goals,” he explained. “This enables Performance Max automation to recognize and prioritize the conversions that are most important to your business.”
Offline conversions can be imported. Many conversions take place in physical locations. You can import these into Performance Max campaigns and measure them alongside online conversions.
“Performance Max can also be combined with offline conversion imports for lead generation advertisers,” Ip explained. “By providing this information about which leads result in sales, Performance Max will be able to drive higher lead-quality across channels.”
The shift to automation in digital advertising is highlighted by Performance Max. Marketers who want to stay ahead of the competition should look into these campaign types.
“We will continue to invest in it and develop new features to make it even easier to understand and manage your campaign in order to achieve better results,” Ip said.
