New! Performance Max Campaigns on Google Ads

Increased ROAS by 40%, a 90% increase in revenue.

That was one advertiser after using Performance Max Campaigns. To see how to get results like this, stick around. 

Read until the end where we share ideas for the best Performance Max Campaign strategies for small businesses.

Let’s go ahead and dive in!

What Are Performance Max Campaigns?

Because we’re marketers and we love our acronyms, we’re going to refer to Performance Max Campaigns as “PMC” from now on. 

So, PMC was designed to work alongside your keyword-based Search campaigns…

…to help you find more conversions across all Google’s properties like:

• YouTube,
• Display,
• Search,
• Discover,
• Gmail, and
• Maps.

Performance Max Campaigns combine Google’s automation technologies across bidding, budget optimization, audiences, creatives, attribution, and more.

Why They Work

These Performance Max Campaigns show where they are most likely to see success.

Did you know that over 40% of global shoppers say they have purchased products they discovered on YouTube?

More than a billion active users come to Gmail every month.

The machine learning reacts in real-time to make adjustments – just stuff humans couldn’t possibly do. 

What They Look Like

Your ads can appear in any combination on a number of different platforms, so it’s hard to say.

You can always see which combinations of creative are showing up most, which we will cover this in just a couple of minutes.

Here’s how you set them up.

Use Asset Groups

You’ll create a group of assets that Google can use to create ads for you on the fly. This is what you’ll need for fully optimized ads.

These groups will be targeted to specific audiences using Audience Signals. 

Audience Signals

Audience signals allow you to add audience suggestions that help Google Ads automation optimize for your selected goals.

Although adding audience signals is optional…

…using audience signals can help you guide machine learning models on the ideal way to optimize your campaign.

Add Audience Signals

In the “Audiences” section, beneath your asset group:

1. If you have already created audiences, choose “Select an Audience”. If not, choose to “Create an Audience”.
2. Create a unique name for your audience.
3. Add your data.
4. Add custom segments.
5. Choose “Save Audience”.

Tip: You can use the “Demographics” section and the “Additional segments” option to further customize your audience.

To enhance machine learning, use search term-based custom segments.

How To Set Up Performance Max Campaigns & Pro Tips

1. Use Final URL Expansion 

According to Google, “Final URL expansion helps you optimize performance of your Performance Max campaigns.

Use Final URL expansion to replace your Final URL with a more relevant landing page based on the user’s search query and intent…

…and to customize a dynamic ad headline that matches your landing page content.”

Benefits

• Reach more customers matching your business through new searches that may not serve through your regular campaigns.
• Increase ad performance through more relevant ads with dynamic headlines.
• Drive conversions due to relevant landing pages being selected based on campaign goal, user intent, ad headline, and other signals.

2. Excluding URLs

If you have specific URLs that you don’t want to include in your Performance Max Campaigns…

…you can enter these URLs individually and they will not be served in ads (for example, your careers page).

You can also opt out of final URL expansion, but Google does not recommend it (nor do we).

3. Optimize Creative

You can get a report on what does and doesn’t work. To see your asset report, follow these instructions:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.

 

2. Click Campaigns from the page menu on the left.
3. Find and click on the relevant Performance Max Campaign.
4. Click Asset groups.
5. Click View details for the asset group you want to look at.

Best Practices For Performance Max Campaigns

We can’t make an entire post without sharing some best practices, you know us.

These are general and recommended by Google, but we have found them helpful to follow: 

• Run campaigns for at least 6 weeks to allow the machine learning algorithm to ramp up and have sufficient data to compare performance.
• Add at least 5 versions of text assets (4 headlines, 5 descriptions) to your asset group.
• Add at least 5 versions of image assets (including 1200×1200) to your asset group.
• Use as many assets as possible.
• Use relevant audience lists as Signals to speed up machine learning ramp-up.
• Utilize Google Ads Conversion Tracking rather than Google Analytics Conversion Import to track video views or cross-device conversions.

Check out our post on Google Analytics metrics next to learn more about the important metrics you should keep an eye on.

Try adding targets from these areas:

• Detailed Demographics: Reach user groups based on long-term life facts.
• Life events: Reach user groups when they are in the midst of important life milestones.
• Affinity: Reach user groups based on what they’re passionate about and their habits and interests.
• In-market: Reach user groups based on their recent purchase intent.

From Google: Your Performance Max Campaigns take 2—3 days to ramp up.

Once your Performance Max Campaign is up and running, you should pause your Google Shopping ads campaign.

If your Shopping campaign and Performance Max campaigns continue to run at the same time…

…the Shopping campaign may continue spending on some surfaces and not allow Performance Max to optimize fully.

Once your campaign is set up, check your creatives and swap as necessary.

Otherwise, they should be a little more hands-off than social campaigns. But they’re still not to be abandoned! 

Now if you’re new to Google Ads, check out our Google Ads for beginners and how much do Google Ads cost to help you get started.

And if you want to maximize your Google ad campaigns, work with our PPC agency today! We’d be happy to help!

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