The ever-evolving landscape of digital advertising can be daunting for businesses of all sizes. New campaign types and features emerge constantly, promising increased reach and conversions. One such innovation from Google Ads is Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. But what exactly are PMax campaigns, and how can they benefit your business?

This comprehensive guide will equip you with everything you need to know about Performance Max campaigns. We’ll delve into their core functionalities, asset specifications, explore the benefits they offer, and provide insights on whether they’re the right fit for your advertising goals. By the end, you’ll be able to make informed decisions about incorporating PMax campaigns into your overall marketing strategy.

What Are Performance Max Campaigns?

Performance Max campaigns represent a significant shift in how businesses can leverage Google Ads. Unlike traditional campaign types that focus on specific channels like Search or Display, PMax campaigns take a holistic approach. They utilise Google’s machine learning capabilities to deliver your ads across its entire advertising network:

• Search
• Display
• YouTube
• Discover
• Gmail
• Maps

This all-encompassing approach allows PMax campaigns to identify potential customers across a wider range of touchpoints within the user journey. Imagine your ideal customer researching a product on YouTube, browsing related content on the Discover feed, and then encountering your ad on a relevant search query. PMax campaigns have the potential to reach this customer at every stage, maximising the likelihood of conversion.

In the next section, we’ll explore the key benefits PMax campaigns offer businesses and delve deeper into how they can streamline your advertising efforts.

Why Consider Performance Max Campaigns?

Performance Max campaigns offer a compelling set of advantages for businesses seeking to optimise their advertising efforts. Here’s a closer look at some of the key benefits that can make PMax a valuable addition to your marketing toolbox:

Effortless Campaign Management

PMax campaigns streamline the campaign setup process by eliminating the need to manage multiple channels individually. This translates into significant time savings, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business. Google’s automated system takes care of ad placement and optimisation across its vast network, ensuring your message reaches the right audience at the right time.

Enhanced Reach and Visibility

By leveraging Google’s entire advertising network, PMax campaigns unlock the potential to reach a much wider audience compared to traditional, channel-specific campaigns. This expanded reach allows you to connect with potential customers who might not be actively searching for your product or service but are still receptive to your offerings when presented in the right context.

Data-Driven Optimisation

PMax campaigns are powered by Google’s sophisticated machine-learning algorithms. These algorithms analyse vast amounts of data to identify patterns and trends, allowing them to optimise your ad delivery in real time. This data-driven approach ensures your ads are shown to users most likely to convert, maximising your return on ad spend (ROAS).

Simplified Audience Targeting

PMax campaigns offer a more nuanced approach to audience targeting compared to traditional methods. Instead of relying solely on demographics and keywords, PMax leverages audience signals. These signals can include customer interests, browsing behaviour, and purchase history, enabling the system to target users with a high propensity to convert.

Automated Bidding Strategies

PMax campaigns eliminate the need for manual bid adjustments. The system utilises automated bidding strategies like “Maximise Conversions” or “Maximise Conversion Value” to optimise your bids for each ad impression. This ensures you’re paying the right price to reach your target audience and achieve your desired outcomes.

While PMax offers a compelling set of advantages, it’s important to understand that it might not be the perfect fit for every business. The next section will explore some key considerations to help you decide if PMax aligns with your specific advertising goals.

Is Performance Max Right for You? Key Considerations

Performance Max campaigns offer a powerful suite of benefits, but before diving in, it’s crucial to assess if they align with your specific advertising goals and business model. Here are some key considerations to help you make an informed decision:

Budget

PMax campaigns are generally said to perform best with larger budgets, but don’t let this stop you. Google recommends a minimum ad spend of over $1000 per month to ensure the machine learning algorithms have enough data to optimise effectively, but our data indicates that budgets as small as $450 per month are performing incredibly well – especially if you’ve previously used Google Ads in any form. If your advertising budget is more limited than that, you might see better results with Search Ads, but we think anyone who’s contemplating Display Ads should be trying out PMax instead!

Conversion Volume

PMax thrives on historical data. Ideally, you should be generating a minimum of 20-50 conversions per month from your existing campaigns before considering implementing a PMax campaign. This data provides the foundation for the machine learning algorithms to learn and improve your ad performance over time. With lower conversion volumes, PMax might struggle to deliver optimal results. If you have fewer than 20 conversions a month, we recommend consolidating your existing campaigns. 

Campaign Goals

While PMax can be optimised for various goals like website traffic, lead generation, or sales, we find it works best with clear conversion-focused objectives. If your primary goal is brand awareness or app downloads, other campaign types might be better suited.

Control vs. Automation

PMax excels at automation, taking care of ad placement and targeting across various channels. However, this automation comes at the cost of some control. If you require granular control over every aspect of your campaigns, PMax might not be the ideal choice.

Reporting and Measurement

PMax reporting currently has limitations compared to traditional campaign types. While you can track key metrics like conversions and cost-per-acquisition (CPA), granular details like placement breakdowns or landing page reports might be limited. Consider utilising Google Analytics in conjunction with PMax to gain a more comprehensive understanding of user behaviour.

Account Structure

For optimal performance, Google recommends structuring your PMax campaigns with multiple campaigns focusing on specific product categories or goals. This allows for more tailored targeting and budget allocation.

Comparison of Ad Types

How To Optimise Your Performance Max Campaigns

Having explored the advantages and considerations surrounding PMax campaigns, let’s dive into some best practices to maximise their effectiveness:

Asset Groups

You can build up to 100 asset groups per campaign with Google Performance Max. You can use each asset group to target different products or different customer segments, depending on your needs. In our experience, dedicating asset groups to products has worked best, however we’ve also included an example further down for customer segments.

High-Quality Assets

PMax relies heavily on the assets you provide, including images, videos, headlines, and descriptions. We recommend that you invest some time in creating compelling and informative assets that showcase your products or services in the best light. Below is a list of all the assets that you can utilise for your PMax campaign. 

• Final URL
• Calls
• Products
• Images (20 Max.) 
• Logos (5 Max.)
• Video (5 Max.) 
• Headlines (15 Max.)
• Long Headlines (5 Max.)
• Descriptions (5 Max.)
• Business Name
• Sitelinks
• CTA – automatically generated
• Signals – Search Themes (25 Max.) 
• Audience Signal – First-Party Data

 

Tip: While Google’s AI tools are consistently improving, we recommend using your own videos instead of relying on low-quality, automated videos that may not align with your branding.

Once the campaign is underway, Google will automatically assign scores to each of your assets to indicate their performance. This is so that you can rotate out worse-performing assets to experiment with newer ones. 

Final URL Expansion

Final URL Expansions allow you to add individual product or landing page URLs to your PMax campaign.
There are three settings for Final URL Expansion with differing level of control for the advertiser: 

• URL expansion ON, no exclusions
• URL expansion ON, with exclusions
• URL expansion OFF

To make life easier for businesses, we recommend experimenting with exclusions to remove non-commercial pages and ensure more granular control over your campaign. This also makes evaluating campaign performance easier at reporting time. 

Audience Signals

Audience signals are a new, powerful feature that Google introduced with PMax campaigns. You can think of these signals as hints to guide the algorithm. Once your campaign is launched, Google will leverage AI-driven real-time data to identify new customers that are most likely to convert, but to start it off Google relies on audience signals to point your PMax campaign in the right direction. Audience signals can include: 

• Customer segments
• Remarketing lists
• Demographic information

Audience Signals For A Local Gym

This multi-layered approach ensures your ad reaches users at different points in their decision-making process.

Customer Acquisition

Customer acquisition allows you to optimise the campaign for acquiring new customers. Advertisers have the option to bid higher for new customers than existing, and only bid for new customers. Bidding higher for new customers is the most complex setting, we would not recommend enabling this feature if you’re only just starting out. 

Leverage Negative Keywords

While PMax automates targeting, negative keywords can still be valuable. Identify irrelevant search terms that might trigger your ads and exclude them to prevent wasted spend on unqualified clicks. Currently, you can only apply negative keywords at the campaign level on PMax campaigns, though we are hoping this will change in the near future!

Monitor Performance

While PMax ads excel in automation, don’t set your PMax campaigns and forget them! Regularly monitor their performance, analyse key metrics like conversions and cost-per-acquisition (CPA), and make adjustments as needed. We advise pairing your PMax campaigns with Google Analytics, your CRM programs or offline conversion tracking. 

Patience is Key

Remember, PMax campaigns require time for the machine learning algorithms to learn and optimise according to data from your audience signals. Don’t expect overnight results. It generally takes around 1 to 2 weeks to start seeing results and then making adjustments based on performance.

Troubleshooting Your PMax Campaigns

What We’d Like To See In The Future 

Performance Max is a great tool for advertisers looking to reach a wider audience and drive conversions at various touchpoints. However there are still some things, we as marketers, would love to see to address its weak points. Here’s our wish list for PMax Campaigns in 2024: 

1. Account-level negative keywords
2. More detailed reporting and audience targeting options 
3. Automated budget allocations
4. Improved AI video (its capabilities are very basic at present)

Frequently Asked Questions

By understanding these common questions and concerns, you’ll be better equipped to decide if Performance Max campaigns are the right fit for your advertising strategy. The next section will provide some concluding remarks to solidify your learnings.

Performance Max Campaigns for Business Growth

By harnessing the power of machine learning and automation, PMax campaigns can help businesses reach a wider audience, drive conversions, and ultimately achieve their marketing goals.

Here are some key takeaways to remember:

• PMax excels with larger budgets (but in our experience so far, not as large as Google recommends) and sufficient conversion volume.
• Clearly defined goals and a focus on conversions will optimise PMax performance.
• High-quality assets, diverse formats, and strong CTAs are crucial for success.
• Embrace PMax’s automation while strategically using negative keywords for control.
• Patience and ongoing monitoring are essential for optimal campaign performance.

At Lance Montana, we have extensive experience in leveraging PMax campaigns across diverse businesses and industries to deliver tangible results for our clients. Here are some case studies to give you an idea of how quickly PMax can boost your ROAS.

Case Study 1:

A Queensland-based boat trailer manufacturer started testing Performance Max campaigns in response to lacklustre results seen from Google Display ads. The main goal of the campaign was to increase phone calls to the business, as inbound traffic had been quiet for some time leading up to the decision to test the new campaign strategy.

In the 30 days following reallocating budget from Google Display into Performance Max, for the same budget spend, an impressive increase in performance was seen across the board, including:

• 132.9% increase in conversions
• 8.98% increase in impressions
• 283.36% increase in website traffic
• 76.57% decrease in average CPC
• 251.77% increase in average CTR

Case Study 2:

A reputable rug company based in Brisbane is closing down, and approached Lance Montana to put together an advertising strategy to assist in clearing out all existing stock. The main goal of the campaign was to drive sales, however these sales predominantly needed to be pushed in-store as not all stock was listed online, and the in-store discount was larger. 

Because of this, a major part of the advertising strategy was a Performance Max campaign, focusing on driving foot traffic into the store.

To date, the campaign has seen some incredible results, including:

• 1,386 recorded conversions in the first 60 days
• 2.68% average conversion rate
• $0.48 average CPC (compared to $3.36 in the Search campaign)
• $1.40 average cost per conversion (compared to $11.32 seen in Search campaign)

The client also saw an increase in revenue of 125% in the first month of the Performance Max campaign compared to previous months of advertising with Search campaigns. 

Harness the Full Potential of PMax Campaigns with Marketing Experts

Not ready to tackle the beast by yourself just yet? We understand. Get in touch with the team at Lance Montana, we’ll conduct a comprehensive digital ads audit and implement best practices to help you reach your goals.