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With Google’s announcement that the Performance Max campaign would receive a larger launch, there have been many questions about what Performance Max is, how it compares to other campaigns, and how it performs. The purpose of this post is to answer frequently asked questions and help advertisers prepare.
What is the maximum yield?
The main difference between Performance Max and other campaigns is that Google automates campaign targeting and delivery based on the information provided by the advertiser.
Performance Max is an automated campaign type, reminiscent of (but still slightly different from) a smart campaign.
Google will automate ad creation but only based on the resources you provide, similar to the way responsive display ads work.
You may also find some similarities between Performance Max and social campaigns in that it runs across multiple placements using dynamic ad formats and in the fact that performance reports by audience and placement are limited.
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What network does Performance Max run on?
Performance Max campaigns can run on all of Google’s inventory, which is a big differentiator from other Google campaign types. Performance Max campaigns can run to any placement filled by Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discovery campaigns.
What options and controls do I have with Performance Max?
When setting up a Performance Max campaign, you choose your goal. Depending on your goals, product feeds and store locations can be linked.
Budget and offers
You will then set your budget and choose your bidding strategy. Note that bid strategy options include maximum conversions and maximum value, but you can also set a maximum CPA or target value / conversion, allowing you to leverage Target CPA and Target ROAS strategies.
Location, language, ad schedule
Next, you will choose your locations. Currently, Performance Max isn’t supported by the Google Ads editor, so setting your targeting is more boring than most campaigns. If you have many locations to include, you can choose “enter another location”, which will expand to include a blank space and an “advanced search” link. Click the “advanced search” link for the option to bulk import locations.
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You can then choose the languages, ad schedule, campaign execution dates,
Advanced URL options
URL options are important. By default, Google will define its own final URLs unless you turn off that option. If you allow Google to send traffic to any link it sees fit, you also have the option to exclude the links.
You can also add tracking templates.
Setting up “Resource Groups” AKA Ads
You will then be directed to creating a “resource group”, which is effectively an ad, which will look like a responsive display resource. This “resource group” is called a resource group because it serves as a resource for all platforms. Advertisers can create multiple “resource groups”.
Inform automatic targeting
Each campaign has only one targeting set (so no ad groups). You can select audiences to provide information on who should be targeted by Google. Google notes: “Your ads will automatically show to the people who are most likely to convert for your goals. You can speed optimization by providing signals to your audience.” This means that your campaigns may not be delivered to just that audience. Rather, Google is looking into the audience you provide for the signals. They will use that data to identify similar consumers who may exhibit the same behaviors and interests.
Configure ad extensions
Finally, add your extensions. You can choose to use existing sitelink extensions at the account level or select and create specific sitelinks for Performance Max campaigns. The campaign will suggest extension formats based on your goals. For example, if your main goal includes lead generation, the campaign will suggest creating a lead form extension. You can also add structured snippets, price extensions, promotion extensions, callouts, and call extensions.
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What do the maximum performance reports include?
Performance reporting was recognized as a deficiency. At the Google Marketing Livestream, it was announced that advertiser feedback had been heard regarding reporting transparency and that Google would take steps to improve transparency within Google Max campaigns.
It’s unclear exactly what the reports will look like in the future, so I’ll share my experience with reports in the current format.
Reporting in its current form is limited. Advertisers can report on the performance of the campaign as a whole, just like any other campaign. Failures are where it loses transparency.
First, the things you can do:
Advertisers can generate top-level campaign performance reports Advertisers can generate location performance reports (and if they advertise a chain, the store report is available based on location extensions) Advertisers can generate performance reports per hour of the day, day of the week and day and time together.
Now for the things you can’t report on.
While multiple asset groups (ads) can be added, performance reports by asset group cannot be generated. For example, currently on view, you can generate performance reports via responsive display ad, but you can’t break down that performance by individual asset in any meaningful way. With Performance Max, you can’t even take the first step to break down your performance by asset group (ad).
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Also, no information on targeting is provided. Remember that the targeting metrics provided are used as indicators to identify other potential consumers in the market, so those audiences provided will not necessarily be used as a target but rather as a means of identifying qualifiers and indicators to help find other likely prospects. At the end of the day, there’s no way to know who saw your ad – no audience report, no keyword report, no demographic report, etc. This also means that it is not possible to add exclusions for these things.
Advertisers cannot generate device performance reports or make exclusions.
Because I haven’t linked a product feed, I’m unable to comment on product-level performance reports.
How does Performance Max work?
Let me start by saying that I was one of the beta testers for Performance Max, so I’ll share insights from my experience. Mileage may vary.
In my experience, Performance Max campaigns maintained a 21.4% lower CPL than our non-branded search campaigns, which were completely sold out with unlimited budgets. The CPL was also around 22% cheaper than the display, which tends to work very well for this particular account. We ultimately increased their total monthly conversions by around 5% using Performance Max and this on tight budgets, so there is still room to increase the volume.
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It doesn’t seem to cannibalize search, but neither Performance Max nor Display campaigns were maximized, so I don’t have a good idea of how inventory was shifting between these two channels.
I would qualify these results by saying that this is a very volume generating account. Automation works very well here, presumably due to the volume of incoming data. However, the performance looks ultimately positive.
As this account takes some time for leads to close, we’re still waiting to see how lead quality compares to other channels.
In addition to my account results, Google shared a MoneyMe case study on ThinkWithGoogle, in which it cited a 22% increase in conversions, over $ 800K in revenue from newly funded loans, and a 20% reduction in overall CPA overall. the account.
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