With Google’s ongoing march to full automation of PPC campaigns, Performance Max has become its leading Google Ads product — promising increased ad performance across multiple channels in one easy-to-manage campaign.
But, to get the best results out of your PMax campaigns, you can’t take a “set it and forget it” approach.
Whether you proactively created custom Performance Max campaigns when they launched in 2021, or you’ve been using the auto-created campaigns that replaced Smart Shopping, we recommend regularly reviewing your PMax configurations to reduce your ad costs and maximize your return on ad spend.
Today’s guide will help you get started.
Below, we cover everything you need to know to supercharge your PMax campaigns, including:
- What Performance Max is and how it works
- What does (and doesn’t) work for advertisers
- How to set up Performance Max campaigns
- How to optimize existing campaigns for better performance
The video below is hosted on YouTube. If you need assistance with viewing the video, please contact info@goinflow.com.
Remember: If you ever want an expert to configure and manage your PMax campaigns for you, our team is always happy to help.
What Is Google Performance Max?
Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that uses machine learning to improve the delivery and performance of placements across Google’s advertising channels, including:
The machine draws from your assets (including text and visuals) to deliver the right ad in the right format at the right time to improve conversion rates for your ad spend. And, once you set your campaign bid strategy, PMax uses machine learning technology to update your product and keyword bids in real time.
Google sees Performance Max as the next evolution of Google Ads automation, which is why they replaced Smart Shopping campaigns with this system. In Google’s eyes, Performance Max offers everything Smart Shopping did and more, so there’s no need to maintain the earlier version.
The video below is hosted on YouTube. If you need assistance with viewing the video, please contact info@goinflow.com.
Here at Inflow, we’re willing to bet good money that Performance Max will eventually be the only type of Google Ads campaign available to advertisers.
In other words, it’s the future of pay-per-click advertising — and should be a high priority for any digital marketing team.
How Does Performance Max Work?
Performance Max is designed to help businesses improve their online sales and lead generation by using content that maximizes a brand’s desired conversion goals.
For the system to work, you’ll need to define your goals and provide some basic assets. This includes text headlines, descriptions, images, and, ideally, video. (Performance Max Google ads can also draw additional assets from your feeds, such as Google My Business.)
You’ll specify whether or not you’d like geo-targeted campaigns, and then you’ll set your budget.
Tip: Like other types of Google campaigns, Google defaults location settings to “presence or interest.” Switch to “presence” to avoid targeting users outside your desired location.
You can also supply PMax with starter audiences, including any remarketing lists you might have and any Google Audiences and/or audience segments you’ve defined as part of your previous targeting strategy. (One recommendation: A list of all previous customers, which Google will use to find similar audiences.)
Once it has all this data, Performance Max will start serving ads across all Google platforms, using smart bidding and the creative assets you supplied to make customer acquisition more efficient.
Therefore, you should be comfortable with Google’s increased control over multichannel ads before launching your PMax campaigns.
The video below is hosted on YouTube. If you need assistance with viewing the video, please contact info@goinflow.com.
Initially, Performance Max will use your information to try to target your best audience. However, with its machine learning, the system will increasingly refine the audience for your ads. It will even develop a sense of where each customer is in their journey and try to supply the ad that matches that stage.
You can also provide Performance Max with additional Audience Signals to help it hone in on your target audience’s demographics faster.
Like all automation, PMax needs time to learn before it can deliver great results. In our experience, most brands that launch a new campaign can expect the following timeline:
For most brands, it can take about four to six weeks to match your previous cost per acquisition (CPA), so patience is key.
First, you’ll likely see a decrease in traffic as the machine conducts its initial learning (typically completed in seven days).
After a few weeks of learning, you’ll see your results start to improve.
As with other Google products, Performance Max plays its cards close to its vest. It provides insights to help you refine your campaigns, but it won’t tell you everything, especially when it comes to performance reporting.
In comparison to Smart Shopping, PMax provides fewer details on where ads are being displayed, not only in the search results but also in the display network at large. You’ll have much less control over where your ads are seen, which requires putting more trust in Google.
Understandably, that can be a difficult ask. But, when your patience is running thin, keep this in mind: Of all the clients we’ve managed PMax for, the vast majority have seen significantly better results than with campaigns of old.
Just one example: KEH Camera, for whom we generated a 75% increase in Google Ads revenue when switching from Smart Shopping to Performance Max.
The video below is hosted on YouTube. If you need assistance with viewing the video, please contact info@goinflow.com.
What Does (and Doesn’t) Work
Whether you’re running Performance Max for eCommerce or lead generation, one thing remains the same:
The more data you can provide upfront, the more efficiently Performance Max will start bringing in new customers and leads.
The PMax automation engine needs data to effectively understand the patterns in your audience and your campaigns. In our experience, brands with bigger budgets and more customers/product data can ramp up their campaigns more quickly than those with less room for experimentation.
A plethora of data means the algorithm will learn faster because it has a steady stream of historical information to help determine when to bid and serve an ad. If you can supply this information from one or more feeds (like a regularly updated Google My Business Profile, Google Merchant Center, or product feed), you’ll get even better results. We also recommend actively engaging via the Audience Signals interface during setup to maximize conversions.
On the flip side, that means that PMax doesn’t work as quickly for companies with a limited budget and a relatively small number of SKUs/audience lists/etc.
This limited data means the machine takes longer to learn, leading to a diminished return on ad spend (ROAS) at the start. Similarly, if PMax is given the wrong Audience Signals at setup, the learning period might be too long for some small retailers’ budgets. You might also see a lackluster performance if you don’t have a lot of creative to supply.
However, that doesn’t mean Performance Max is dead in the water for smaller brands. We still see significant results for our smaller clients, just with a longer run-up time.
Even “naked” PMax campaigns that rely solely on campaign inputs (with no GMC feed) have delivered great returns for Inflow’s partners, as seen in the example below where the PMax ROAS is more than double that of the branded search campaign.
If you’re a smaller brand struggling to generate ROAS with PMax, we can help. Schedule a no-obligation call today to discuss your current challenges and our recommendations.
Creating Your Performance Max Strategy
Performance Max is a powerful tool for advertisers — but, because it’s a newer campaign type, not all marketers know the nuances well enough to unlock its full potential.
If you’re like most, you probably let your Smart Shopping campaigns automatically convert into Performance Max a few years ago, trusting Google to do its thing. Unfortunately, in our experience, those auto-converted campaigns don’t perform as well as thoughtful, strategic PMax campaigns created from scratch.
But not to worry — setting up a new Performance Max campaign isn’t complicated, and we’ve detailed the steps to guide you through it below.
(Already set up your campaigns years ago? Congrats: You’re ahead of the curve! You’ll find optimization advice from our experts further along in this guide.)
How to Set Up Your Performance Max Campaigns from Scratch
There are countless guides out there that detail how to set up Performance Max campaigns, so we won’t go into too much detail here. You’ll find Google’s in-platform walkthrough easy to follow, and you can always check out its step-by-step PMax guide for more instructions.
Below, we’ve hit on a few of the biggest factors that will impact the success of your campaign, with some tips from our PPC experts.
1. Gather your creative (visuals and copy).
Performance Max wants enough creative assets to mix and match with the ad formats it shows potential customers. The more creative you have, the more effective the system can be.
However, compelling ad creative takes time to create — which is why we list this as the first priority for your business. Invest the time and money into creating great visuals before you launch your PMax campaigns, and they’ll perform that much better.
For a single campaign, you must supply images in these dimensions:
- 1 x 1200×628 landscape (4 images recommended, up to 20 allowed)
- 1 x 1200×1200 square (4 images recommended, up to 20 allowed)
- 1 x 960×1200 portrait (2 images recommended, up to 20 allowed)
- 1 x 1200×300 landscape logo (up to 5 images allowed)
Technically, video is optional to set up Performance Max campaigns. However, if you don’t supply any video assets, Google will make one for you, and they’re almost always universally bad (think Facebook Friendaversary but customer-facing).
Therefore, it’s worth it to create a 15 to 20-second video yourself beforehand.
Performance Max requires videos in the following dimensions:
- 1 x 16:9 landscape (up to 5 allowed)
- 1 x 9:16 vertical (up to 5 allowed)
- 1 x 1:1 square (up to 5 allowed)
Note: If you’re also supplying a campaign from feeds (such as Google My Business), don’t put the same imagery in your asset groups that comes via the feed, or else risk duplication.
In addition to visuals, you need text for your campaigns. At a minimum, this means:
- 3 x 30-character headlines
- 1 x 90-character headline
- 3 x 90-character description
- 1 x 25-character business name
- 1 x call to action (length is automated)
- 2 x 15-character URLs
Kickstart your PMax image creation with Inflow’s High-Impact Ad Creative, included in any ongoing PPC engagement. Contact us today to learn more.
2. Set up your asset groups.
Once you have your creative ready and uploaded to the Google Ads platform, it’s time to create asset groups. Google’s AI can do this for you automatically, but we recommend manually reviewing and optimizing your asset groups based on your goals and product offerings.
If you’re an eCommerce brand, consider segmenting your asset groups based on product categories. If you’re running lead-gen campaigns, consider using a funnel-based strategy to break out your asset groups.
In other words, don’t create additional campaigns unless you have a very good reason to. Additional campaigns split up your performance data, which makes it harder for PMax to deliver returns.
Most importantly, while setting up your asset groups, make sure you address every single checkbox item in the setup guide.
3. Choose your audience signal.
Audience signals are helpful tools that allow you to further refine your audience targeting with Performance Max. We recommend uploading any first-party data you might have on key audiences, such as:
- Website visitor lists
- First-party customer lists
- App user lists
- Email subscription lists
- Video viewer lists
You can also create custom segments based on factors such as interests, in-market audiences, and more.
For most businesses, audiences used in other Google Ads campaigns can be translated to Performance Max with a little adjustment.
4. Incorporate search themes.
Search themes are another newer feature of Performance Max campaigns (currently still in beta testing). The information they provide adds more context to your campaign data, allowing PMax to better understand your business and more efficiently serve ads to the right audiences. They’re especially helpful for businesses lacking extensive campaign performance data.
Think of these like you would keywords in a search campaign. For example, if you’re aiming to sell custom airplane models, you’d want to include search themes such as “buy custom airplane model,” “where to find custom airplane models,” and so on.
You can add up to 25 unique search themes to each PMax campaign. Be careful of using themes that are too similar (i.e. “car” and “automobile”); otherwise, you’ll restrict your potential audience reach.
5. Select a bidding strategy and budget.
Performance Max takes the guesswork out of campaign bidding by recommending strategies based on your specified performance goal. (You can read more about these strategies in our guide to Google Ads automation.)
Once your bidding strategy is set, Google will also recommend an average daily budget for your campaigns. If it falls below the recommended performance levels, you’ll likely receive an alert suggesting an increase.
Of course, Google is not shy about asking for budget increases from advertisers. That’s why we highly recommend dialing in on your ROAS and CPA before you start throwing any additional money at Google (who, after all, benefits financially from your increased ad spend).
That said, I’ll repeat the most important lesson here: PMax campaigns work best when you give them room to learn and grow, so the more you can invest in your ad spend upfront, the quicker your campaigns will start delivering results.
How to Optimize Performance Max Campaigns
As we’ve mentioned, Performance Max campaigns take time to ramp up as they learn your audience and data — but there are ways you can boost your chances of success.
To reduce your CPA and improve your ROAS over time, regularly optimize your campaign settings with these strategies:
Continue sending data to Google.
If there’s one way to improve your Performance Max campaigns, it’s by supplying them with as much contextual and audience data as possible.
You’ll be prompted to upload first-party data when you first create your campaigns, but we recommend feeding the machine with new information on a continual basis, as well. This way, your campaigns can evolve with your business; as your email subscriber list grows, so can your targeting list on the Google display network.
We also recommend:
- Keeping your product data feed optimized
- Reviewing Predictive Audiences in Google Analytics 4
- Updating your Google Business Profile
- Adding and updating customer match lists
Experiment with as much budget as possible.
Performance Max benefits from having more money to play with to test different ad strategies over different platforms.
We know: There’s a lot of competition for your ad dollars, and the only way to get more money for PMax is to take it from another part of your budget. However, this is a case where it’s probably worth it.
The sooner you can get your PMax campaigns “over the hump,” the better your return. As PMax performs better, you can reallocate money back to other parts of your ad spend, if necessary.
Use as a complementary channel.
Performance Max isn’t designed to be your only ad campaign. Instead, it’s what Google calls a “finisher” — helping you to capitalize on the results of your other search campaigns.
To get the most from Performance Max, you should still be running keyword-based search ads, Demand Gen campaigns, and more.
Note: If you have PMax campaigns running alongside Shopping campaigns, and a user query is identical to an eligible Shopping keyword of any match type in your account, your Shopping campaigns will be prioritized over Performance Max. Sometimes, however, existing keywords may show in Performance Max instead of your Shopping campaigns, due to ineligibility factors.
In other words, if you’re particular about which keywords are showing in which campaigns, be careful with your Performance Max.
Finding the right balance between these different campaign types will take time. But, with a little tweaking, you’ll find how much you need to spend on awareness campaigns in other channels to feed Performance Max’s increasingly powerful conversion strategies.
Get our experts’ take on your Google Ads strategy by scheduling a free, no-obligation consultation call today.
Let the Experts Do It For You
In short, Performance Max is a powerful approach to automated ad campaigns that lets you reach Google’s entire ad inventory with campaigns focused on specific goal completions.
And, in the years since its launch, PMax has addressed the initial hesitations of PPC experts to become a solid performer for our varied client roster.
If there’s one thing to remember, it’s that PMax has a steep learning curve. If you’re not prepared to deal with a long-term dip in performance or don’t have the time to babysit these campaigns during their learning period, you might be better off placing your trust in experts who can help you achieve better results faster.
If you want an expert PPC team to create an effective Performance Max strategy for your business — or to audit your existing campaign setup — our team of strategists stands ready to help.
Contact us anytime to see what Inflow can do for you.
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