So, what is Google Performance Max and what makes it special from other tools in the Google Ads suite? A Performance Max campaign is a goal-based smart campaign aimed to help marketers find more converting customers across ALL of Google’s channels. Yes, you read that correctly - all of them. It can serve in any of the placements filled by Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discovery campaigns - making it very unique compared to its supporting tools. 

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In this month’s blog we will discuss all things Performance Max - what it is, how it works and how it can be a useful tool for your marketing mix! 

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How do Performance Max campaigns work? 

The primary difference between Performance Max and other campaigns is that Google automates the targeting and delivery of the campaign based upon the information that the advertiser provides (SEJ, 2021). These campaigns are automated, where Google will automate ad creation through assets that have been provided, similar to the way responsive display ads function. 

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The closest comparison of a Performance Max campaign is that of a dynamic social media campaign - where it can run across multiple placements using dynamic ad formats, as well as sharing similar limitations such as performance reporting by audience and placement being limited. Just like a dynamic social media campaign, it utilises asset groups to roll out the campaign across all platforms. In other words you need to provide up to 15 images (and videos), 5 logos, 5 headlines, 5 long headlines, 5 descriptions, and Google will do the rest. Google’s machine learning systems will automatically serve the responsive ads across those channels and use automated Smart Bidding based on the goal you have set (Deanlong.io).

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Performance max campaigns utilise Smart Bidding, which is an automated bid strategy that optimises for conversion across all channels, allowing for real-time management of bids, budgets, audiences, creatives, attributions, and more (Agencyanalytics.com). 

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Benefits of Performance Max Campaigns

Besides the hands off approach Performance Max campaigns gives marketers as well as the new ‘all-access advertising pass to the entire Google Ads suite, there are a variety of benefits these type of campaigns deliver: 

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• Automation: Using Smart Bidding, all aspects of the bidding and ad buying process are automated, and Performance Max will even generate your ads for you based on the creative assets you provided. 

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• Audience Signals: Allow you to steer the machine learning algorithms in the right direction to save time and maximise effectiveness. These campaigns can help you unlock new audience segments by leveraging the search engines’s real-time understanding of consumer’s intent, preferences and other behavioural features across all channels. 

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• Easier Ad Campaign Optimisation: Performance Max ads can increase your online leads and conversions by automatically optimising your budget and bids through machine learning across all of Google's ad platforms. That means you can increase your campaign goals at a rate that's far more efficient than a generic search campaign (informaticsinc.com)

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• More Substantial Data Insights: Performance Max campaigns can help you better understand how Google's algorithm is handling your campaign. It also gives you the ability to see which audience segments and image combinations are having the most success in reaching users, allowing you to further dial in current and future campaigns (informaticsinc.com). 

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• Goal-focused Campaigns: Machine learning will allow optimisation at the most incremental touch points to drive customers to convert.

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As shown above there are a variety of great benefits when using a Google Performance Max campaign, leveraging machine learning across the tool to optimise your campaign and ultimately make your life easier. With that being said, there are specific factors that need to be considered when wanting to run a good Performance Max campaign: 

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• Good Volume of Conversion Data: To use a Performance Max campaign effectively, you must supply Google with enough conversion data to Google’s machine learning to determine what works (and doesn’t) for your campaign. 

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• Appropriate Audience Signals: Although this is optional, taking the time to define audience signals will help improve the results from Google’s machine learning. Signals you can add to your campaign include: custom segments (e.g based on the keywords people search for, the websites they visit, etc), remarketing lists, interests and demographics. 

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• Timelines: Google recommends running a new Performance Max campaign for at least six weeks.This is because it can take Google Ads up to two weeks to collect enough data to feed its machine learning models for your campaign. Then you will need four weeks to run your ads and additional time to review the results (lovesdata.com, 2021)

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• Range of Creative: The performance of your ads will vary significantly based on the ad creative you provide for the campaign. You should aim to provide a variety of high-quality and engaging content. Having a range of creative allows Google’s machine learning to determine which assets are the most effective and what combination of creative, logos, headers and text drive the best results based on your objectives. 

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Performance Max is truly the all in one access pass to the Google Ads suite, and its use of machine learning makes it an extremely powerful tool to run advertising campaigns on. With that being said, it is still crucial to be meticulous when setting up the campaign correctly and providing as much information as possible to help the overall performance of the campaign. 

If you are interested to see how your business can benefit from a Google Performance Max campaign, Get in touch >>

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