.png){kind=small}
Do you want to get better results from your e-commerce campaigns? And reach the right audience with just one campaign? Performance Max campaigns offer unique opportunities to use Google's algorithms to maximize revenue for your company.
Czym są kampanie Performance Max?
The introduction of the Performance Max campaign at the end of 2021 triggered major changes in the Google advertising ecosystem. The new campaign type is a combination of search, display, video, shopping, and local campaigns. It is based on Google algorithms and uses machine learning to optimize campaigns. It helps to achieve a specific conversion while minimizing the possibilities of optimization by performance specialists.
Performance Max has completely replaced local campaigns and smart product campaigns. This campaign type offers more ad placements per campaign, depending on the added assets. Thanks to such possibilities, performance campaigns are more effective at reaching a large number of users and often lead to more conversions.
To the Performance Max campaign, we can add headlines, ad texts, photos, logos, videos, locations, and a product feed. We can also limit ad placements by adding only the product feed from the Merchant Center and recreating the structure of the product campaign. With the second option, your ads will only appear in limited placements, i.e. on the Search Network as Shopping Ads and on the Display Network as Dynamic Product Listing Ads.
Are Performance Max campaigns effective?
Many performance specialists are reluctant about Performance Max campaigns, mainly due to the very limited optimization possibilities compared to standard campaigns. However, it is worth testing this type of campaign because, in many cases, the results can positively surprise us. Among our clients, we had the opportunity to compare the effectiveness of the Performance Max campaign with other types of campaigns and test the possibilities that these campaigns give us.
In the first case, we tested the transition from smart product campaigns to Performance Max with our client from the interior design industry. After these changes, we achieved an increase in the conversion rate while reducing the cost of individual conversions by 3%. The differences between the results of these campaigns were not spectacular, but we can say that Performance Max campaigns with an added product feed are a good substitute for smart product campaigns.
The second case concerns an e-commerce store with cosmetic products. We used the transition from classic product campaigns to Performance Max. Product campaigns used a SPAG (Single Product Ad Group) structure, which we changed to a division into categories, which also resulted in combining daily budgets. This time, we also added only a product feed to the campaign to display ads in the same places. Our actions led to a decrease in the cost of conversion by 77% and an increase in ROAS by 447%. Thanks to the tests, we were able to see that Performance Max campaigns perform much better than product campaigns and allow us to achieve better results at lower costs.
For all our clients, we tested the Performance Max campaign last year. In most cases, the replacement of standard campaigns has been successful. Here we showed two examples, and in both cases we see an improvement in performance, but it is not at the same level. In some cases, the improvement was significant, but sometimes the changes were minor. We have not come across a case where replacing standard campaigns had a negative effect. However, it is worth taking into account the appearance of the advertisement and the safety of the brand, so after testing the campaign, it should be considered whether the possible improvement of results could also be achieved through further optimization of standard campaigns, where we have greater control over the advertising materials used.
How to optimize Performance Max campaigns?
To get the best results, it's worth optimizing your campaigns and testing different settings. In the case of the Performance Max campaign, the optimization possibilities are limited because only a few things can be set manually and used for testing.
The first is testing different types of product breakdowns. We can try to divide products by category, margin, or target audience. We can also add single products to groups of components that we want to additionally promote. In Pmax campaigns with only a product feed added, we can recreate the structure of product campaigns. It makes sense when we want to divide into categories, such as products with a certain margin or other clearly defined features. But if the product groups are too small or the advertising budgets in Pmax campaigns are too low, then the campaigns will work worse and will not be properly optimized.
In the case of Performance Max product campaigns, it is very important to optimize the product feed in order to increase the effectiveness of advertisements. It is worth paying attention to what keywords are given on product pages and what the product title and photo are. We can see how products are presented in the Google Merchant Center. It is also worth taking care of the UX of the landing page to which we direct the campaign so that it matches the advertising content and is easy to use for users.
Performance Max campaigns do not have many settings to optimize, but the ones we have access to are very important and can significantly affect the effectiveness of the campaign. When setting up a PMax campaign, it is worth paying attention to several elements, starting with the correct conversion setting and conversion value setting if we are talking about e-commerce campaigns. We strongly advise you to use conversions set by the Google Ads Tag and to take care of setting the window and conversion model correctly and adapting them to the characteristics of your company. If we have correctly set conversions in the account, then it is worth determining what goals to use when optimizing a given campaign. Not all goals may always be relevant to our PMax campaign.
Customer acquisition is also an important factor in the settings. Here we can determine whether we want to target new customers. It is therefore worth using this to reach users at the initial stage of the purchase funnel. We can set a higher rate for new users here, as well as limit the campaign to new customers only.
Another setting specific to Pmax campaigns is final URL expansion. Here, we decide whether we want to leave Google's algorithms free to direct traffic to URL addresses that have not been provided in the advertising resources, or maybe we want to direct only to phrases provided by us. Google recommends turning on traffic optimization, which is also set by default. However, in the case of product campaigns, we recommend disabling this setting because we only want to direct traffic here to specific products included in the product feed. If we add additional resources, then we can extend this targeting, but it is always worth checking in Google Analytics to see which pages we directed traffic to from the campaign.
Another option for optimization is testing various signals, i.e. information for Google about our target audience. Thanks to them, the algorithm knows which users we want to display ads to. We can target PMax campaigns based on demographics, i.e. gender, age, and parental status. We can also set more detailed demographic data, such as education or employment, as well as life events, i.e. reaching users at breakthrough moments, such as a wedding or moving out. Another option is the in-market audience, i.e. people with the intention of buying specific products. In addition, we can also choose interests.
There is also an option to add custom segments to the signals, i.e. keywords, websites, and applications that our target group potentially uses. Finally, we can attach our data to try to reach users who have already been to our website or are even our customers. Google advises you to always include custom segments and your own data in your signals.
If we want to test signals, we can try to create a generic signal about our brand and add it to the resource group, then copy the resource group and add another one, for example, more suitable for a specific resource group. Another idea is to add an audience recommended by Google, which can be found in the campaign statistics. However, it's important to remember that even though you've added performance ad signals, you may also see audiences outside of our lists if the algorithms think this will increase conversions.
Another way to optimize is to add new assets to your shopping campaign. This is especially advisable when we have a category and products with high sales potential. Then we can add additional components, in addition to the product feed, to also display as other types of campaigns. We often test such changes with our clients when we start to see good campaign results, but we still see the potential to further improve them. For example, for one of our clients, such a change allowed us to reduce the cost of conversion by almost 30% and increase ROAS by over 60%. For this reason, it is sometimes a good idea to add all the assets to increase the effectiveness of your ads.
Comments