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Your Comprehensive Guide To Optimizing Performance Max In Google Ads

Phani Santhosh — Mon, 16 May 2022 19:32:23 +0000

Image Credit: PixieMe – stock.adobe.com

Performance Max is the latest solution within Google Ads offerings. With new audiences, more transparent insights, and a required diversity of assets, Performance Max campaigns have a lot to offer advertisers.

Google aimed to create a simplified campaign management, but there are a few best practices to keep in mind when setting up your new campaigns. In building your Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads, you want to ensure that you are driving the results you saw from prior campaigns. To make the most of your Google Ads properties, you want to continually feed good data into the algorithm so that the machine learning automations and insights are even more effective.

How To Get Started With Performance Max In Google Ads

Performance Max campaigns will become part of the default campaign structures by Q4 2022. There’s some time to test out the features and ensure you get the best results in time for your holiday campaigns.

Start with low-performing products (in terms of low profit margin or ROAS) when upgrading your Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max campaigns. Select enough products so that you can generate a good amount of volume in order to get the most data out of the learning period.
For hybrid, high-volume campaigns, group your products with the same margins in the same campaign, regardless of their historical ROAS value.
Ensure the products selected for the campaign are excluded from your other Shopping campaigns, as Google will give preference to Performance Max campaigns.
You can create different brand- or category-based campaigns if these distinctions represent different business objectives.
Run this campaign and test the results for at least six weeks. Refrain from making unnecessary changes during this testing period.
If different margin-based campaigns don’t lead to adequate conversion volumes, then you know you don’t need to run margin-based Performance Max campaigns in the future.

When testing your campaigns, you don’t want to run into budget issues that could hinder performance. You want your campaign to drive adequate conversions (for example, 20-30 conversions a month, consistently) so that the machine learning algorithm can gather more data quickly. Ideally, we recommend a budget of 10-15X higher than your historical target CPA of products added into the Performance Max campaign.

Determining Your Budgets and Bidding

Because you’re in the early stages of adopting Performance Max within your Google Ads account, you’ll want to consider your bidding strategies. Begin with a ROAS target which is about 20-30% lower than the historical average ROAS of the products within your campaign. Use a value-based smart bidding strategy, such as maximum conversion value with ROAS target instead of target CPA.

Google’s machine learning will optimize your asset offering to display the most relevant ad for each search query. When migrating products from Shopping campaigns to Performance Max, set a Performance Max budget that is comparable (or higher) than historical spending for the same products in the shopping campaign. Performance Max is inherently set to maximize your results and drive the most optimal performance for your ads, so you want to give the platform the flexibility to drive those results.

Optimizing Your Audiences

Use audience signals to incorporate your top-performing audiences into your various campaigns. To boost your campaigns, be sure to include the remarketing first-party audiences that drive, on average, 80% of sales across campaigns.

Create custom audiences around your top-performing keywords and queries. Direct query targeting is not an option currently available in Performance Max campaigns, so you will have to take an extra step to create audiences around queries.

At NetElixir, we specialize in identifying, targeting, and engaging high-value customers. Use conversion value rules for your high-value and predictive audiences in order to maximize the auction time bids for these valuable customers. These audiences can be created by Google Analytics 4 and NetElixir’s owned proprietary customer intelligence platform, LXRInsights.

Asset Groups and Product Targeting

Performance Max differs from current Google Ads structures in that campaigns are structured around asset groups, not ad groups. To make the most of these groups, create theme-based asset groups. You can put different category or brand specific asset groups in the same campaign; more products across categories can lead to more volume at the campaign level.

To ensure creative excellence within your assets, be sure to populate all the available variations from text to image. This allows the machine learning algorithm as many options as possible to create the best ad combination. You don’t have to create from scratch; use your top-performing headlines and descriptions from prior search campaigns to start and refine from there. Be sure to follow Google’s best practices to ‌get your ad strength score to good or excellent. Continually review the asset reporting to replace any creative elements that have a low rating. Check individual asset reports and combination reports to understand how your assets work together and to better inform your creative direction for the next campaign.

Listing groups, which are part of a campaign’s asset group, organize your overall listings by the attributes assigned to them in Google Merchant Center. Use similar product filters used in prior Shopping campaigns for your selected Performance Max products. Be sure to routinely check on your Google Merchant Center health to ensure your product feed does not run into any major issues.

Dynamic URL Targeting

Dynamic targeting and dynamic headlines work well for driving traffic from new inventory across new search queries. Use final URL expansion to drive this traffic. Start with products that have done well in past dynamic search ads to allow for better control over URLs for specific products.

Best Practices For Setting Up And Running Performance Max Campaigns

Follow these best practices to ensure your Performance Max campaign lives up to its name. At NetElixir, as we continue to test out these campaigns, we’ll share our team’s learnings and best practices to ensure all your Google Ads assets are efficient and effective.

Avoid Running Performance Max and Smart Shopping Campaigns Simultaneously

As Performance Max campaigns will take priority over most of your inventory, advertisers should turn off Smart Shopping campaigns so there are no overlaps or skewed results. This is similar to what we saw when Smart Shopping campaigns were first rolled out; the newer campaign structures took priority.

Add As Many Assets and Audiences As Possible

Because the Performance Max algorithm relies on asset and audience information to optimize ad placements, the more added for use, the better. This means that you can have multiple opportunities for the best placement of your ad.

Remember to Update Conversion Settings As Your Campaign Priorities Evolve

To drive better results, ensure your conversion settings are always up-to-date with your latest objective. Consider using conversion value rules to target a certain subset of customers.

Use Data-Driven Attribution

Using data-driven attribution allows the machine learning algorithm within Performance Max to drive more value using incremental gains. Data-driven attribution complements auction-time based smart bidding.

Carefully Analyze Your Initial Results

Use the ‘Insights’ tab to understand your Performance Max results beyond micro-level campaign assets. Routinely check the ‘Recommendations’ tab to understand what you can do to optimize your structure for machine learning.

The NetElixir Difference

At NetElixir, we continually run tests to determine what works and to discern new best practices for our clients. We have created proprietary tROAS adjustment scripts to maximize a campaign’s budget to drive incremental routines, as well as lower ad spend with a relatively lower impact on revenue.

Additionally, we have standardized templates that determine bid modifiers based on search-shop-buy behaviors by hour of day and day of week to help with ad scheduling.

To learn more about how our paid search offerings can better optimize your Performance Max campaigns to ensure your holiday campaigns won’t be affected, contact our experts today.

References

https://www.deanlong.io/blog/google-performance-max-campaign

https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/performance-max/

The post Your Comprehensive Guide To Optimizing Performance Max In Google Ads appeared first on NetElixir.

What You Need To Know About Performance Max Campaigns

Phani Santhosh — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 17:18:32 +0000

Image Credits: PixieMe – stock.adobe.com

What Is Google’s Performance Max?

Performance Max is the latest offering within Google Ads solutions. Introduced late last year, it’s a new goal-based campaign structure that allows marketers more opportunities to promote Google Ads across all Google inventory (YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, and more) with the same assets. As a combination of what were previously individual campaign types, Performance Max campaigns offer new audiences, more transparent insights, and a simplified campaign management.

Performance Max serves all channels and heavily relies on automation to help advertisers of all expertise continue to effectively compete in the cookieless future.

Performance Max is ideal for advertisers who:

Don’t have time to optimize each and every Google Ads channel individually
Find it challenging to optimize various campaign types for one location
Have a smaller budget, but don’t want to sacrifice Google Ads inventory
Have a large budget and want to reach new and unique customer segments
Are looking to explore new Geo Markets

Performance Max was available last year through beta testing, but was only available to brands working with select agency partners who did not have a Google Merchant Center feed or Shopping feed available. Later this year, Performance Max campaigns will replace Smart Shopping and Local campaigns.

What Is Required To Run a Performance Max Campaign?

To run a Performance Max Campaign, you need to start with a supported conversion goal, which includes sales-based goals as well as lead generation and offline conversions.

Because a Performance Max campaign can run on several different Google Ads channels, it requires different types of creatives. Google’s asset guidelines is as follows:

Text specifications:

At least 3 headlines, with a max of 5 (30 characters max and at least one at 15 characters or less)
At least 2 descriptions, with a max of 5 (90 characters max and at least one at 60 characters or less)
At least 1 long headline, with a max of 5 (90 characters max)
Business name at 25 characters max
1 CTA, selected from a list
Final URL

Imagery specifications:

Landscape (1.91:1, or 1200 X 628) – recommended to add 3, but can add up to 20
Square (1:1, or 1200 X 1200) – recommended to add 3, but can add up to 20
Square, for store visits only (1:1, or 300 X 300) – can add up to 20
Portrait (4:5, or 960 X 1200) – recommended to add 1, but can add up to 20
Square Logo (1:1, or 1200 X 1200) – can add up to 5
Landscape Logo (4:1, or 1200 X 300) – can add up to 5

Video specifications (recommended, but optional):

At least 10 seconds long
Can be horizontal, vertical, or square

Please note that Google may create auto-generated videos based on uploaded assets if no custom video is added.

Feeds (optional):

Google My Business
Google Merchant Center
Dynamic Ads
Business Data

These features are the requirements to begin running a Performance Max campaign; Google’s best practices recommend adding more, such as at least five versions of text assets and five versions of image assets to the asset group.

While Performance Max campaigns have more involved creative types, the reach and automation they provide makes the effort worthwhile. The more assets you provide to your campaign, the more opportunities Google has to serve your ad to potential customers.

How Do Performance Max Campaigns Differ From Other Smart Campaigns?

Audience Signals

In Performance Max, Google uses audience signals in place of audience targeting. Audience signaling begins Google’s ad targeting, but your ads are not limited to just the audience you input. Google’s machine learning algorithm aims to find additional audiences based on your initial signals to increase conversions. Google explains that audience signals will help jumpstart performance, but also continue to inform the algorithm over the campaign lifecycle, especially as first-party data is updated.

While automation is helpful, it can be a challenge for marketers who are used to having more control over their audiences.

Campaign Structure

Google’s smart campaigns are structured around ad group and ad level. Performance Max campaigns are structured around asset group, which is similar to a responsive display asset. By providing more assets, Google can test which ad performs the best and continually refine what ads customers see.

Bidding Strategies

As its name implies, Performance Max is a performance-based campaign. The only goals available are maximum conversions, target CPA, maximum ROAS, and target ROAS. Bidding strategies are limited to goal-based strategies.

Efficiency

From beta-testing, Google learned that Performance Max campaigns achieved a 20% decreased CPA within the assigned budget in areas that were not performing well in search and video formats. NetElixir is working on our own tests to validate the results so we can continue to deliver exceptional performance for our clients and help them understand this new structure.

Should I Include Performance Max Campaigns In My Paid Search Strategy?

In short, yes, you should start incorporating Performance Max campaigns into your paid search strategy. Smart Shopping and Local Campaigns are going to become Performance Max campaigns by Q3 of 2022. You will still be able to run your current smart shopping and local campaigns, but you won’t be able to create any new campaigns on these platforms later this year. Starting in Q2 is a voluntary upgrade, but all campaigns will auto upgrade by Q3. This means that the 2022 holiday will rely on new campaign structures.

Through Performance Max, Google is consolidating some of their campaign structures through automation. It is best to get a sense of the Performance Max campaign structure, insights, and targeting now to be able to effectively rely on this channel for your holiday campaigns.

Conclusions

The world of search is evolving to the next level of automation, which allows for business leaders to be more strategic about their holistic growth strategy. Google is actively working toward solutions to ease the transition to the cookieless future and Performance Max is the next part of that solution.