4 minutes

A guide to Performance Max

We've handed the reigns over to our resident data & testing whizz... aka PPC Manager Laura Williams, to share everything she knows about Performance Max! If you're keen to learn the ins and outs of Google's newest campaign type read on...



History Of Performance Max

At the end of 2021, Google announced it was releasing its new campaign type, Performance Max (also known as P Max) to all of its advertisers. Prior to this, P Max had been available to only a select few advertisers through its Beta programmes.

This was released during the months that are likely to see the most challenges for many customers - November and December when some accounts will naturally peak and others fall, so testing during this time doesn’t always make it easy to decipher the results.

 

What is Performance Max?

Performance Max is Google’s newest campaign type that it’s advertisers can use to build brand awareness and sales to their target markets.

It’s a goal-based campaign type that allows advertisers to promote their products and services across several of Google’s properties such as Google Shopping, Search, Display and YouTube, all within one campaign.

According to Google, Performance Max “helps you drive performance based on your specified conversion goals, delivering more conversions and value by optimising performance in real-time and across channels using Smart Bidding.

 

Benefits Of Using P Max

  • Open your brand to new audiences across Google’s Networks
  • Finding new customers who are likely to convert
  • Drive better performance based on your goals
  • Utilise Google’s automation to allow you more time to work on strategy
  • Simplify campaign management - fewer campaigns are needed by targeting many networks in one campaign.

 

Getting Started

As Performance Max campaigns can show on a variety of Google’s Networks, to get started you’ll need quite a few assets:

  • Up to 15 Images can be used in three different sizes (Landscape, Square and Portrait)
  • Logo imagery (up to 5)
  • Multiple Headlines (up to 5) and one short Description (60 characters) and 4 long Descriptions
  • If possible, add at least 1 video to the campaign. If you don’t have this asset, Google can create one for you but these aren’t as visually appealing as could be.

 

The Right Way, The Wrong Way and The P Max Way!

 

Conversion Tracking

It is necessary to use Google Ads conversion tracking to ensure you’re tracking all possible sales. If you’re currently using Google Analytics to track your conversions, you may not see all of the data.

Before implementing anything, you need to ensure you’re utilising this conversion tracking.

 

Structure

Before you start to create your campaign, have a look into how you’re already structuring your shopping campaigns.

If you’ve got just one shopping campaign targeting All Products, set up your new campaign this way. If you’ve multiple campaigns targeting different categories, then look into setting up multiple P Max campaigns in the same way.

 

Budgets

Identify what budgets you will have per campaign. Performance Max is the dominant campaign type on Shopping, so if you had a £50 budget for your original campaign that you’ll be moving to P Max, make sure to set your new campaign to that same budget or higher.

It must be noted if you run out of budget, the original campaign, even if still enabled, won’t switch back on to get the traffic over the remainder of the day. If you set budgets lower than you were previously spending, your account will suffer for this.

 

Extensions

Performance Max isn’t just a new campaign type for Shopping. Although if you use a Google Shopping feed with this campaign, it will run primarily shopping ads, your ads do still show on Search, YouTube, Display and other Google Networks.

This means that when setting the campaign up, include as much information and extras as possible, such as extensions, to give your ads a better chance of driving traffic and sales.

 

Our Results

Client 1

This client had struggled with performance through Shopping for several months - seeing high CPCs and low sales.

So, we decided to test Performance Max on this account initially as it would be easy to measure if this new format would improve performance.

Below is an insight into the first two weeks of the campaign being enabled versus the two weeks prior. Data for only a 2 week comparison period has only been used as we moved into the sales period after this which skews the metrics.

 

Screen Shot 2022-02-17 at 10.18.47
CPCs fell sharply within this campaign - although this was mainly seen within the first few days of the campaign running as Google optimised and learnt what the best bids are for each customer. As time moved on, CPC’s each day did increase, and currently sit at an average of £0.36.

Traffic remained quite consistent whilst Google focused their attention on customers more likely to convert as we set this up as part of our goals for the campaign, and as a result sales rose by 44%, with revenue and ROAS increasing as a result.

 

Client 2

This clients Performance Max campaign was enabled at as they headed in to their second week of January, once their initial peak in traffic and performance from their Boxing Day sale began to stabilise.

Screen Shot 2022-02-17 at 10.24.45

Despite having fewer IDs within the campaign as we moved through January, traffic and conversions both increased.

Our tROAS bidding strategy was identical across both campaigns in the test, to ensure the test was fair, as well as allowing for the same budget too. 

Conclusion

In clients 1 & 2 we have seen strong increases in sales within the first two weeks of the campaigns going live - this is despite this still being during Google’s learning phase.

With some challenges, such as many items going out of sale and lack of strong historic ROAS performance, both campaigns saw improvements in sales, revenue and ROAS to determine we will continue with our testing and implementation of the campaigns

One thing we have found is that with this being a completely new campaign type it does perform better the more conversion data that is available, so we'd suggest giving these a go where your account typically sees a healthy amount of conversions already where possible. 

Most of Google’s campaigns that utilise Smart Bidding need at least 100 conversions a month - although most perform well when seeing over 50 sales during this time frame.

Having few sales to work from, we believe Google aren’t able to effectively optimise and learn during a short timeframe such as 2 weeks. 

In the future whilst rolling out Performance Max, we will start with campaigns that see over 50 sales a month before implementing these campaign types to smaller campaigns and closely monitoring the results.

If you're keen to chat with the team about your Paid Marketing strategy you can reach us at any time using hello@weareortus.com or via the form here!