Performance Max: everything you need to know

For everyone working in Google Ads, 2022 was the year of getting to know and testing Performance Max campaigns. Today these campaigns are already a normal and, one might say, indispensable part of performance marketing, imperfections and all.

What is Performance Max?

Performance Max, also called PMax, are automated campaigns aimed at maximum performance and the best possible results in terms of conversions. The campaigns use automation and machine learning to find the best time and place to show your ad. They create ads from the assets you provide, much as we know from responsive display advertising. 

Performance Max campaigns cover all Google channels and funnels, and so can focus both on remarketing audiences and on acquiring new users.

This campaign type uses so-called Smart bidding − automated bidding driven by artificial intelligence to optimise ad performance in real time. 

Where does it show?

Performance Max campaigns can show across the whole spectrum of Google channels:

• Search,
• YouTube,
• Google Display,
• Discovery feed,
• Gmail,
• Google Maps.

Over the past year PMax completely replaced the high-performing Smart Shopping campaigns. If you have a product feed connected to the new campaign type, it should show primarily as a Shopping ad, though information about the share of impressions across individual channels is not yet available. 

If you want to find out whether most of the campaign budget is not flowing into Display advertising at the expense of Shopping, you can work it out simply by comparing the total cost at campaign level with the cost at product level.

The advantages of Performance Max

The main advantages associated with Performance Max campaigns are considered to be:

Simpler campaign optimisation

Once you have entered the goal and the input assets, you hand the baton to artificial intelligence, which evaluates the input data and tries to create the best ad for the target audience. If the system does not have quality assets, though, and you do not give it a good hint about your target audience through Audience Signals, it may not bring the desired results. That is why with Performance Max it matters more than ever to give the system every necessary and above all relevant asset.

Discovering new audience segments

Performance Max uses Audience Signals only as a hint for targeting its ads, and while looking for the best targeting options it often finds new, so far unused audience segments and with them new conversion opportunities.  

Where the individual Audience Signals overlap, the system identifies entirely new audiences. 

In the campaign settings you can tick optimisation for new customer acquisition in the Customer Acquisition section, where two options are available:

• A stronger focus on new prospective customers, though the system can still focus on existing ones as well.
• A focus exclusively on new users.

This option is recommended, however, if you have your own customer list uploaded in the system.   

Higher return on investment

Since the algorithm optimises campaigns 24 hours a day, the system can detect opportunities and also head off mistakes in good time, which should show up in an increased return on investment. 

The drawbacks Performance Max brings

Like every campaign type, Performance Max has its minuses as well as its plusses. Probably the most marked minus is that you do not have as much control over it, since it ranks among the "smart" campaigns where only an automated strategy can be chosen. 

As already mentioned, for targeting it draws on the audience signals you give it, but it need not follow them. So it decides for itself which users it targets, which need not be ideal in every case. 

Another and probably the most marked minus is that with this campaign type it is still not possible to exclude keywords directly. If you need to exclude some terms from the campaign, you have to contact Google support and fill in a short form. This form can only be submitted by the account owner or an admin, which sometimes makes the process harder if you do not have such rights when managing Google Ads campaigns. 
Another minus of this campaign type is that if you do not include a video in the assets, the campaign will generate its own. The result need not necessarily be tragic, but if you have no video of your own, we recommend creating one yourself from the assets you have uploaded in the Asset library. Several templates are available and you will certainly find something suitable among them.

Is Performance Max suitable for everyone?

You may be wondering whether Performance Max should replace all your current campaigns and be the only source of performance in your account. Our answer is decidedly no, but on the other hand it certainly should not be missing from established accounts.
If you have an e-shop and Smart Shopping campaigns were your performance workhorse, Performance Max is the automatic choice, since they are essentially their improved successor. All Smart Shopping campaigns were transformed into PMax during the second half of last year.

Performance Max and lead gen?

If you have an e-shop or manage campaigns for one, Performance Max is the clear choice. But what about when the goal of your online activity is gaining contact details, that is collecting leads?

Performance Max's performance in lead generation can be excellent, but a certain threat can come from the campaign's high reach on the YouTube platform, which is often the target platform of click farms that use automated form filling. Collecting poor-quality forms can be prevented by developing a multi-step form, which is harder to fill in. 

If you want to find out which audience signals work for you with Performance Max for lead collection and want to apply an individual approach to budget allocation, the only solution is to segment those signals into separate campaigns. Segmentation is not so important with Performance Max for lead generation, though. As we mentioned above, with this campaign type Google combines every signal you give it and looks for the best-performing audience. 

In closing it only remains to say that we believe many improvements still await Performance Max that will tune its performance genuinely to the MAXimum. ?