What Are Google’s Automated Performance Max Campaigns?

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A new Google ads campaign type is in town, and it’s here to improve your advertising strategy through the power of automation and machine learning. Performance Max (PMax) campaigns were introduced at Google Marketing Live in 2021 with a primary objective to generate leads, drive online sales, and in-store visits without using the Google Merchant Center product feed.

According to a Google case study, PMax campaigns grew qualified leads for MotorK, an automotive sales, and marketing technology company, by 24%. In addition, Click-Through Rate (CTR) was improved by +30% compared to existing search and display campaigns.

Let’s take a closer look at what Performance Max campaigns can help you achieve, the benefits, how to get started, and the assets you’ll need to provide Google to kickstart these campaigns.

WHAT ARE PERFORMANCE MAX CAMPAIGNS?

The Performance Max campaign type is very adaptable as it utilizes a mix of automation and machine learning to help advertisers execute their specific conversion goals. The campaign type has a broad reach across Google’s Network, reaching customers on:

• Display
• Search
• Maps
• Discover Feed
• YouTube
• Gmail
• Shopping Ad Inventory

how pmax works

Performance Max is an automated goal-based campaign type that uses machine learning to serve audiences a relevant ad with an optimal bid to maximize campaign performance.

An advertiser selects a marketing objective and then chooses the conversion goals that support the objective. To ensure that your campaigns are optimized to drive the best ROI through automation, assign more than one goal and different values to conversion to a single campaign. With a focus on goals, PMax campaigns use automated bidding and targeting technology to help you invest your budget more efficiently to spend where the highest-ROI opportunities are.

CONVERSION GOALS TO SELECT FROM

Click the “+” to view goals for each.

According to Google, you can get the most bang for your buck with automation by using the same goals for all of your performance campaigns (including Performance Max). This can be achieved by setting a consistent account-level goal. 

Understand how automation is working and how you can improve your campaign by seeing which audiences, creatives, and other drivers are impacting performance.

SHOULD I STOP RUNNING MY OTHER SEARCH CAMPAIGNS?

The short answer – absolutely not. Run Performance Max alongside your core campaigns. Keep investing in your keyword Search campaigns and running them with Performance Max to see the best results. You don’t need to risk pausing the current campaign structure, which makes this campaign type a relatively low-risk test.

Why? You’ll jeopardize the reach of your campaigns and how they perform if you only rely on Performance Max because this campaign type does not utilize keywords as Search does.

These goal-based campaigns have so much to offer advertisers looking for the best ways to reach their objectives and audience. Upgrade as you see results come in and scale it over time. Now that you understand how Performance Max works to improve your campaigns, let’s look at some of the other benefits.

KEY FEATURES OF PERFORMANCE MAX CAMPAIGNS

• URL Expansion: Through machine learning, the default URL Expansion feature chooses a landing page, based on customer intent, to drive the best performance for your goal.
• Asset Groups: Performance Max moves from ad formats to Asset Groups which include a set of assets that are all related to a single theme or audience. Multiple asset groups can be created per campaign.
• Audience Signals: Use audience signals to alert Google that a segment of users are more likely to convert.
• Reporting and Insights: New reports explain what the machine learning is accomplishing, signals that are in use, and a breakdown of performance so you can adjust your strategy.

HOW TO GET STARTED

IS PERFORMANCE MAX RIGHT FOR ME?

Consider using Google’s Performance Max Campaigns types if you have the following objectives:

• Specific advertising and conversion goals such as increasing online sales or lead generation
• Maximize the performance of your campaign without being limited by which channel your ads appear on
• Reach people across Google’s advertising channels using a single campaign
• Get additional reach and conversion value beyond keyword-based Search campaigns

ASSETS NEEDED TO START TESTING WITH PERFORMANCE MAX

Drive quality performance for your campaigns by providing Google with all assets needed, so you can start testing with Performance Max.

1. Google Ads Conversion Tracking

2. Recommend campaign timeframe: At least 4 weeks

3. Text

• 3 x 30 character headline
• 2 x 90 character descriptions
• 1 x 90 character headline

4. Image

• 1 x 600×316 landscape
• 1 x 300×300 square
• 1 x 314×314 square (for campaigns with Store Visits goal)
• 1 x 128×128 logo
• Recommended: 1200 × 628
• Max file size: 5,120KB

5. Video (Recommended, but optional)

• > 10 seconds in length

Once you provide Google with the following (reference checklist below), Performance Max can begin getting to work to automatically serve ads across Search, Maps, Display, Gmail, Discover feed, YouTube, and Shopping ad inventory.

1. Marketing objective/campaign goal using the new Unified Goals framework

2. Assets – text, image, video (optional as it will auto-generate)

3. Feeds

• Google My Business (optional)
• Google Merchant Center (optional)
• Dynamic Ads feed (optional)
• Business data feeds (optional)

4. Signals

• First-party Audiences, incl. Remarketing lists (optional)
• Google Audiences, incl. custom audiences (optional)

5. Geo-targets

6. Budget

CONCLUSION

Now that you understand how Performance Max Campaigns work and what you need to get started, you can decide if it’s the right campaign type to help you reach your marketing objectives and goals.

This automated campaign type gives you the opportunity to focus on strategic performance drivers like creative optimization, campaign planning, and insights. The more creative assets provided to machine learning, the more improvement you will see in your performance. Is your creative ready for a performance boost? Reach out to our team today to get started.

Leverage technology like Adlucent Index™, developed in partnership with Google, with Performance Max campaigns to drive purposeful revenue growth. It brings more control into automation and feeds conversion data to Google for optimization. Interested in learning more? Contact us for more information.

If you have questions about Performance Max or if automation is suitable for your digital marketing efforts, do not hesitate to reach out to our team.

Victoria Flores

Victoria Flores is a Demand Generation Manager at Adlucent. She has a background in content marketing, SEO, and graphic design. Her passion for creative marketing allows her to develop unique and effective solutions to drive demand. You can find her out on the Texas trails or bouldering when she is not at her desk.