Google has recently introduced a NEW campaign type: Google Performance Max (PMAX Campaigns) and if you are a performance creative like us, you’d wonder if this is what you need to maximise your campaign performance with Google Ads.

In the second episode of our podcast Tea In The Desert which is also available on our Youtube channel, our host Danny and our Google Ads powerhouse, Khushbu sat down to discuss everything we know about Performance Max campaigns – from the best practices, optimisation and hacks that will help your brand scale profitably.

Have you tried Performance Max Campaigns for your Google Ads? It’s the shiny new toy in Google World, and you could potentially be losing money at this very moment without even realizing how much you’re missing out!

Meet Khushbu

Let us introduce you to our Google Ads Lead, Khushbu aka ‘Kay’ who’s been with us for over a year now. Kay has over 4 years of experience and is an absolute machine at G ads. She designs awesome G ad funnels for both our e-commerce and lead generation clients that generate very positive ROI, and at times, in the double digits!⁠

She’ll walk you through why Performance Max campaigns are the next big thing for your business!

What are Performance Max campaigns?

Everyone’s talking about Performance Max potentially replacing your shopping campaigns and stuff like that. You could be hesitating, is it really going to replace your shopping campaigns?

Google’s Performance Max is a new goal-based campaign type that allows performance advertisers to access all of their Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. I have my doubts and so do you. You’ve spent months, or maybe even years turning your Google Ads campaigns into the beast they are today. Sure, there are plenty of optimizations you can still make (and probably should), but on the whole, you’re happy with something to try that can achieve your holistic approach when it comes to running and managing your Google Ads Campaigns.

How can we benefit from running Performance Max campaigns?

So whenever we are running google ads we have different kinds of campaigns like search and display and your video and discovery ads but Performance Max campaign is different – this is all in one package that will include everything from display youtube or videos and discovery. This is what Google is introducing so that their idea is basically to expand the reach of the audiences that you know.

The one kind of campaign wouldn’t do, so according to Google they are saying that it will expand the conversions and conversion value of the e-com, it’s mostly for e-com and  that is what it is! The campaigns are not fully matured yet, there are a lot of changes that need to be done so currently we are just experimenting or testing them with our different accounts and  seeing what kind of results we get.

Shopping campaigns VS Performance Max campaigns.

Shopping campaign – it’s more like we set up the feed on the merchant centre and when we run a shopping campaign it will pull the feed of products from there and it will show that the ads on google but with Performance Max yes it will definitely use the feed but along with that, there are other ways that you can show the ads – it includes display as well as search.

Which funnel stages should we use for Performance Max campaigns?

With Performance Max campaigns, they are more focused on sort of prospecting your type of funnel, or sort of campaigns and can you use them as remarketing. Now we can use them either way because ultimately, the beauty of Performance Max campaign is that it can work as an inbound as well as an outbound campaign because the ads will be shown even when someone searches for the products or services.

Performance Max display makes it wholesome too! You add the photo or the banner, so it’s similar to display ads, but it can be used as everything so it’s all in one package we have search display discovery, and video shopping for both options.

Our experience with Performance Max campaigns.

Recently we have tested it on our multiple clients and the most important observation that we’ve seen is that whenever we start a Performance Max campaign, the performance goes down drastically so that is something that we notify all our clients because currently we are starting a Performance Max campaign and so the performance is going down so be prepared. 

The issue that is happening is that you know Performance Max campaign is taking over all the other campaigns so it’s cannibalizing them. It doesn’t matter whatever campaign you are running because this campaign consists of all the campaigns in one, that is why whenever we are running any other campaign, Performance Max Campaign takes over it so what we are currently doing is we are doing our on and off strategy so every two weeks we turn on the Performance Max campaign and we run it for some time and the interesting thing is that whenever we turn off the campaign again the performance is boosted so we get lots and lots of data and from the Performance Max campaign, one of our clients we did it for, that was consistent! It also happened to other clients we headed Performance Max campaigns for. We did the same thing, pausing the campaign, and we got so much data when turning it on again and that boosted the campaign performance.

When is the best time to launch Performance Max Campaigns?

We advise doing it on and off.

We’re saying, it’s best to do periods. Say two weeks or three weeks of Performance Max campaigns and then another three weeks or so of no Performance Max campaigns running. Get paid right!

Things to note when you first start using Performance Max campaigns.

This is Kay’s number one tip: if you want to start a Performance Max campaign start by testing it because so far it has been working really well on some of our clients belonging to different industries. And you may want to start from a low budget because you know, if you spend it on a very high budget, it’s going to cost a lot because Google has always been like that!

What kind of performance can we expect with Performance Max? Do we have control over the campaigns considering that it is set towards automation?

Google’s after you to spend more and more money and it’s almost like we’re under the impression that performance isn’t an issue that’s why people don’t care about that.

It was in the early 2000s or something when we had more control over what we are doing in Google Ads with the manual bidding, bidding strategies and everything. Then, slowly Google started phasing out everything, so it’s moving more towards automation. They are going to discontinue the expanded text ads so we’ll just have the responsive search ads.

It’s not a grieve mistake to discover and do your own ads if you have the luxury of time, energy and funds. But you should know you can get advice from Google reps, too, or get help from experts either individual Google ads experts or an agency known for their amazing results and track of record with multiple clients.

However, when you create a new ads account, you always get assigned someone via email and then eventually what you spend you probably get the opportunity to jump on a call with someone, but it’s really important to make mention that unless you know what you’re doing then  it’s always best to sort of consult with experts. you know who works in marketing agencies who have experience who’ve run massive ad accounts with blood spend and had that experience because  as mentioned, should take it as a grain of salt it could be something that’s worth testing.

Although hiring an expert from Google reps, we don’t want to get too political but it’s true that Google can and usually pushes their employees to really do one thing and they need to spend more. If they can spend more, they can end up earning more money you know maybe by a commission. We haven’t really tried how and what sort of structure they need.

Which type of industry is best for Performance Max?

We don’t think there’s any particular industry that only fits in the Performance Max structure so far, but we have kind of done it for the fast-moving consumer products, we mean companies whose products go fast where people need them on a daily basis or that frequent – will order again and again.

Although we have tried Performance Max campaigns for these products that are highly needed and recurring. However, we haven’t really tested for the ones that are really high value that people won’t buy regularly. That’s something we haven’t yet tested for them.

Insights on high-volume VS high-value products.

Whenever we look at a graph in Google for the high-value products you know that the sales are stagnant like the peaks are very low where you get a sale for one day and that would be really high value say thousand dollars, or two thousand dollars with just one sale and then again for few days there will be nothing out there.

For a more detailed example, some high-value products such as electronics, tv, and gadgets, are very high-value products, so people are not going to buy them every now and then. You might get a sale for two or three products and then and then again for a few days, the graph will go flat.

We cannot blame Performance Max because that depends on the product demand rate, and that is just the trend of that industry or that kind of product particularly.

One key recommendation on Performance Max campaigns.

The key message across the board is to test right. From our experiences, it’s something that we formally disclose to our clients that there is one size fits all. We can’t really assume that what worked for others will definitely work for all. There is no correct sort of strategy when in the ads learning phase, as all brands/businesses have unique selling points and that goes the same to the demand rate from the people in the targeted market.

Hopefully, you’re now a little more familiar with what Performance Max campaigns are and how they work. If you’ve been looking for an alternative to your current advertising setup, it might be worth setting them up and seeing if they can do what you need.

If you’re looking for an agency that can help you out, email us at hello@digitaloasis.com.au to book your free e-comm audit with one of our experts.