Performance Max campaigns: will the future of ecommerce campaigns necessarily involve Performance Max?
Max. performance
This is a new advertising campaign format from Google Ads that promises maximum performance for advertisers, with greater ease of use.
Will it bury search or shopping campaigns? Only time will tell.
For now, let’s take a look at Google’s new advertising solution and the benefits it can offer e-tailers.
Performance Max: what's it all about?
Google presents it as a new Google Ads campaign format to maximize advertiser performance across all the channels offered by Google Ads. It’s a new way to buy Google ads on YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps from a single campaign.
Why this new offer?
Google starts from the premise that consumers consult an ever-increasing variety of sites and platforms on a daily basis, and especially when they want to make a purchase.
The figures put forward are as follows: for certain products, consumers have more than 500 points of contact before making a purchase!
We’re talking here about the famous “messy middle” described by Google in its newsletter “Think with Google: How intent is redefining the marketing funnel”.
We talk about the “Messy Middle” in the artilcles of SEA Strategies for Ecommerce.
The consumer’s procrastination and the wide variety of contact points before a purchase can be difficult for advertisers to keep up with.
That’s whyautomating and Machine Learning campaigns to engage customers effectively and at scale is an important expectation for e-retailers.
Google Ads Performance Max campaigns do just that, and here’s how.
The promise of Google Performance Max
The benefits promised by Google Performance Max to e-merchants are as follows:
The promise
More qualified traffic, more leads, more purchases
complementary traffic to that generated by search campaigns
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Access the entire Google Ads inventory (YouTube, display, search, maps, Gmail…) from a single campaign to reach your specific objectives.
Use Google’s real-time consumer tracking to serve your ads at the right times
The plus
You can set the acquisition of new customers as your objective. Simply upload the list of your existing customers, define your criteria and after the campaign, you’ll receive a report on the conversion rate of new customers brought in by Performance Max.
The promise
Your budget is optimized across all channels to seize the best opportunities
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Performance Max campaigns use automated bidding and targeting technology, data-driven attribution* (DDA) and personalized ads to help you find more customers, wherever they are in the Google Ads inventory.
Data-Driven Attribution* (DDA) is still optional, but it enables campaigns to be optimized by activating them on the sites, networks and interactions that are most likely to convert, in real time.
The plus
Google claims that Performance Max campaigns are capable of generating 13% more conversions at the same or lower cost per conversion when run with comparable campaigns.
The promise
Understand how automation works and how you can improve your campaign. See which criteria impact performance (audiences, formats, trends, etc.).
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Performance Max integrates with the Insights page in your Google Ads account to help you streamline your feeds:
By identifying the performance factors of your campaigns from one period to the next
Helping you solve any problems you encounter
By sharing Google marketing information to help you adapt and develop your business and your ads
By integrating with recommendations to continually achieve better results for your Performance Max campaign, and allowing you to focus on the levers you can control
The plus
Advertisers will be able to learn about the main performance criteria for their campaigns, and gain a better understanding of their audiences.
The promise
Get better results faster, to accelerate the learning curve of campaigns.
Use exclusive functions such as Audience Signals
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Performance Max combines Google Ads’ automation technology with all sales data and Google Ads bids to achieve optimal machine learning:
The algorithm has full visibility of bidding data across all Google media. Smart Shopping campaigns achieve on average + 20% higher conversion value than similar technologies.
The algorithm bids in real time on all channels. And real-time bidding offers an average 15-30% increase for the same CPA/ROAS.
Creation is automated based on your account data. On average, responsive search ads generated up to 10% more clicks and conversions.
Attribution is based on data analysis (Data Driven Attribution – DDA) to give you full funnel visibility. We’ve seen a 5% increase in conversions at a similar CPA for customers using DDA on Search.
Focus on... Audience signals
Introduced with Performance Max, Audience Signals is presented by Google as a more effective way of reaching your most important audiences.
When advertisers create Performance Max campaigns, Audience Signals enable them to influence automation by directly indicating the audiences most relevant to their business, those with the highest probability of conversion.
In this way, Audience Signals enables advertisers to accelerate the campaign learning curve.
Tips to avoid overdependence
While automated recommendations from Google Ads can be useful, it’s crucial to maintain control to avoid unnecessary expenditure. By combining automation with manual adjustments, you can balance smart bidding with your overall strategy.
NB: Regular performance monitoring and adjustment of ROAS targets are essential to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Conclusion
In the past, Google’s new solutions have often lived up to their promises and delivered excellent performance for advertisers.
But as always, be careful not to switch all your Google Ads campaigns at once.
Creating a schedule and identifying the most relevant categories in your catalog to activate as a priority is crucial to securing all the benefits and lessons learned needed to achieve your 2022 performance objectives.
However, if you need an expert to structure your Google Ads campaigns for your Ecommerce business and make the most of Google’s algorithms, we’re specialists in the field.
Don’t hesitate to ask a Google Ads agency such asAdenlab about the solutions to be applied, as there are different ones for each strategy.
