How to Optimise Google Ads Performance Max Campaigns

Google Performance Max is the latest Google Ads offering by the search giant. Since its rollout in the second half of 2021, the automated advertising campaign has been taken through the wringer by experts. While it is based on machine learning and is automated, there are ways for you to further optimise the Performance Max advertising campaigns. 

In this blog post, we will explore a few tactics for optimising Performance Max campaigns for different types of businesses and how hiring an expert can help you get the most out of your Performance Max campaigns.

What Are Performance Max Campaigns?

Performance Max is the new automated advertising option introduced by Google in the latter half of 2021. It makes use of machine learning and allows advertisers to show their ads across all the Google properties including Google search, Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Google Discover and others. Google has said that it has the potential to bring down the cost per lead and increase the number of conversions. 

In short, Google is claiming that this new campaign format offers more bang for your buck if you are an advertiser.

How to Optimise Google Ads Performance Max Campaigns?

Google has provided certain guidelines to get the most out of your Performance Max campaigns. Like any ad campaign, it is important to clearly define your goals and continuously refine them to get the best results. Here are a few tips on the best way to optimise your Performance Max campaigns for various business types:

Best Practices for All Business Types

• Give at least six weeks for machine learning algorithms to generate sufficient data for optimisation
• Make sure your text assets and image assets have at least five versions
• Upload a lot of assets
• Help machine learning algorithms by providing relevant audience lists as signals
• For tracking cross-device conversions or video views, it is better to use Google ads conversion tracking

Best Practices for Non-Shopping Online Sales

• Provide as much data as possible such as customer match, custom intent, remarketing lists and others as signals to algorithms
• Keep refreshing creatives
• Time-bound campaigns should be started in advance. For example, campaigns focused on weekend sales should be started 2 to 3 weeks in advance
• Make use of visual creatives for targeting new customers
• Keep checking ad strength for each creative in Google ads to refine your campaigns

Lead Generation — Best Practices for Performance Max Campaigns

• Provide as much data as possible
• Make use of enhanced conversions or off-line conversion import for correct valuation of conversions
• Regularly import your off-line conversions data
• Online and off-line conversions should be valued on the basis of value-based bidding strategies
• Regularly check ad strength indicator to determine the success rate of an asset group
• Keep adding more assets at regular intervals
• All your image assets should match the highest quality guidelines to ensure covering as much inventory on as many platforms as possible
• Ask only necessary information on a lead form
• Don’t shy away from adding separate creative groups for custom ads for a target audience

Off-line sales — Best Practices

• Set up a campaign for a minimum of 30 days
• Make sure you use an account that is already eligible for store visits
• Use an account with a minimum of 10 business locations
• You’re allowed to create as many campaigns as you want but make sure all the requirements are met at an account level

Retail Advertisers — Best Practices

• For retail merchants, Performance Max campaigns get priority over Smart Shopping campaigns in the same account for the same products
• If you have both campaigns set up in the same account, the Performance Max will ramp up and Smart Shopping campaigns will significantly decrease in the ad spend
• For best performance, similar budgets should be set for Performance Max and existing Smart Shopping campaigns
• After setting up a Performance Max campaign and running it successfully, your Smart Shopping campaign should be paused
• It may take 2 to 3 days for the Performance Max campaign to ramp up and cover the entire inventory of your Smart Shopping campaign

Should You Hire a Performance Max Expert?

The Performance Max campaigns make use of machine learning algorithms to automatically adjust various settings to get the best performance for your budget. Having said that, results are somewhat limited in the real world. The algorithms are able to generate great results within the set parameters but automated optimisation only works up to a certain level.

For example, the Performance Max campaigns for lead generation typically generate a lot of leads but you can’t say much about the quality of leads. If the leads are of lower quality, you are unlikely to get the desired results. A higher number of leads with a poor conversion rate will ultimately cost you more money.

This is why you need experts who have experience with Performance Max campaigns. They can help you optimise your campaigns to get the best possible return on your investment. 

The algorithms can optimise ad campaigns up to a certain extent. An expert knows how to make the best use of available data to enhance the quality of leads and to get the maximum possible number of leads or sales within a fixed budget.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Google’s Performance Max campaigns are here to stay. They are known to drive up more conversions and eventually, you should be able to get more out of your ad budget. Since Performance Max campaigns allow you to place your ads across all the platforms including local campaigns, Discover, Gmail, Smart Shopping, search, YouTube and others, it is better to get started now and get a hang of the system. 

Partnering with Performance Max experts will help you get the best return on your investment.

Let Us Help You Set up Your First-Ever Performance Max Campaign!

ETRAFFIC is the leading digital marketing agency in Australia. We have helped hundreds of Australian small and medium-sized businesses generate more revenue, more profit and more leads through our digital marketing expertise.

Our team of PPC experts has been testing Performance Max campaigns since the very beginning and we have optimised our strategies to help our clients generate the best possible return on their investment. 

Performance Max is the future and is likely to replace most of the options offered by Google. Let our experts set up your first Performance Max campaign to give you a taste of what the future has to offer.

To fully optimise and get the best results for your Google Performance Max campaigns, please call us at ETRAFFIC today at 1300 887 151 or book a free strategy session below.

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