In November 2021, Google launched its latest campaign type, performance max campaigns, otherwise known as Google Pmax. This campaign type is designed to help companies generate more leads as well as more customers, which converts and increases the effectiveness of Google Ads.
Whether you have heard about this campaign before and don’t understand what it entails or are hearing about it for the first time, this post will help. The post will outline the main differences between Performance Max campaigns and Google’s other campaign types.
It will also highlight the results which some people have had whilst experimenting with performance max campaigns.
The Main Differences between Performance Max and Google’s Other Campaign Types
With performance max campaigns, Google automates various different aspects of the campaign for you; this is based on the information you provided when you initially set up this particular campaign type.
Even though this sounds very similar to a smart campaign, a performance max campaign is still fairly different. The difference is that the information you provide the campaign when you set it up is heavily relied on to ensure that the automated strategy can perform in a way that works for your business’s needs. Therefore, this gives you more control than a smart campaign does.
Performance max also extends its targeting abilities across all of Google’s other advertising channels, including Google Search, Display, Search Partners, Gmail, and YouTube.
What Aspects of a Performance Max Campaign Can You Control?
Once you have selected the campaign objective which best suits what you would like to get out of your campaign, there are various other elements over which you have control. These include:
- Location: This will enable you to control where your ads are shown. You can also still make use of the advanced location settings.
- Ad Schedule: This will determine at what days of the week and what times your ads will run. If you would prefer not to have your ads showing at weekends, this is where you would set this up.
- Daily Budget and Bidding: This will be one of the first things you will need to assign to the campaign. A daily budget is an option that is required across all of Google’s campaign types. Once you have chosen a daily budget, you can then choose which of Google’s automated bidding strategies the campaign will use. These include max conversion, target CPA, and target ROAS strategies.
How Are People Finding the Results of Performance Max Campaigns?
Before implementing a new campaign type, most people will want to hear about other people’s experiences with using this type of campaign.
Many Google Ads Management agencies have been using performance max campaigns alongside other campaign types to be able to effectively be able to compare the results and analyze the data.
In most cases, it appears that performance max campaigns do not drastically increase the amount of traffic you will receive. However, it appears that the visits/traffic you receive will be cheaper. This is due to the fact that the average cost per click is a lot cheaper when running performance max campaigns.
As a generalized statement, various agencies are reporting that performance max campaigns deliver a higher return on ad spend than Google’s other campaign types.
Do Performance Max Campaigns Have Any Limitations?
Just like with Google’s smart campaigns, performance max campaigns do have their limitations. One of the drawbacks of using performance max is the lack of information that is provided in regards to targeting and placements. So despite the fact that you might be getting more online sales and inquiries, you cannot tell who these people are or where they have originated from. This provides very little data for you to analyze and thus optimize campaign performance.
Google limits reporting on what search terms have triggered your ads, which makes it impossible to assign negative keywords to a campaign to prevent your ad from showing from these searches again.
Another main restriction that comes with running performance max campaigns is the fact that they do not have an IP exclusion list. This means if you are having an issue with click fraud and use software to prevent this, any IP addresses which are excluded will not be applied to the performance max campaign. This is something that also occurs with Google’s smart campaigns too and is indicative of future campaign updates and types.
Final Note
Since Google introduced their new campaign type, performance max, users have had a chance to familiarize themselves with the new features as well as test out how this new campaign type works and compares to the other campaign types Google offers.
The verdict so far is that in most cases, the average cost per click is lower than other campaign types. As well as this, there is evidence that performance max campaigns also have the ability to produce a higher ROAS.
However, if click/visitor volume and campaign control is of concern, which in most cases it will be, there is an argument that performance max takes away too much control from the PPC manager.
Your digital marketing agency will likely be testing Pmax campaigns alongside other campaign types to gauge whether improved performance can be achieved. If they’re not, ask them why!
