What are Performance Max Ads?

Performance Max ads is a new goal-based campaign type that allows performance advertisers to access all of their Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. It was introduced by Google in November 2021 at ‘Google Marketing Live’. While Google insist these changes will benefit your ads and their performance, people within the industry were not so sure at first. 

People within the PPC industry met the change with some hostility because they have low amount of control over the targeting and performance data of their ads. As well as this, users cannot add negative keywords or use smart bidding strategies. However, it has now been almost a year since Google mentioned Performance Max campaigns and a lot have people have changed their mind on them. One reason why people have changed their opinion on Performance Max campaigns is because of how automated it is! It’s automation means the process of creating and running ads is much simpler and less time consuming.

Another reason why people’s opinion of Performance Max adverts has changed is because they can help you find new, high value customers. Performance Max achieves this through assisting complex machine learning, it helps determine and process complex user-intent signals, behaviour & context. This helps your adverts show up in the right moments which in turn, increases relevancy and helps you reach those customers that are most likely to convert. 

Performance Max campaigns can have many different variations of ads which is also a massive benefit for a lot of businesses. With there being different adverts available it can prevent people ignoring your ads as they have seen them before. 

What Do Performance Max Ads Require?

Before we discuss the various types of Performance Max campaign types, it is important that we establish what is required in order to create successful campaigns in the first place. 

Final URL

This is where your customers will land when they click on your ads. It is important that the final URL is relevant to the advert as it will have a negative impact on the ROI if it is not.

Calls

It is a good idea to include the company phone number as it means people can easily get in touch if they feel the need to. This will improve the customer experience and will increase the likelihood of them converting, compared to them having to search around for the phone number as a number of users would simply not bother.

Images

Your images are crucial to the success of your ads. It is the first thing that the user will see so if they are not eye catching and high quality images then it is unlikely that they will convert. You can select up to 20 images and Google will rotate the images that they show on your ads to find which combination of images is most successful and drives the most traffic to your website. In your images you must have at least one landscape image ( (1.91:1) 1200 x 628 recommended; 600 x 314 min), one square image ((1:1) 1200 x 1200 recommended; 300 x 300 min) and one portrait image ((4:5) 960 x 1200 recommended; 480 x 600 min).

Logo

By adding an image of your logo people can get more familiar with your business and it can become more recognisable. 

Videos

Videos are not an essential part of your Performance Max adverts however, they are a great addition to your adverts. If you can add a video of your product then you can show multiple angles, which will help your potential customers gain a better understanding of the product.

Headlines

Firstly, you want to create a headline for your ad. In your performance Max campaigns you can create up to 5 headlines and these will be rotated automatically to find the best and most effective. By creating 5 headlines you are giving Google the chance to find the best headline for your advert, this would not be possible if you only created 1 headline. If you do not want to devote the time coming up with new and unique headlines then you can use Google’s recommendations, we do suggest that you read these over before publishing your ad.

Long Headlines 

Just like normal headlines, you can create up to 5 long headlines. These long headlines have a 90 character limit meaning you can provide more information than the ordinary headlines. As we discussed in the headlines section creating 5 headlines is better than just one so you want to give yourself time to create 5 unique headlines. It is a good idea to give some more information about your business here, for example your USPs. 

Descriptions 

For your Performance Max campaigns you can create 1 description which has a 60 character limit. You also get the opportunity to make 4 descriptions that have a 90 character limit. Just like the other two sections we have mentioned, it is always a good idea to make the most of these descriptions and try to make the most of the 5 descriptions made available to you. The more information you provide to Google, the better your Performance Max campaigns are likely to perform. Once again, Google do have some recommendations for your descriptions that you can use however, it would be a good idea to check over these before publishing your ad to make sure they are 100% accurate.

Business Name 

Include the name of your business, by default this will be taken from the Google Merchant centre if you have it set up.

Sitelinks 

Performance Max campaigns allow you to add 6 sitelinks. Depending on the product you may not be able to provide 6, which is okay. Although it is important to make the most of the space you are provided, you also do not want to send interested customers to the incorrect areas of your website as this will affect performance.

Call to Action 

It is okay to leave this as ‘Automated’ and Google will choose what they think is most appropriate for your ads. However, if you would like to choose your own then you are given the option to.

What Variations of Performance Max Campaigns are There? 

To put it bluntly, the variations are endless. Whilst there are a certain amount of channels that your ads can show on, which we will discuss later, your ads can show in a number of different ways depending on device and space available. This is a massive benefit of Performance Max Ads as it means your adverts can always be shown no matter what device and no matter how big or small the space available is. This means that your ads can always be shown and you can reach a new audience.

As mentioned before there are a number amount of channels that your ads can be shown in, the channels mentioned are:

• YouTube 
• Gmail
• Search
• Display
• Discover
• Maps 

Having such a wide range of channels available can mean that your ads will appear for people. The more people see your ads then they are more likely to check your website out and convert, this is another massive benefit of Performance Max ads. As well as this, the variety means that there are channels for businesses in all industries, for example if you own a restaurant you may find Maps a more effective channel over YouTube. However, if you own an online jewellery business you will benefit from YouTube ads more than Maps ads.

How Can Performance Max Ads Help Your Business?

We conduct PPC work for a vast number of our clients and we have found that utilising has improved their business performance because they are always displayed to an audience no matter the space available or device they’re using. We have found that this has helped ROI increase for a large majority of our clients meaning they can invest into their business more. 

Another way Performance Max campaigns can help your business is through the opportunity to engage with your audience across Google channels. This can be achieved through Google’s real time understanding of user intents and preferences. This can help you unlock new customer segments that you may have not anticipated in the past.

What Do Our Experts Think of Performance Max?

As we mentioned at the beginning, a lot of people reacted to the news of Performance Max campaigns with some animosity and they were not big fans. I wanted to gain an understanding of what our PPC manager, Nancy, thought of Performance Max campaigns when they first launched and has it changed since then. Nancy can be quoted saying “Yoma is running Pmax campaign with lead generation & online sales (feed based) focus. From the start, we’ve seen great results from our lead focused PMax campaigns however the Pmax campaigns with focus on online sales (feed based) have struggled somewhat.

We’ve recorded performance fluctuation on a weekly basis, not always reaching our campaign targets. PMax is still a fairly new campaign type and Google is continuing making enhancements such as the option to add up to 15 Headlines.

If you follow best practice and fully utilise all available features within Pmax you will see your desired results after the initial campaign learning phase is completed.”

It was really useful to hear someones point of view that uses PMax campaigns all the time! It reinforced the view that there is some still way to go with PMax before it is anywhere near the finished article, however, there is still the opportunity for your business to profit massively off Performance Max campaigns. 

As you can see Performance Max ads have a lot of benefits and they truly can have a massive positive impact on your business. If you want experts to run your Performance Max campaigns then get in touch with the team today.