In September 2022, Google completed rolling out Performance Max, a type of ad campaign that replaced most Smart Shopping and Local campaigns.
This guide looks at what exactly Performance Max is, the pros and cons, and how to start using the ad type if you’re completely new to it.
Table of Contents
What is Performance Max?
Performance Max – or pMax – is a type of shopping ads campaign that makes use of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to run the best ads based on your goals. It also aims to simplify your advertising by eliminating the need to create a new campaign for each platform you want to advertise on (e.g. YouTube, Search and Display).
You provide Google with a number of assets such as image, video, and text, and Google then creates ads from these across its platforms. Assets will be mixed and matched depending on the platform, the search and performance.
Pros and Cons of Performance Max
Like any type of campaign, there are advantages and disadvantages to Performance Max. Here are the main things to look out for.
Performance Max Pros
Less time-consuming: Performance Max campaigns should be less time-consuming to set up and manage than other campaigns. Most of the work and optimisation is done automatically by Google, and you only have to create one campaign in order to advertise in multiple locations. Previously you had to create a new campaign for each location.
Continuous optimisation: Thanks to the AI technology used, pMax campaigns are continually and automatically optimised. So the more views, clicks and conversions you get, the better your ads should perform.
Improved targeting: While you don’t get as much control over pMax as you would on other campaign types, you do get to utilise Google’s knowledge of audience behaviours. This is so vast that no other individual company could ever hope to get near it with their own data. So your campaigns can be targeted based on Google’s expansive data, not your own limited information.
Performance Max Cons
Less control: There are fewer opportunities to manually tweak pMax ads, which means you can’t experiment to find what works best, or make changes to better suit your strategy and audience. While, theoretically, Google will do all this for you instead, it’s not a perfect system and Google’s automation has been known to be poor at times.
Automation isn’t always best: Although you may think you can set off a pMax campaign and sit back while it brings you lots of leads, this isn’t necessarily the case. Like with any ad, you can end up wasting a lot of money if you don’t set up and run campaigns effectively. You still need to keep an eye on any Performance Max campaigns to make sure you continue to see the best results.
Negative effect on other ads campaigns: Because Google prioritises pMax campaigns over almost all other campaigns, you could see worsening results on your other ads. When monitoring your new Performance Max ads, remember to keep an eye on results for any other ads too.
Potential higher cost: Performance Max campaigns use machine learning, which means they need data to function well. They’ll utilise general data from Google’s large database, but if you have minimal available data within your own ads account, you could experience higher costs for a while. If you’ve already been running ads for some time, this hopefully won’t be a problem. But if you’re brand new to ads, take this into consideration, especially if budget is tight.
How to set up Performance Max
Set up Performance Max campaigns from scratchIf you are completely new to Google Ads or don’t yet have any Performance Max ads running, you can set up campaigns from scratch.1. Set up an accountIf you haven’t already done so, set up an account with Google Ads. You won’t be charged anything until you start running ads.2. Create a new Performance Max campaign
From the dashboard, select Create a new campaign (or select the blue ‘+’ symbol), then Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance.From the next set of options, select Performance Max.3. Select goals
Google will automatically select some goals, but you should be sure to only keep those that are vital to your campaign. You can remove goals by selecting the three buttons next to them and deleting.Select Add Goals if you want to add more to your list. If you don’t see the option, you can create additional goals. To do this, you’ll need to navigate away from campaign creation. Don’t worry, your work so far will be saved as a draft.Read how to create goals.When selecting your campaign goals, remember to consider what your aim is for this specific campaign. Performance Max works best for conversion goals, where a user is actually making a purchase.Select Continue once you’ve finalised your goals.When selecting your campaign goals, remember to consider what your aim is for this specific campaign. Google Max works best for conversion goals, where a user is actually making a purchase.Select Continue once you’ve finalised your goals.4. Connect Merchant CentreIf you want to advertise products on your website and have a Merchant Centre account, connect this to your campaign. All products from the account will then be available to advertise within the campaign. You can select specific feeds if you don’t want to advertise all products.Further reading:- Getting started with Merchant Centre (and Shopping Ads)
- How to Optimise Your Google Shopping Ads (and Merchant Centre) for the Best Results
You have to choose a daily budget for Performance Max campaigns. This is then averaged out for the entire month, so you may spend more one day, and less another day. But over the month, you will spend your daily budget multiplied by the number of days in that month.Select a daily budget that is suitable for your campaign and conversion value. Too small and you may receive little to no conversions. Too high and you could find yourself spending more than you’re making.Google recommends choosing a daily budget that is at least three times higher than your cost per conversion of the conversions actions selected in the campaign.It’s worth experimenting with budget, but you need to give each option several weeks to run in order to make useful comparisons.You also have two options to focus your bidding:- Conversions will aim to get as many conversions as possible for your budget
- Conversion value will aim to get more higher-value conversions for your budget (which may result in fewer actual conversions)
This is where you can target users in specific locations or those who speak particular languages.Opt for the default location or select Enter another location to expand your reach and make use of additional options such as location exclusions and location by radius.Language selections will be offered depending on your choice of location(s).The settings here also allow you to add a schedule for your adverts. This is useful if you know when your customers are likely to browse and/or purchase, or if you want to limit the time your campaign runs.Once done, select Next.9. Create a listing groupIf you connected a Merchant Centre account earlier, then you can now create a listing group. Select the pencil symbol to choose which products to display.10. Asset groups
Your asset group includes any images, text and video that will be used within your ads. Google recommends you include the below number of assets, though you can also include more or fewer:Text- 11 headlines
- 2 long headlines
- 4 descriptions
- 4 landscape images, ratio 1.91:1
- 4 square images
- 1 logo, ratio 1:1 (square)
- 1 logo, ratio 4:1
- 2 portrait images, ratio 4:5
- 1 landscape video, ratio 16:9
- 1 square video
- 1 vertical video, ratio 9:16
An audience signal tells Google the type of people that you want to reach. It includes audience segments, remarketing audiences, and interests and demographics that you upload to your campaign.This is optional but, if you have the data, will help Google’s automation more quickly target the right kinds of users.Remember that an audience signal is used only as a suggestion. Your campaign won’t necessarily target users on that list, but the information will help Google start to learn about your audience. This should theoretically mean better results more quickly.Set up Performance Max from Smart Shopping and Local campaigns
Performance Max completed rolling out in September 2022, replacing the now-defunct Smart Shopping and Local campaigns. If you were running these kinds of campaigns and didn’t change them yourself, they would have automatically updated.Hopefully, since it’s been a while since the change, you will have made adjustments to the ads (because, remember, all ads need regular analysis and adjustment). If you haven’t changed anything since then, make sure to take a look at what you’ll need to do to ensure the upgraded ads are optimised.1. Locate your Performance Max campaignsOpen your Google Ads account and select Campaigns. Look for a campaign that includes a symbol that looks like a zig-zag with a small star above it:
Select the pMax campaign and select Assets from the right side menu.2. Add more assetsMany elements of your old upgraded campaign will have been automatically transferred over to the Smart Shopping campaign. That includes historical information gathered about performance, budget, assets and conversion goals.You will, however, need to add more assets (images, video and text) to your new campaign.Ads in a Performance Max campaign will display over multiple platforms. Each of these platforms has different asset requirements. For example, an ad on YouTube would require a video, and the dimensions of a Search Ad image would be different to those on the Display Network.In particular, you probably won’t have any video assets in your campaign. And, while Google will automatically create these for you if you don’t, their videos aren’t particularly impressive.You can instead – for both video and image – create your own assets on Canva, which is a free and easy-to-use tool.Google provides some minimum asset recommendations to help you gather what’s required.3. Identify issuesInsights provided by Google Ads will point you in the right direction if something isn’t set up correctly. Keep an eye on these and make adjustments as necessary to improve your results.What happened to old campaigns?
Once your campaign was upgraded to Performance Max, you will have lost the ability to edit or reactivate the original. You will, however, be able to still access historical data, which is useful for comparisons and analysis.
