Every week, digital advertisers everywhere come together on Twitter to discuss related PPC topics. This week’s topic is all about Google’s new Performance Max campaign type.
Below is a recap of the discussion, highlighting recent successes and pitfalls for advertisers.
As a special feature, PPC Chat has invited Google’s official advertising liaison, Ginny Marvin.
Question 1: Are you running a Performance Max campaign?
Advertisers mostly answered “yes” in the chat. However, brands in the B2B space don’t seem to be using them due to a lack of good use cases.
Gabriele Benedetti commented that when he tested the Performance Max campaign, this campaign type required a different approach to Google Ads management.
Question 2: If you’re not already running, why not?
Especially with this question getting more honest feedback from advertisers. Top reasons marketers don’t use Performance Max campaigns include:
- Lead generation customers don’t see their value.
- This activity type seems to offer a similar approach for other platforms such as Facebook.
- Insufficient control over corporate customers.
Julia Vyse mentions that her reasoning is due to an omnichannel marketing strategy.
Image credit: Screenshot by author, February 2022Question 3: How effective are the Performance Max campaigns?
This question shows a erratic range of results, from “horrible” to “surprisingly good.” Some of the main responses include:
- Performance Max eventually cannibalizes other higher performing individual channels.
- Seems to work well for e-commerce customers, especially for campaigns that are underperforming shopping.
- Many say it’s too early to tell and hard to say for sure because of cannibalization from other activities.
Many concerns have been raised about the exclusion of cannibalism and the lack of a campaign.
Marvin is able to solve problems and bring clarity and hope to advertisers.
Regarding exclusions, Marvin confirmed the following:
- Content exclusions are already available.
- Google is introducing keyword exclusion at the account level (TBD) to address brand safety issues.
Regarding cannibalization, Marvin clarified Google’s priorities, summarizing it as follows:
Image credit: Screenshot by author, February 2022Basically, in theory, your existing Search campaigns should take precedence over Performance Max campaigns if the query exactly matches an exact, phrase or broad keyword in your existing campaign.
Question 4: What was your biggest challenge with the Performance Max campaign?
Everyone’s reaction is very similar. Advertisers haven’t stopped them from improvising on this particular campaign type. The main challenges facing marketers are summarized below:
- cannibalism
- Management automation (lack of control + exclusion)
- Report a death (lack of data, no placement report, etc.)
- Google automatically creates video assets for you (most people don’t like this)
Then this question was led by a similar question:
Question 5: Do you want your Performance Max campaign to be different?
This question brought a lot of good feedback and discussion. Key requirements for the Performance Max event include:
- Ability to build in Google Ads Editor
- Campaign-level keyword exclusions, placement exclusions, device modifiers, targeting
- Ability to test without all available assets (video)
- Report
Marvin is able to provide valuable feedback and answers to advertisers’ wish lists.
First, Marvin confirmed Performance Max support in the Google Ads editor:
Image credit: Screenshot by author, February 2022Next, Marvin addresses the reporting and control (or lack thereof) of the activity.
Image credit: Screenshot by author, February 2022Regarding campaign control, Marvin emphasizes the importance of your input when creating these campaigns. For example, if you don’t specify the most important conversions, you may end up with a lot of conversions that don’t matter to your core conversions.
If your primary goal is e-commerce purchases, but you also have secondary conversions for email signups, make sure you prioritize and specify what matters most. The success of your event will be directly attributed to how thoughtful you are in structuring your event.
generalize
The Performance Max campaign still has a long way to go. Not only in the performance itself, but also in the trust of advertisers using them.
Google is actively listening to advertiser feedback and offers some hope for the future of such campaigns.
source: Twitter
Featured Image: TarikVision/Shutterstock
