To get real results from your Google Ads strategy, get started with Performance Max campaigns—PMax campaigns for short—which enable you to access a lot of available Google Ads inventory using a single campaign.
Learn all about Performance Max campaigns and how to use them in this guide from Logan Schiff, VP of Paid Search and a Google Ads expert.
What’s Covered:
- An Introduction to Performance Max Campaigns
- Key Features of PMax Advertising
- A Few Benefits of Using PMax
- How to Start a PMax Campaign in Google Ads
- Performance Max Tips for Beginners
- Advanced Strategies for PMax Campaigns
- PMax for Ecommerce
- PMax Campaigns for Lead Generation
- Case Studies on Performance Max Campaigns
- Hidden Gems of Performance Max Campaigns
- FAQs About Performance Max Campaigns
An Introduction to Performance Max Campaigns
Let’s take a deeper look at PMax campaigns and how they work.
What Is a Performance Max Campaign?
What exactly is Performance Max (PMax)? PMax campaigns is a type of Google Ads campaign designed to help businesses connect with audiences across multiple Google-owned channels, leveraging the power of AI and machine learning.
The primary objective of PMax is to drive higher conversions while maximizing the return on your Google Ads investment. PMax ensures that your campaigns deliver to your target market while keeping in mind what the goal is for your business.
With its focus on efficiency and performance, PMax empowers advertisers to streamline their strategy, capitalize on data-driven insights, and achieve measurable growth with minimal complexity.
If you want to streamline your advertising efforts, you’ll be able to successfully do so with these campaigns in addition to other paid media strategies.
My Expert Opinion on Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max (PMax) advertising stands out as one of the most effective tools for optimizing Google Ads strategies across a wide range of industries. Its core strength lies in leveraging advanced machine learning to streamline ad delivery across multiple channels, ensuring maximum reach and impact.
However, the true power of PMax lies in strategic implementation. Aligning the campaign structure with clearly defined business objectives is essential to unlocking its full potential. Whether the goal is to drive store traffic, generate leads, or boost online sales, a carefully tailored approach ensures that PMax delivers measurable results and actionable insights with efficiency.
When executed correctly, PMax campaigns not only enhance overall performance but also enable advertisers to capitalize on advanced features such as driving foot traffic to physical locations. By focusing on these capabilities, brands can create seamless online-to-offline experiences, driving meaningful engagement and business growth.
A thoughtful and well-executed PMax strategy doesn’t just optimize ad spend—it positions your brand to achieve scalable success across Google’s ads.
Key Features of PMax Advertising
Here are some of the exciting features and advantages you get with Performance Max campaigns:
- All-in-one ad formats: Performance Max puts your ads on Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discover, all within a single campaign. This means your ads get seen by more people in more places, boosting your overall exposure.
- Smart spending: Performance Max uses Google’s Smart Bidding to adjust your bids automatically and in real-time. It ensures you get the most bang for your buck by considering user behavior, devices used, and the time of day.
- Adaptable ads: Instead of making separate ads for each format, Performance Max uses flexible ads that change to fit the format and placement they appear in. You supply the headlines, descriptions, images, and logos, and Google’s smart tech puts together the most appealing and relevant ads for each situation.
- Better audience targeting: Performance Max taps into Google’s powerful audience targeting options, such as custom intent, in-market, affinity, and remarketing audiences. This ensures your ads reach the right people when they’re most likely to be interested.
- Helpful insights: As your Performance Max campaigns run, the platform gives you useful info about your ad performance, conversions, and how your audience behaves. This helps you tweak your marketing strategy, spot new opportunities, and plan better campaigns in the future.
- Drive-to-store: With the help of drive-to-store PMax, you can link your physical business locations through your Google Business Profile or affiliate locations, which can help you get more foot traffic into those businesses through locally targeted ads.
Download our infographic highlighting these key features here.
In short, Google Performance Max ads combine multiple ad formats, use smart technology to optimize bids and ads, and target the right audience.
Machine learning is behind each of these features, as PMax “learns” how to continually perfect campaigns to reach the right audiences at the right time with ads.
A Few Benefits of Using PMax
Increasing Conversions and Value
First, advertisers have the option to increase conversions and value. Google’s unique automation process optimizes budgets and bids across channels to help you capture new conversion opportunities in real-time.
Finding New Customers
With Performance Max, you can now unlock new audience segments by using Google’s real-time understanding of user intent, behavior, and context. This data helps your ads appear in the right moments with more relevant copy and creative elements.
You can specifically do this in Performance Max with two modes: New Customer Value and New Customer Only. New Customer Value enables you to add customer acquisition values for each customer’s initial purchase conversion value, which can help attract new customers while increasing revenue for all customers within the same campaign. Meanwhile, New Customer Only displays ads solely to new customers if you have non-purchase conversion goals or more focused ad spend.
Gain Richer Insights
Performance Max campaigns are part of a Google advertiser’s Insights page. Now, these insights help you understand how automation is working and how you can improve both new and existing campaigns.
By using the Combinations report, you can also see how your top-performing assets are used to combine creatives. This data is extremely helpful as you analyze performance to find what’s working and what’s not. As always, richer insights contribute to better optimization, cost analysis, and future performance.
Integrates with Automation
Performance Max lets you steer automation by providing high-quality creative assets and sharing your expertise about which audiences are more likely to convert.
Marketers are in more control and have access to brand-new ad inventory. Performance Max campaigns allow retailers, mobile marketers, and local marketers to use new formats that are not currently available with Smart Shopping and mobile campaigns. This expansion is designed to provide an increased number of options that drive results.
Performance Max also includes channels like YouTube, Search, and Discover. Expanded access to these platforms and channels helps businesses increase sales with viewers who may not have otherwise seen new ad campaigns.
How to Start a PMax Campaign in Google Ads
Next, we’ll walk you through the process of creating successful PMax campaigns, ensuring you have a solid foundation from which to build and optimize your advertising strategy.
1. Choose the Right Campaign Type
When creating a new campaign in Google Ads, select “Performance Max” as your campaign type. This sets your campaign to use PMax, encompassing discovery ads, search ads, shopping, and display ad inventory.
2. Use First-Party Data for Audience Signals
The success of your PMax campaigns depends on the quality of your audience signals.
Use first-party data such as CRM information, email subscriber lists, and YouTube viewer lists to create custom audiences tailored to your B2B marketing objectives. If first-party data is limited, consider using third-party data as an alternative.
3. Define Your Marketing Objectives
Clearly outline your marketing goals for your PMax campaigns.
For B2B marketers, this may include lead generation, increasing brand awareness, or driving website traffic. When you define your objectives upfront, you can ensure your campaigns are optimized to meet them effectively.
When setting up your Performance Max campaign, it’s crucial to pick the conversion goals that matter for your B2B marketing strategy. Think of these goals as your guiding stars, helping you focus on what truly matters.
Common Conversion Goals:
- Form submissions: If getting new leads is your thing, keeping an eye on form submissions is the way to go. Be it a newsletter sign-up, a demo request, or a simple contact form, you’ll want to know how many folks are reaching out through these channels.
- Ebook or whitepaper downloads: Who doesn’t like valuable content? Offering goodies like eBooks or whitepapers can lure prospects to your brand. Count the number of downloads to see if your content is hitting the sweet spot with your audience.
- Webinar or event registrations: Hosting webinars or events is an awesome way to show off your expertise and mingle with potential customers. Tracking registrations lets you gauge how excited people are about your events and whether they’re bringing in new leads.
- Free trial sign-ups: If your B2B product or service comes with a free trial, keeping track of sign-ups can help you figure out how tempting your offer is to potential customers. Plus, it’s handy for getting an early peek at potential revenue.
- Completed purchases: Although it’s not the norm for B2B marketing, some campaigns might focus on driving sales right away. Keep tabs on completed purchases to see how well your campaign’s raking in the cash and what your return on investment (ROI) looks like.
- Phone calls or scheduled appointments: For some B2B companies, having a chat with prospects over the phone or through scheduled appointments is paramount. Keeping an eye on these interactions can give you a better idea of the lead quality your campaigns are generating.
At the end of the day, the conversion goals you pick should match your big-picture marketing objectives and be crystal clear from the get-go. By choosing the right goals, you’ll be all set to fine-tune your Performance Max campaigns and impact your B2B marketing efforts.
4. Set a Realistic Daily Budget
Allocate a sufficient daily budget for your PMax campaigns to generate meaningful results.
While a minimum of $50 per day is required, we recommend a range of $75-$100 per day for best performance. This initial investment lets you quickly assess the effectiveness of your campaigns and make necessary adjustments.
5. Configure Your Bid Strategy
PMax campaigns utilize automated bidding strategies, taking the guesswork out of setting bids for individual ad placements. Choose a bidding strategy that aligns with your marketing objectives, such as target return on ad spend (ROAS) or target cost per acquisition (CPA).
6. Craft Compelling Ad Creative
High-quality ad creative is essential for capturing the attention of your target audience.
Create engaging ad copy and eye-catching visuals tailored to your B2B marketing objectives. Include clear calls-to-action (CTAs) to encourage prospects to take the desired action, such as signing up for a demo or downloading a whitepaper.
In addition to text content, you should include a YouTube video with these campaigns. Otherwise, Google will automatically generate a video based on your existing assets, adding it to your Google Performance Max campaign without allowing you to preview it. People may not connect with these automatically created ads, which is why you should have a direct say in the content by making your own corresponding video.
7. Run Your PMax Campaigns For the Right Length of Time
Deciding how long to run your Performance Max campaigns can feel like guesswork, but it’s more of a science, and finding the ideal timeframe:
- Start with a solid testing period: When you first launch your PMax campaign, give it some time to spread its wings and fly. A testing period of about 90 days is a good rule of thumb, allowing the campaign to gather enough data and learn from it.
- Keep an eye on performance: Watch your campaign’s performance like a hawk during the testing period. If it’s doing great and meeting your goals, fantastic! Keep it going. If not, don’t be afraid to pause or adjust the campaign to improve its results.
- Consider your product or service: The ideal duration for your PMax campaign also depends on what you’re offering. If you have a high-ticket item, you might need to invest more time and money to see those sweet conversions roll in. On the flip side, if your product is more budget-friendly, you could see results even quicker.
- Stay flexible and ready to adapt: Running PMax campaigns isn’t a one-size-fits-all game. Keep an open mind and be prepared to make changes as needed. This might mean tweaking your budget, targeting, or creative elements to get the best results possible.
In a nutshell, there’s no magical “one-size-fits-all” duration for PMax campaigns.
Focus on a solid testing period, monitor your campaign’s performance, and be ready to make adjustments as needed. Keep your campaign in tune, and you’ll be fine.
Performance Max Tips for Beginners
In learning how to start a PMax campaign in Google Ads, here are some tips to guide you:
Run PMax Campaigns Alongside Original Campaigns
As Google itself states of PMax, “It’s designed to complement your keyword-based Search campaigns to help you find more converting customers across all of Google’s channels…” You can run these campaigns alone, but they really work best when working together with your campaigns without cannibalization.
Although you can definitely run multiple PMax ad campaigns with each other to target different audiences and goals, they could wind up cannibalizing each other in some cases.
Specifically, if your audiences or products are too similar across multiple campaigns, only the one with the highest ad rank will win out among them when getting impressions. Remember, PMax only directly competes with standard Video Action campaigns through Google Ads.
Input the Right Conversion Data
While AI can help you optimize conversions in the end, you need to clearly establish your conversion goals for it to work the right way. For instance, you might want to make it clear that your goal is to drive more conversions rather than simply getting as many leads as possible. In other cases, you might want to maximize sales over conversions.
Create Unique Assets for Each Campaign
If you run multiple Performance Max campaigns to target various goals, you’ll want to create unique messages and visuals for each. Run A/B tests before official launches to test two versions of the same ad with one element altered, which can indicate which will be worth implementing.
Advanced Strategies for PMax Campaigns
Use Performance Max Campaigns as Supplements
It’s best to use Google Performance Max campaigns as supplemental campaigns that assist your traditional campaigns.
With the help of Performance Max in addition to regular search, display, discovery and YouTube ads, you can get the best results from all of your campaigns. In the process, you create balanced efforts that help you achieve your goals.
These campaigns work with each other in different ways. For instance, traditional search ads use keyword targeting to appeal to users searching for your offerings or brand on Google.
Meanwhile, display ads connect with people on other sites through visual ads.
Finally, PMax campaigns help you benefit from the best of both worlds by enabling you to better optimize your campaigns.
Pay Close Attention to Audience Targeting
Keep a close eye on your audience targeting, and make adjustments based on campaign performance as needed. Ensure you’re reaching the right audience segments by continually refining your targeting parameters and leveraging insights from your campaign data.
You can gauge the performance of your Performance Max campaigns by looking at performance reports and measuring their metrics against your goals.
Use Enhanced Conversions
One key tool you can use to track your PMax Google campaign is enhanced conversions. This works by getting visitors to your website to share first-party data with you.
Google then matches this data to its own, at which point it hashes the data and sends it back anonymously. As a result, you get more high-quality data that respects users’ privacy, helping you optimize your campaigns without relying on third-party data.
You can easily set up enhanced conversions using the Google tag.
Optimize Performance Max
To get the best performance from your PMax efforts, you can take various steps to optimize your campaigns’ performance, such as:
- Inform AI with the right goals for each campaign, from attracting more leads to converting leads into customers and increasing sales
- Using placement exclusions at the account level to keep PMax from tracking traditional ad placements
- Incorporating negative keywords at the account level to exclude them from your campaigns
- Excluding geographic locations that aren’t getting results
- A/B test different asset combinations based on your data. Certain messaging or visuals might work better in other ad groups, so be sure to test images, videos, descriptions, headlines, logos, etc.
Steps to Run PMax Campaigns for Your Ecommerce Business
If you’re running an ecommerce business, Performance Max campaigns can be a game-changer for your digital marketing strategy.
Before we dive into how PMax can help boost your online store’s performance, take a quick look at the key points we covered in our webinar.
- PMax campaigns work well for both lead generation and ecommerce businesses, so they’re a perfect fit for your online store.
- PMax campaigns cover a wide range of ad types, including shopping ads, which are particularly important for ecommerce.
- Having a product feed is essential for the shopping aspect of PMax campaigns to be effective.
Now, let’s explore how you can make the most of PMax campaigns for your ecommerce business:
- Optimize your product feed: A well-structured and accurate product feed is the backbone of your shopping ads. Take the time to optimize your feed with high-quality images, detailed product descriptions, and accurate pricing information to ensure your ads stand out from the competition.
- Use first-party data: Leverage your customer data, such as past purchase history and email subscriber lists, to create custom audiences for your PMax campaigns. This targeted approach can help you reach potential customers more effectively and drive higher conversion rates.
- Set a realistic budget: Your daily budget plays a crucial role in determining the success of your PMax campaigns. While we recommend $75-$100 per day, you may need to adjust your budget depending on your product prices and overall marketing objectives.
- Monitor and optimize performance: Keep a close eye on your PMax campaign performance and be ready to make adjustments as needed. This may involve refining your targeting, tweaking your ad creative, or adjusting your bids to improve your return on ad spend (ROAS).
- Emphasize new customer acquisition: PMax campaigns are particularly efficient at driving intent-based acquisition through search campaigns. Focus on attracting new customers to your online store by adjusting campaign settings and ensuring a seamless customer experience.
For ecommerce businesses looking to improve conversion rates and acquire new customers, PMax campaigns can prove invaluable. The key to unlocking the full potential of PMax for your online store is to optimize your product feed, leverage first-party data, and closely monitor campaign performance.
PMax Campaigns for Lead Generation
Performance Max campaigns can be a real game-changer for generating leads for your business. Let’s explore some fresh tips on how to make the most of PMax campaigns for lead generation:
- Understand your lead value: Before you jump into PMax campaigns, make sure you know what each lead is worth to your business. This will help you set realistic goals for your campaigns and allocate the right budget to achieve those goals.
- Create engaging content: Capture the attention of potential leads by crafting compelling ad copy and visuals. The quality of your content can make all the difference in whether someone clicks on your ad or scrolls right past it. So, get creative and make your message count!
- Optimize landing pages: Your ads are only part of the equation. Make sure your landing pages are designed to convert leads by being informative, visually appealing, and easy to navigate. A great user experience can be the deciding factor in whether a visitor becomes a lead.
- Experiment with targeting: Don’t be afraid to play around with different audience targeting options. Try mixing demographic, interest, and behavioral targeting to reach a diverse range of potential leads. This way, you can learn what works best for your business and refine your campaigns accordingly.
- Use multiple ad types: PMax campaigns cover a wide range of ad types, including search ads, display ads, and Discovery ads. By using a mix of these ad types, you can reach potential leads at various stages of the buyer’s journey and improve your chances of driving conversions.
- Focus on attracting new leads: PMax campaigns are especially good at driving intent-based acquisition through search campaigns. Make sure you’re targeting new potential customers instead of remarketing to existing ones, and keep your sales funnel in mind to prevent any leaks.
Performance Max campaigns can supercharge your lead generation efforts by offering a dynamic and adaptable approach to targeting potential customers. By embracing your unique lead value, crafting captivating content, and continually experimenting with targeting options, you’ll unlock the true power of PMax.
Case Studies on Performance Max Campaigns
There are plenty of case studies illustrating the effectiveness of strong PMax campaigns.
Deezer
Global music streaming service Deezer, wanted to go beyond its app to connect with new web subscribers using a variety of advertising channels. Using PMax, Deezer and its Artefact agency saw a 28% increase in subscriptions via the web with a cost-per-subscription that was 15% lower than its app counterpart.
MoneyMe
MoneyMe is another example of how PMax advertising can help businesses gain new customers while cutting down on cost-per-acquisition (CPA). To generate more high-value leads, they developed Performance Max campaigns using videos and other assets to connect with Australian audiences most likely to convert.
The results of MoneyMe’s efforts were a 22% increase in conversions, more than $800K in revenue from newly funded loans, and a 20% lower CPA.
Joybird
In the retail space, furniture company Joybird also benefitted from using PMax’s Smart Shopping campaigns to connect with consumers and boost online sales. These campaigns yielded a 95% increase in revenue with a 40% higher ROAS.
Hidden Gems of Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max (PMax) campaigns offer a treasure trove of features businesses can use to grow.
But let’s dig a little deeper and uncover some of the lesser-known (yet valuable) aspects of PMax campaigns that can give your marketing efforts that extra edge:
The Insights Page
PMax campaigns have an often-overlooked feature called the Insights Page.
This page helps you understand your campaign’s performance on a granular level. Instead of just looking at surface-level metrics, you can now dive into what’s really driving your results, giving you the insight needed to make more informed decisions.
Listing Group Insights
When it comes to shopping ads, the Listing Group feature in PMax is a game-changer.
This allows you to see how your ads are performing based on listing group performance, compared to your total campaign. With this information, you can pinpoint the areas that need improvement and focus your optimization efforts where they’ll have the most significant impact.
New Customer Targeting Settings
PMax campaigns give you the option to adjust your target return on ad spend (ROAS) goals.
Increasing or decreasing your ROAS targets will let you show your ads more places, increasing your chances of attracting new customers. The secret here is finding the sweet spot where you’re getting the most exposure without sacrificing profitability.
Comprehensive Ad Coverage
Performance Max (PMax) campaigns cover a wide variety of ad types, including search ads, display ads, Discovery ads, and shopping ads. The more platforms you use, the better your chance of converting customers.
Machine Learning Magic
PMax campaigns harness the power of Google’s machine learning to automatically optimize your ads. This means your campaigns will continually improve over time, helping you achieve better results without constant manual adjustments.
Data-Driven Targeting
PMax campaigns allow you to utilize first-party data, such as customer purchase history and email subscriber lists, to create custom audiences. With this targeted approach, you’ll reach the right people at the right time, improving your campaign’s effectiveness.
FAQs About Performance Max Campaigns
1. What is PMax?
So, what is a Performance Max campaign? Performance Max is a kind of Google Ads campaign that makes it easier to target audiences across a range of channels, including Search, Display, YouTube, and other Google Ads using a single campaign. It also harnesses the power of AI and machine learning to reach audiences more effectively based on data and asset inputs.
2. Do Performance Max campaigns compete against each other, and how can you prevent this?
Do PMax compete with their own campaigns and others? In short, yes. If their audiences and products are too much alike, Google will cannibalize them and only select the campaign with the highest ad rank. Keeping your campaigns unique enough will avoid this issue.
3. Is this solution right for me?
If you’re an experienced Google advertiser looking to optimize your campaigns across all platforms, then yes. The new features can help you achieve better visibility and conversion.
Performance Max campaigns may not be the best fit if you are only activating campaigns on a single platform or if you don’t require any automations.
4. Should I stop running my other campaigns?
No, we do not recommend stopping all other campaigns for Performance Max.
This is because your core campaigns are focused and built from keyword research through Search. Performance Max does not necessarily make use of keywords to generate results.
As you get started, it’s a good idea to run Performance Max alongside other campaign types and have a test or comparison. This way, you can adjust your campaigns over time to the type that are most efficient for your business.
5. What features is Google using to run Performance Max?
In their public Help Center, Google states that Performance Max campaigns use Machine Learning tools. These tools optimize bids and ad placements that can bring better results in terms of customer acquisition and conversion.
6. How are PMax campaigns different from traditional Google Ads campaigns?
Performance Max campaigns bring a fresh, all-inclusive approach to advertising across the Google Ads universe.
They mix various ad types like search, display, Discovery, and shopping ads, so you can reach potential customers on tons of different platforms. Plus, PMax campaigns use Google’s machine learning to automatically fine-tune your ads, helping you score better results without constantly tweaking them manually.
7. Can I run Performance Max campaigns alongside my existing Google Ads campaigns?
Yes! In fact, running PMax campaigns together with your existing search campaigns can often boost your overall performance.
By combining PMax’s strengths with your other campaigns, you create a well-rounded marketing strategy that reaches potential customers at different stages of their buying journey.
8. What are some insider tips for creating killer PMax campaigns?
To create successful PMax campaigns, focus on using first-party data for audience targeting, kick off with a daily budget of at least $75-$100 to see results faster, and give the campaign enough time to work its machine learning magic.
Don’t forget to keep an eye on your campaigns and tweak them as needed to improve performance.
9. How long should I run my PMax campaign to see some action?
The perfect duration for a PMax campaign can vary depending on your business and goals.
However, a general rule of thumb is to test a campaign for at least 90 days, unless it’s seriously underperforming. This timeframe lets the machine learning algorithms optimize your campaign and gives you enough data to evaluate its effectiveness.
10. How can I keep tabs on the performance of my PMax campaigns?
Performance Max campaigns offer some cool features that let you dig deeper into your ad performance, like the Inside tab and Listing Group performance.
These tools help you get a better grasp on how your ads are doing and pinpoint areas for improvement. And remember: it’s crucial to monitor your campaigns regularly and make adjustments as needed to get the most out of your PMax campaigns.
Get Started with Performance Max Campaigns
Need some help getting started with Performance Max? Ignite Visibility can work with you to develop a winning campaign. When properly implemented, PMax can enhance your digital marketing efforts to help you achieve long-term results.
In addition to Performance Max campaigns, Ignite Visibility can help you with every aspect of your digital marketing strategy, including PPC management and conversion rate optimization.
We’ll improve your strategies in a number of ways, including:
- Making the most of your available marketing budget
- Optimizing your campaigns to achieve peak performance
- Connecting with the right audiences to maximize conversions
- And much more!
To learn all about what we can do to supercharge your marketing and advertising with a PMax Google campaign and more, contact us today!
