Performance Max generates overwhelmingly negative feedback from most advertisers. We enjoy listing the ways it could be improved over a beer after we step away from our desk as much as the next person, but PMax is here to stay and most of our energy is poured into extracting the most value we can out of this imperfect campaign type. Here are a few different strategies you can test to improve performance. We assume you are already playing with product catalog segmentation and many of the other best practices that carried over directly from Standard and Smart Shopping.
Segment Brand/Non-Brand
This is a must. If you do not have a brand exclusion in place at the campaign level it’s safe to say almost all the conversions you see from the campaign are from your brand terms. You can check this under “Insights > Search terms insights” at the campaign level. If you happen to be one of the lucky few who sees a majority of conversions coming from non-brand terms without a brand exclusion in place, please let us know!
Negative keywords are limited at best in their ability to affect PMax campaigns no matter what your Google Rep says. The only way to create a clean division is to add the brand exclusion in campaign settings for your non-brand PMax campaign. With a structure something like this:
Brand PMax
Brand Exclusion: None
Set budget low enough that ROAS/CPA is in line with core brand search terms. Some spend will flow towards other terms/placements, but at this level you can be sure you aren’t overpaying for your brand terms.
Non-Brand PMax
Brand Exclusion: Yes!
With Brand Exclusion in place you can assume that this campaign is functioning like a true prospecting campaign and you can treat it accordingly. Push your budget here to find your sweet spot with the correct balance of volume and efficiency.
Blank Asset Groups
Many advertisers want to do everything they can to limit the % of impressions that are served on non-shopping placements. The best way to accomplish this is to run Asset Groups with no images, videos or copy assets provided. This forces PMax to only run feed-based assets, which will serve primarily in shopping environments. There will be some display placements (think product grid) that still sneak through, but it’s minimal.
Search Themes
This falls under the category of incremental change compared to the previous two tactics which have a larger affect on campaign behavior. Experimenting with different search themes at the Asset Group level can lead to improved performance. Try some of your basic Non-Brand Search approaches:
· Test search themes that align with a tight product group to help ensure relevant placement
· Experiment with conquesting different competitive sets
· Use brand terms (even if you have brand exclusion in place)
Negative Placements
Yes, we know it sucks that there aren’t better brand safety controls for PMax. The best we’ve got is account level exclusions which will cascade down to help limit some of the most objectionable placements you may see in your placement report.
· Take a look at your existing report template “Performance Max campaigns placement” to see where you are serving impressions
Attribution Window
This is a bit of a hail mary. A few advertisers we work with were so frustrated with the attribution coming out of PMax that we set up separate conversion events mirroring existing events, but with tighter attribution windows to ensure PMax optimizes against recent click-based conversions. A good way to see if you are a candidate here is to check your View Through Conversions:Conversions ratio to ensure nothing looks unusual compared to your account averages.
New Customer Bidding
This is part or a larger conversation about how you view your Google Ads platform reporting, but increasing your value for new customers helps further decrease PMax’s tendency to chase the lowest hanging fruit whether that be a brand search term or remarketing-like display placement.
Product Performance
Be laser focused on your product performance. More than ever it’s critical to ensure your spend is flowing against your top performing and priority products. There are obvious benefits to spending your budget against your top performers, but in this case there are also inventory benefits by feeding shopping placements the absolute best to ensure PMax prioritizes these formats
Putting A Bow On It
Are any of these tactics a silver bullet that will change your thinking about PMax? Absolutely not. These tactics will allow you to make incremental improvements to performance and more importantly you will begin to once again extract meaningful insights about which strategies, keyword themes or products are driving performance to create that all powerful feedback loop.
If you have any other strategies that have worked for you we’d love to hear about them!
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