Performance Max is a new campaign type within the Google Ads platform that helps drive performance based on your company’s conversion goals. It also helps you find more converting customers across all of Google’s channels like Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail and Maps. Instead of having multiple ad campaign types, like Search or YouTube, now you can target everything inside of one campaign.
While the idea of targeting everything with just one campaign might sound daunting, here are 6 best practices to help optimise your Performance Max campaigns:
- Choose the right bidding strategy
Performance Max campaigns give you the option to select one of the two bidding strategies that best aligns with your business goals. The options are maximise conversions (used when you want to get as many conversions as possible such as leads or sales) and maximise conversion value (used when you want to generate the most conversion value for the set budget). Choosing the right strategy is important to maximise performance; if you’re an ecommerce business we recommend maximise conversion value, and if you’re generating leads then maximise conversions.
- Optimise your text assets
It is best practice to have at least 5 versions of text assets with at least 4 headlines and 5 descriptions, so that Google can combine them. While each description has a maximum of 90 characters, it’s best to have a couple of shorter ones so they can fit on any site the ad might appear on. Provide Google with as many options as you can to improve your ad strength.
- Provide strong visual assets, including a video
Google’s recommendation is to have up to 15 images, up to 5 logos and up to 5 videos. Something to note here is that if you don’t upload a video, Google will auto-generate one from the creatives you provided in the asset group. Best practice is to upload one yourself for best quality. Be sure to keep your content fresh and regularly upload highly relevant visual assets. You are aiming here for ‘Excellent’ for the ad strength.
- Utilise relevant audience signals
This allows you to add your target audience, either using your own data, like the Audiences created in Google Analytics, or adding Custom Audiences/Segments. Google will treat these as suggestions so it knows after which audiences to go after and so these will help your campaign to start performing at a higher rate and faster.
- Consider final URL Expansion
One thing you need to be aware of is final URL expansion as this is automatically selected when you set up the Performance Max campaign. If you leave this selected, your final URL could be replaced with a more relevant landing page from your website. While this can increase your campaign’s ability to serve, if this is not relevant for your campaign or you wish to send the traffic only to a particular landing page, then best to turn off the final URL expansion.
- Review performance
Once you set live your Performance Max campaign, keep it running for at least 6 weeks to allow the machine learning algorithm to gather enough data to learn your strategies and to optimise your campaign. Keep an eye on it but wait until you have enough data before making optimisation changes.
Want to find out more?
If you are looking for additional support or more information about Performance Max campaigns, Google Ads or PPC services, then get in touch with our team at hello@upperdog.co.uk or call us on 01202 798 820 to learn how our marketers can help your business generate successful paid campaigns.