With artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning having a heavy impact on many industries, it’s probably no surprise that they’ve affected Google and pay-per-click advertising. Over the last few years, Performance Max campaigns have emerged as a unique and automated Google Ads campaign type, drawing a mix of criticism and praise. The most relevant questions to come out of this are: Are Performance Max campaigns good? Will they get you the results you want while providing value for money?
Chances are, you’ve heard this statistic: Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has an average 200% return on investment, effectively doubling every dollar spent. This makes it one of the most profitable search engine marketing strategies to choose from and the quickest way to reach the top of Google’s search results. Google Performance Max campaigns are goal-oriented tools designed to optimise your Google Ads campaign and take your results to new heights. But how well do they deliver on that promise?
In this article, Anchor explores the question, ‘Are Performance Max campaigns as good as they’re made out to be?’ We’ll take a close look at how Performance Max works and explain how to optimise Performance Max campaigns, as well as why you may want to run a manual campaign instead.
Performance Max Campaigns: What Are They & How Do They Work?
Google’s Performance Max campaigns use machine learning to optimise ad performance across all of Google’s platforms, channels, and inventory, including Search, YouTube, Gmail, Shopping, Discover, Display, and Maps.
How does Performance Max work? The promise of Google’s Performance Max campaigns is that it can automatically find and target the most relevant audiences across the entire Google suite. With the entire Google ecosystem to play with, it can place ads directly in front of the right demographics, no matter which platform they’re using. You simply set a particular goal for your campaign—more leads, more sales, more web traffic—and Performance Max will use Google’s machine learning algorithms to target the right audiences, automatically adjusting bids and placements as it goes.
Creating Performance Max campaigns is simple. You just go to your Google Ads account, click to create a new campaign, choose your campaign goal and then select ‘Performance Max’ from your campaign type.
Since its launch in 2021, Google has released several updates to Performance Max’s targeting controls and creative asset options.
Using Google Performance Max Campaigns
The success of your Google Performance Max campaign depends heavily on, among other factors, the nature of your business. If your brand sells products business to business (B2B), you’ll have a different audience, set of goals and wealth of strategies to consider than if you’re a business-to-customer (B2C) company. So, are Performance Max campaigns good for both types of brands?
B2B Marketing
Performance Max wasn’t designed for B2B, which tends to require more niche targeting than the direct-to-consumer approach. Still, the strategy can be useful for B2B as long as you follow some strategies. Resist the urge to pour your entire budget into the campaign and increase it incrementally instead. Use audience signals to help push traffic in the right direction, and don’t shut your campaign down over the weekend. You might not need it on Saturday or Sunday, but once you turn it off, it can still take a day or two to get up and running again.
B2C Marketing
B2C brands are usually focused on driving fast and noticeable results, and need to target a wider audience than B2B. For this reason, Google Performance Max campaigns can be effective for B2C brands as long as the brand focuses on the right goals and provides appealing creative assets.
Why Manual Campaigns May Be Better
While Google’s Performance Max campaigns have their place and their benefits, there are reasons why running a manual campaign might be a better option for your business.
B2B
As long as you approach your campaign skilfully, manual campaigns still beat Performance Max for control, tracking, customisation, and, ultimately, results. Manual campaigns give B2B businesses more control over keyword/demographic/location targeting, budget allocation, ad customisation, and performance tracking—all things that help put your advertising budget to the best possible use.
B2C
Manual campaigns can also be better for B2C brands for similar reasons: greater targeting precision, more creative control, better budget allocation, enhanced performance tracking and more precise keyword tracking.
So, should you use Google’s Performance Max campaigns or not? And how do you optimise Performance Max so that you get the best possible results from it? Whether you choose to run a manual Google Ads campaign or a Google Performance Max campaign, it’s always best to be prepared.
Things to Be Aware of Running Google Campaigns
Chances are you’re already using Google Ads. Just about everyone uses Google Ads, including your competitors, with 80% of companies globally relying on Google for their PPC campaigns. Yet there are always things to consider, things to plan for and things to do before running your Google Ads campaign, including:
Know your target audience
The first step to reaching the right target audience is to know and research the demographic you’re trying to connect with, including their behaviour, pain points, and interests.
Decide on your goals
What’s your objective? Is it to score more conversions, increase your sales, expand your engagements or boost your in-person visits? It’s vital to define your goals before you can design the perfect ad to achieve them.
Choose the right keywords
Selecting the right keywords is an essential step in building your Google Ads campaign, and long-tail keywords are often the most effective choice. Use Google’s Keyword Planner or another keyword research tool and, for best results, look for high search volume/low competition keywords.
Create good ad copy
Well-written ad copy with powerful, emotional words will encourage web users to click through to your landing page. Your landing page should also be well-written.
Set a budget
Google Ads’ pay-per-click model means you only have to pay when a web user clicks your ad. But it’s still important to set a budget you can stick to while getting the most out of your advertising dollars.
Get Expert Advice on Google Ad Campaigns at Anchor
Anchor can help you find the ideal approach for your Google Ads campaign, whether a Google Performance Max or a manual campaign. As a full-service creative agency, Anchor researches the intent and behaviour of your customers, plans for cost-effective bidding and monitors your Google Ads campaign from start to finish. We track what works to take you to the top of the search results and boost your conversions, and we present these results to you in plain English.
Anchor offers more than a marketing strategy (although we certainly have a suite of marketing services); we offer a creative strategy. We go beyond Google Ads to consider the approaches best suited to your brand: workshop facilitation, brand positioning, brand strategy, market research, marketing strategy and anything else that brings you clarity and helps you communicate your brand identity.
If you’d like to become even better at what you do, drop the Anchor team a line.
