Google Performance Max: Should You Switch?

Google Performance Max is a new Google Ads campaign type that uses machine learning to determine the best options for your campaign across all Google inventory and to determine bids on the auctions with the highest probability of meeting your business goals in real-time. Since its release, there has been a lot of speculation about whether or not businesses should switch to Performance Max. In this blog post, we will explore what Performance Max is, how it compares to other campaign types, and our thoughts on whether or not you should switch to Performance Max.

What is Google Performance Max?

Google Performance Max is a campaign type that uses machine learning to determine the best bids for your campaigns across all Google inventory. It respects your keyword targeting and allows you to target offline goals using the same budget and inventory as your previous Local campaigns. Performance Max can be especially helpful to advertisers with a Google Merchant Center feed as they will not need to provide creative assets themselves. Some of the marketing features that are unique to Google Performance Max include machine learning, enhanced machine learning when audience signals are added, respect for keyword targeting, and no need to provide creative assets. Additionally, Performance Max can generate ads on your behalf, signalize conversion actions, and allow you to constrain the demographic in audiences.

How is Performance Max Different from Other Campaigns?

Google Performance Max is different from other Google Ads campaign types because it uses machine learning to determine the best options for your campaign across all Google inventory and to determine bids on the auctions with the highest probability of meeting your business goals in real-time. Unlike other campaign types, Performance Max allows you to optimize for return on ad spend (ROAS) and use the same campaign for all ad types, including app ads, video ads, Gmail ads, search ads, and display ads. With Performance Max, you can create audiences, business goals, and ad types in your campaign, and it will show your ads to people who are more likely to convert. You can also add negative keywords and placements to exclude specific traffic sources you don’t want to target in your campaigns.

Who is Performance Max Best Suited For?

Google Performance Max is best suited for businesses that only advertise shopping products. With machine learning, Performance Max can change the shopping experience and create targeted ads better. It also allows for keyword exclusion, which enables you to better control your campaign by excluding terms that are not as effective at targeting shoppers. Performance Max is also beneficial because it allows you to see what your competitors are doing and learn from what’s working for them to implement those strategies in your campaign. Additionally, Performance Max can improve your online presence with SEO and other marketing strategies that can be included in your campaign.

Should You Switch to Performance Max?

Whether or not you should switch to Performance Max depends on your business goals and current campaign performance. Performance Max is a powerful tool that can improve your campaigns’ performance, but it does require providing additional inputs like audience signals and conversion values to use all its features fully. This can be time-consuming and may require additional resources from your team. Account-level brand safety settings must also be enabled to use the campaign type, which can be restrictive for some advertisers with strict brand safety requirements.

In conclusion, Google Performance Max is a powerful campaign type that can improve your campaigns’ performance, especially for shopping products. It is different from other campaign types because of its machine learning capabilities and ability to optimize for ROAS. Whether or not you should switch to Performance Max depends on your business goals and current campaign performance. We recommend weighing the benefits and drawbacks before making a decision.