8+1 Tips To Boost Your Business Growth With A Google Performance Max Ad Campaign
Google Ads Performance Max is a tool that allows businesses to create and manage their Google Ads campaigns. It’s a great way to complement your digital strategy, but it can be tricky to use if you’re not familiar with the philosophy of performance marketing.
But to find a way to better approach Performance Max campaigns, you should first get an idea of what they are and how they work.
What’s a Performance Max campaign?
Performance Max campaigns are a new addition to the Google Ads platform. Essentially, Performance Max is designed to help you maximize campaign performance with the use of artificial intelligence. You input your creative assets, ad copy and final URL and Google generates the best combinations using automation and machine learning.
What does this mean for you?
Basically, you can have the versatility of display campaigns, the lead quality of smart shopping campaigns and more, all in a single campaign. When you use Performance Max you essentially allow Google to A/B test for you and apply its insights to maximize conversions.
What’s the basic process of setting up Performance Max campaigns?
Before creating an asset group, you first have to go through the usual steps of setting up a Google Ads campaign. Pay attention when selecting your conversion goals, daily budget, bidding strategy, and location. Performance Max campaigns may be new, but that doesn’t mean their fundamental setup is all that different.
After you’re done setting up, take some time to check the previews Google Ads provides. This way you can get a sense of the way your ads will appear in Google’s advertising channels. If you’ve fleshed out your asset groups, your ads should look good on any format, from dynamic search ads to smart shopping.
What are some tips that can help with my Google Ads Performance Max campaigns?
By creating this new and more automated campaign type, Google strives to make performance marketing accessible to just about anyone with a Google Ads account. So, let’s have a look at 10 tips that can help you with your Google Ads Performance Max campaigns.
1. Know Your (Conversion) Goals
Before you even begin creating your campaign, you need to know what your goal is. What do you want to achieve with your Google Ads campaign? Increasing online sales? Driving traffic to your website? Lead generation? New customer acquisition?
Once you know your goal, you can create a campaign that is focused on achieving it. Translate your target into specific, trackable conversion actions like purchases, sign-ups, downloads etc. This will allow you to track your campaign’s progress and optimize conversion value down the line.
2. Do Your Research
Research is essential for any successful Google Ads campaign. You need to research your target audience, your competition, and the keywords that you want to target. Only by doing your research will you be able to create a successful campaign.
Depending on your marketing objectives, have a look at what competitors are doing. If you’re in a highly competitive market you should always keep the landscape in mind when researching. Consider what targeting can lead to higher customer acquisition, what audience signals are the most indicative of performance etc.
3. Set a Budget
One of the most important aspects of any Google Ads campaign is setting a budget. You need to determine how much you are willing to spend on your campaign and stick to that budget. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different budgets to see what works best for your business.
Keep in mind that you’ll have to specify a daily budget which, however, acts as an average number. What this means is that Google will spend more or less this amount every day with a guarantee of never spending:
- More than twice your daily budget on any given day
- More than 30.4 times your average daily budget on any given month
4. Write Compelling Ad Copy
The ad copy is one of the most important elements of your Performance Max campaign. Every asset group you create will have to include some copy so make sure it’s something attention-grabbing and relevant to your target audience.
Also don’t skimp on your calls-to-action, they’re an important part of your ad copy! People are more likely to convert if they know what they need to do once they click on your ad.
5. Structure Your Audience Signals Carefully
Let’s get one thing out of the way: audience signals are NOT audience targets, but audience suggestions. You can use them to inform Google who you think the ads would be best suited for, and Google uses that as a starting point to optimize your Performance Max campaigns based on your goals.
That said, you might want to ignore Google’s advice and not put all your audiences together under one asset group. Instead, you should build an asset group for every audience signal.
Tying an audience signal with an asset group teaches you which audiences are converting so you can keep targeting them. That way, you can have more control over your campaigns.
6. Create Relevant Landing Pages
Once people click on any URL expansion of your ad, they will be taken to a landing page. This is where they will decide whether or not they want to learn more about your business or product. Understandably, this is a major make-or-break moment in your customer’s journey.
Creating relevant and compelling landing pages is a key move for acquiring new customers. And as you might guess, it’s also a very trial and error kind of process. Finding the right landing page layout that delivers optimal performance may take time, but it’s well worth it.
7. Monitor Your Campaign Closely
Once you have launched your Google Ads campaign, it’s important to monitor it closely so that you can see what delivers the best performance and what doesn’t. You should also keep an eye on your competition so that you can adjust your campaign accordingly.
Google’s real time understanding of your performance may not be 100% updated, but it’s an excellent gauge of your progress. Additionally, performance reporting in Google Ads and Analytics largely relies on how thorough your business’ data feeds are so make sure those trackers are on point!
8. Test, Test, Test!
One of the best ways to improve your Performance Max campaigns is through testing. Try different versions of your ad extensions, create multiple asset groups, tweak your ad scheduling and landing pages so that you can see what works best for your business.
Performance Max reports and Google Analytics are an invaluable tool for understanding your ad groups’ performance. In this complex environment, it’s very difficult to get everything right from the get-go so never forget to A/B test, everyone does!
BONUS TIP: Get Help from an Expert
If you’re struggling with your Performance Max campaigns, consider getting help from an expert. An experienced Google Ads agency can help you create and manage a successful campaign so that you can focus on running your business.
In truth, Performance Max helps you in many stages of campaign set-up, but the most important steps in making the most of your budget will still take time and effort to master.
If you’re having trouble wrapping your head around what a smart bidding strategy is, how to set up trackers and proper audience signals, or how to tie in Google Merchant Center data we have good news: you don’t have to!
An expert digital marketing agency can take all the necessary steps to make sure that Performance Max works its wonders with the least amount of effort necessary from your end.
These are just some of the things that you need to keep in mind when creating a Performance Max campaign. By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to success!
Performance Max is an evolution of Google Ads
If you’re familiar with branded search or smart shopping campaigns, you know that responsive ads is something Google has been pushing for and refining for a while now. This meticulous evolution is how we got to Performance Max today.
In general, search results pages are getting more and more advance with each algorithm update and so AI-backed solutions like Performance Max campaigns are a logical next step in digital advertising.
So, our advice would be…
Turn and face the strange!
Creating a successful Google Ads campaign can be challenging, but it’s definitely worth the effort. By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way towards achieving success with Google Ads Performance Max!
If you’re looking for help with your digital marketing, contact us today! We would be happy to help you create and manage a successful online digital marketing campaign!
