Google Performance MAX: What’s Coming

Many of you may have seen the news regarding the rollout of Google’s Performance MAX (or PMAX, for short). This ad format was widely released in November 2021, on the heels of formats like Discover and Local.

Performance MAX is a new way to buy Google ads across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps inventory from within a single campaign – we’ve seen examples of a similar approach in search, which offers Search Partners Network and Display Network Expansion for advertisers that want to use other formats (and by doing so, often waste their budget!).

PMAX seems to be pretty much in keeping with Google’s shift towards more reliance on automation in the ad suite, which unfortunately encompasses everything from bid strategies, to account changes & recommendations. Here’s what Google had to say about this back in November 2021:

Thankfully, advertisers don’t have to predict the future to be ready for it. If change is the challenge, automation is the solution businesses and agencies are using to stay ahead of ongoing shifts in consumer demand. Last year, we introduced Performance Max campaigns as a new way to buy Google ads across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps from a single campaign. They complement your keyword-based Search campaigns to help you grow performance across Google’s full range of advertising channels and inventory. – Official Google Ads & Commerce Blog

If you’re happy with your Smart Shopping Campaigns – get ready to kiss them goodbye. Performance MAX will be replacing them. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to run PMAX in tandem with Shopping to see which one works better, which is probably by design, since the inventory overlaps. Google will actually be auto-upgrading many accounts through September 2022.

While this might be a short-term inconvenience for many advertisers, the news isn’t all bad. Performance Max does introduce some really interesting features, including:

• URL Expansion: Through machine learning, the default URL expansion feature chooses a landing page, based on customer intent, to drive the best performance for your goal (PMAX significant emphasis on selecting goals from the outset).

• Asset Groups: Performance Max moves from ad formats to Asset Groups, which include a set of ad content that are all related to a single theme or audience. Multiple asset groups can be created per campaign.

• Audience Signals: Campaign audience signals to alert Google that a segment of users are more likely to convert. (Google already takes a similar approach for Display and other formats, but PMAX seems to take this to another level of automation)

• Reporting and Insights: New reports explain what the machine learning is accomplishing, signals that are in use, and a breakdown of performance so you can adjust your strategy.

When to Choose Performance Max

That all sounds great – but where does Performance Max fit into your campaign mix? Here’s what Google says about when Performance MAX is the right choice:

Performance Max is the best option to use when:

+ You have specific advertising and conversion goals (for example, driving online sales, lead generation, and others).

+ You want to maximize the performance of your campaign, and you aren't limited by which channel your ads appear on.

+ You want to easily access all of Google’s advertising channels using a single campaign.

+ You want to get additional reach and conversion value beyond keyword-based Search campaigns.

If you read between the lines here, you can probably discern that Performance Max’s success lies in how much budget you can allocate to it. With so many formats in a single campaign, it’s hard to know how efficient that’s going to be. At the end of the day, the fewer constraints you place on budget, the more valuable and timely the impressions & clicks the system will be able to deliver across all of this inventory.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, for advertisers with more sensitive budgets, this is might mean their campaigns won’t as scalable and effective as before. With PMAX, you’re no longer simply buying Shopping inventory anymore – you also have to pay for Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, etc. – in a single campaign. So that budget will not go as far as it did before. I’m not sure if the performance of a multi-format campaign is going to make up for that shortfall.

At the end of the day, Google will do what’s best for Google. While larger advertisers might be able to absorb this update, it’s too early to say if this is bad news for smaller brands. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how this develops.