Each year Google makes considerable leaps in automation within Google Ads. Through automated ads, they continue to optimize campaigns to reach consumers with a higher intent resulting in more clicks, conversions, calls, and improved CPA. Google also offers Smart campaigns, a subset of automated campaigns, that will adjust bids automatically at auction, optimizing for your Campaign goal. Recently, Google launched a brand new automated campaign strategy called Performance Max.

Performance Max can be thought of as a Smart Campaign on Steroids. Performance Max uses Google automation technologies not just for bidding, but budget optimization, audiences, creatives, attribution, and more. All of these technologies work together to expand your reach and help advertisers more effectively reach their goals. Let’s take a deeper dive into Performance Max.

Advertisers can run ads on all Google Ads inventories at once. This means that from a single campaign your ads will appear on YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. Performance Max is a relatively hands off campaign strategy taking the heavy lifting of market research, asset optimization, even choosing the right advertising channel, off of your plate. With machine learning, the system can predict trends, find higher converting audiences, and optimize placement. 

Benefits of Performance Max

So what is the value of Performance Max? Well the answer is quite a lot: lets first address what’s tangible. Case studies performed by Google in tandem with early adopters of Performance Max came back with very promising results. 

Microspot, a Swiss consumer electronics company saw a 40% increase in revenue, 16% increase in ROAS, and a 11% improvement in conversion rate in just 6 weeks. Similarly Joybird, a modern furniture design company, saw a 52% increase in clicks, 40% increase in ROAS, and an incredible 95% increase in revenue. 

These figures certainly speak for themselves, however, though impressive, two case studies are not enough proof that something works. What I find to be a more convincing argument for Performance Max is the logic behind it’s development.

Now more than ever consumers are getting their goods online, for digital marketers like me this is a good thing. In fact since the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic 70% more consumers are shopping online when compared to pre pandemic. That being said, studies suggest that for some purchases consumers may require 500+ digital touchpoints before they make a single purchase. 

That being said, due to the nature of how consumers behave online, they are using dozens of apps and websites throughout their day, and oftentimes they are not even in the purchasing mindset. This means for your ads to be successful and reach all of those necessary touchpoints you need to be in search, display, native, youtube, really all over Google, in order to get conversions. Performance Max works to consolidate all of these campaigns into one smart campaign that makes adjustments in a changing environment allowing your digital ads to run more efficiently. 

Google Audiences and Placement

Another benefit of Performance Max is the automation of audiences and placement. In an enormous oversimplification of marketing, you want to be in the right place at the right time, and get in front of the right people. As performance max runs and gathers data, it is also learning. Learning what types of people will buy what and where, using that information to show different ads in different places all across Google. 

The reality of the situation is yes, to an extent you need to get your ad in front of the right people at the right place and time, however there are thousands of other factors. These factors are more often than not unpredictable, and to make up for that advertisers have to constantly test, tweek, and change campaigns in order to be successful. These challenges are significantly reduced with automation. In other words, a system that can predict trends, automate placement and ad creatives is marketers best friend. Of course let’s not forget that like traditional smart campaigns, your bidding strategy will be automatically optimized as well.

No matter how diligently I research trends, how much I optimize, or even how well I know my audience, I can not tell you what the biggest search trend will be next week, or that person A has a 30% higher chance of purchasing than Person B, nor do I pretend to. Machine Learning such as Performance Max however, has this capability. The more these technologies are utilized, the better they will become at predicting favorable outcomes. 

It’s Time to Test Performance Max for Your Business 

In its current state we are seeing very impressive results from Google’s newest automated strategy, and what that tells me is that it’s just going to get better. Even if you don’t believe Performance Max and automated advertisement is right for you, my recommendation is to test it, let the results speak for themselves. Keep up with all of the Google Updates here at peppergang.com.