Google is introducing some new ways to optimize and demonstrate the incremental value of your Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. These features include improving search inventory performance, increasing return on investment with more impactful video creatives, measuring conversion lift, and providing more comprehensive reports. These updates help advertisers steer their Performance Max campaigns in the right direction and improve their marketing goals.
Four new Performance Max campaign features
1. Campaign-level brand exclusions
The first upcoming update is one we’re really excited about and can’t come soon enough: campaign-level brand exclusions. Campaign-level brand exclusions provide additional control over Performance Max campaigns and mean businesses can prevent their ads from appearing in search engine results pages (SERPs) for branded searches for Search and Shopping results. That was a big problem with PMax campaigns – that they cannibalize the existing search campaigns. The brand exclusions also help block traffic due to misspellings and searches in different languages. Companies can also exclude their own and competitor’s brand terms. If brands are missing from the list, you can request additions through Google Ads.
2. New video creation tool
Google introduces a video creation tool that will help you create high-quality videos through a variety of templates for creating PMax campaigns. Although this option was available in the Asset Library, this feature will be built right into the Performance Max campaign setup to make the process as seamless as possible. While videos you create yourself are the best option, videos you create using the video creation tool are better than Google automatically creating videos from your PMax assets, which is what happens when you don’t include any videos at all.
3. Ability to run A/B tests
Another great feature being rolled out by Google is the ability to experiment with Performance Max campaigns. We are now allowed to run A/B tests to compare the performance of PMax campaigns against other campaigns in your account. The two types of experiments you can run are the Performance Max uplift experiment and the Performance Max vs. Standard Shopping campaign.
- The Performance Max Uplift Experiment shows how adding a PMax campaign to your current effort results in higher conversions or conversion values.
- The Performance Max vs. Standard Shopping campaign allows you to compare an existing Standard Shopping campaign with a Performance Max campaign targeting the same products.
These tests assess the potential impact of your results and determine whether you should replace your standard shopping campaign.
4. New PMax campaign reports and insights
The last feature allows you to take advantage of opportunities to improve your asset groups and budget allocation. Building on all these new ways to improve your PMax campaigns, Google is releasing new reports and insights to help advertisers view their results. Advertisers can see conversions, conversion value, costs and more at the asset group level, which is what we’ve wanted since PMax campaigns came out (no more creating separate PMax campaigns just so you can see how separate segments are doing!) . This allows advertisers to focus on groups of assets that aren’t performing well and test new ones to see how they affect performance.
Google Ads will also introduce budget pacing insights to help advertisers optimize their budget and performance to help advertisers decide when to increase campaign budgets or shift spend elsewhere. In addition, customized recommendations will be available to help companies maximize their budget utilization.
Google’s Performance Max campaigns still have a long way to go, but by combining Google’s AI and our advertising expertise, we can help drive this process forward. The launch of these new PMax campaign features will help advertisers take steps in the right direction to achieve their marketing goals as efficiently as possible. Keep an eye out for the new Google Performance Max campaign changes coming soon, and be prepared to respond immediately.
