Google Ads Overview
Google Ads is a versatile platform that can help businesses advertise their company in a number of ways. The two most common uses of Google ads are search and display campaigns. Aside from these, some of the other campaign types are video, shopping, app, and local campaigns. Most recently, in 2021, Google added a new campaign type, called Performance Max campaigns.
What Are Performance Max Ad Campaigns?
Performance Max is a new type of campaign that is heavily goal-oriented and is meant to deliver more conversions based on the conversion goals set by the advertiser. This new campaign type allows advertisers to build upon a regular ad in a campaign so that the ads can be shown across more than just one of Google’s channels.
Performance Max allows advertisers to set up a single ad that can be seen on channels like Youtube, search, display, Gmail, Maps, and discover. Before Performance Max was introduced, advertisers would have to set up different campaigns for each of these channels, but this new campaign type has simplified it for advertisers across the world.
What Is Needed For Performance Max?
When it comes to Performance Max campaigns, different components are needed for the different placements of the ads. All of the placements have some similar required components, which is 3 headlines and 2 descriptions.
These are the only two necessary components to run search ads in a Performance Max campaign. On the other hand, the remaining ad placements each have some differing assets required. For YouTube ads, you must provide 2 images and 1 video. Gmail ads require 2 images along with the headlines and descriptions.
Display ads require you to provide 2 images, 1 video, and 1 long headline. Lastly, to show discover ads, you have to provide 2 images along with the headlines and descriptions. Although all of the placements are offered, not all of them are required. This means that if you only want to have search ads and video ads, you can provide what is required for those 2 placements, and not provide any additional components.
The Pros and Cons of Performance Max
There are some positive and some negative aspects of running Performance Max campaigns for your ads. The biggest positive of these campaigns is the convenience they offer to advertisers. As mentioned earlier, these campaigns allow advertisers to go through the setup process one time to run ads in all of these placements, compared to having to set up different campaigns for each of them. Another positive of these new campaigns that is mentioned is that Google’s machine learning will optimize these campaigns more effectively.
This is because Performance Max campaigns allow Google to find potential customers and serve them the most appropriate ad type, with the most efficient bid, to maximize campaign performance. On the other hand, there are some cons of Performance Max campaigns. One of these cons is the budgeting of the campaigns. Due to Google’s automation, you cannot go into the Performance Max campaign, and adjust the budget for the specific placements. So if you want to spend more budget on a specific placement, like search, you are unable to adjust it.
Another negative of these new campaigns is that Google is automatically changing some shopping ads to this new campaign type. In September 2022, advertisers using Google’s Smart Shopping campaigns may have noticed that their campaigns were automatically transformed into Performance Max campaigns. When they became Performance Max campaigns, all previous Smart Shopping campaigns were deleted.
Key Takeaways
Google’s new Performance Max campaigns allow advertisers to show their ads on a number of different placements while only going through the campaign setup process once. Each of the placements has different assets required to serve the ads, and you can pick which of these placements you would like to use in your campaign.
These campaigns are great for advertisers because it simplifies the setup process and is more efficient than other campaign types. On the other hand, Performance Max campaigns make budgeting more complex and were forced onto advertisers that were running Smart Shopping campaigns previously.
Performance Max campaigns can be effective for certain advertisers, and are worth looking into if you run ads with different placements on Google Ads.
