This is what you can imagine: In two months, a small business owner who relied on Google Ads for sales to his Shopify shop has seen his entire livelihood destroyed by . His Optimization Score of 100% is still at 100%, and sales are virtually zero. The cost per conversion has increased 20x ($6-$120).
This is a very unfortunate and real situation, which contradicts Google’s claim that automation makes online marketing easier.
It is a clear example of how urgently the PPC advertising industry needs to be educated on automation in ad platforms, particularly when it comes down to Performance Max.
The business owner followed all Google recommendations, almost destroying his online company. It’s highly unlikely that he will recover without professional help from Google Ads.
Google’s automated search was meant to stop this future, but we are still learning the basics of an essentially black-box campaign type.
Let’s get it fixed. These are the seven common mistakes that Performance Max campaign users make.
1. Mistake: Audience signals and audiences are treated the same.
Audience signals aren’t as effective in targeting specific audiences with Performance Max. Instead, signals are provided to tell Google which people to show your ads. Google then uses this data to grow your audience.
Account managers often underestimate the value of audience signals. I’ve even seen them completely ignore it. Automation is not going to work if you don’t provide strong inputs.
My top tip is to ensure that every Performance Max campaign starts with strong audience signals. They can be:
- Everybody who visited your site converted.
- Email subscriber lists.
- Customer data from the past
- Customers who are repeat or highly-spending.
- Anybody you’re able to recommend is a valuable asset for your company.
Google analyzes the data from these audiences when you import them at the beginning of your campaign. Instead of spending money guessing, your campaign can start with relevant and strong audience input.
2. Neglecting to feed your data
Retail Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaign rely on data feeds to target keywords. An incomplete feed can mean you miss out on possible opportunities.
Many brands that advertise on Google fail to pay sufficient attention to their data feed. This is also true for Standard Shopping campaigns. While it’s tempting for brands to jump into Google Ads right away, you should take the time to go back to Merchant Center to optimize your data feed to achieve the best possible results.
My agency also checks to make sure:
- All products can be categorized correctly.
- UPC codes can be included when applicable.
- Descriptions and titles are well-written.
- Descriptions and titles include keywords that are related to the product.
Google needs high-quality inputs. Keep track of what you are sharing to ensure accuracy and currentity.
3. Mistake: Selecting an incorrect campaign structure
Performance Max has seen campaigns that used multiple asset groups to target different audiences, yet had the exact same creative and products. This is contrary to the essence of Performance Max.
Instead we create asset groups around specific product or service categories. Splitting them in this manner is not beneficial, as our targeting relies on audience signals and not lists. Performance Max doesn’t provide any reporting on the asset level, so it is unclear what this means.
You can view data from Google Analytics and offline conversions if you send different traffic sources to the same page using UTM parameters. However, different audience signals may still be used to target the same group. Performance Max doesn’t allow you to target one audience.
Although it may sound counterintuitive to those who are new to these types of campaigns, my experience shows that asset groups based on audience signals confuse the system.
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Performance Max’s placement of your ads is something that many of my colleagues are unhappy with. But there’s a way around it.
Two things are required to set up Performance Max as Smart Shopping.
- All creative assets should be removed from this asset group.
- Stop URL expansion at campaign level
These two actions will result in the campaign spending the core budget on shopping with little to no spillover for placements such as Search, YouTube and Display.
However, Google will not show your ads in Search and Shopping if the data feed is removed entirely. Google’s focus on YouTube, Gmail and Discovery are more important than Search and Shopping.
Other than that, and some account-level exclusions you won’t be able to influence campaign placement.
We recommend that you run Performance Max and Shopping campaigns together when working with clients who have larger catalogues.
This means that you can manage one Product Segment in Shopping, whether it is by sub-brand or category.
We can move products not selling to Performance Max if a client has an active shopping business. Sometimes we may do the reverse and transfer the best-performing products. We are simply testing the best products to determine which path leads to maximum profitability.
We recommend that you look for products which are and not getting, if Performance Max is your first product.
- Impressions
- Click here
- Sales
You can exclude them from Performance Max, and place them in Standard Shopping campaigns that offer greater control.
Manual bidding is a good idea.
5. Mistake: You say ‘yes’ all Google Ads suggestions
This is something I cannot stress enough: You should regarding how to optimize accounts and campaigns.
Google recommends that you automate more and use an average number of many millions accounts. Only you can make a business’s nuances a judgment.
The system created several non-Shopping assets during the transition from Smart Shopping and Performance Max. These included one to two images with your logo, as well as a few generic headlines. It then began spending less of the budget.
Smart Shopping might have divided your budget between Shopping and Retargeting at 90/10, however an “auto-upgraded Performance Max” campaign would allocate more budget to prospecting ads that use auto-generated assets which don’t translate well.
We were able to make sure that these assets were removed and then go back to the core assets, so campaigns could target only your data feed and create ads. While it might spend more prospecting than Smart Shopping but the expense would be much lower if there was a greater focus on Shopping.
Sixth mistake: You are not optimizing your assets in order to shape traffic
Performance Max campaigns are analyzed by me first looking at the total campaign spending and performance, versus listing groups and data feed spend, as well as performance.
This gives me an overview of the total amount spent on creative assets and ads that were created using your feed. This is not always going to include 100% shopping. It could also include Display ads that you create using your feed.
If I can see how data feed ads perform compared to creative assets, it helps me decide which direction I should push my campaign.
- Does the campaign work better with the data feed? Let’s move towards a Smart Shopping campaign.
- Are you getting more creative assets out of it? It will be my goal to produce even more, such as top-performing assets from social media campaigns.
Although Performance Max won’t allow you to view landing page performance reports, it will let you access the “all campaigns” level. You can also filter Performance Max by this level. This will allow you to see which pages Performance Max drives traffic to.
You can then exclude specific pages or products from the campaign’s data feed, or disable campaign settings to prevent them from being served. This will stop the traffic from going to these pages.
You can make a lot of decisions about where your ad dollars go, but it’s not easy or available to all advertisers.
Fault 7: Use the wrong bidding strategy at the wrong moment
Performance Max is an . Manual bidding does not enter the conversation. Our goal across all campaigns is to get on Smart Bidding with an ROAS target – profitable campaigns.
We recommend that new campaigns, other than Performance Max, start with manual CPC and Maximize clicks the first few weeks. Although it might not be as effective, the aim is to get traffic to the site so that the system can see which people click and convert on.
We then switch to Maximize Conversions. This is the place where Performance Max campaigns are launched, as it’s at the bottom of that funnel.
- Maximize Conversions is your first step.
- Allow the system to spend all of its budget.
- Maximize traffic, to find patterns.
- To Maximize Conversion Value, Change
- Add a target ROAS to your revenue-generating efforts.
Google can tell if you have a target ROAS so that it can set a benchmark and push for the achievement of your sales goals. It is difficult to collect enough data quickly enough when you start with it, making it more expensive and prolonging the learning phase.
We believe that Google should first ensure it is using its full budget to drive traffic. Next, we want to see if there are as many conversions possible to get the traffic. Finally, our goal is to be profitable.
Google states that any will put the campaign in a learning stage. Google should be able to adjust and keep going if you change your target, which is CPA to Maximize Conversions or ROAS to Maximize Conversion Value. However, it is best to change targets by increments no greater than 10-20%.
Performance Max’s motto is “Don’t shock it.” It will look for other sources to convert traffic and reset the learning phase. It can take up to six weeks for campaigns to return to their original place.
Comfortable with Performance Max
Performance Max is a mixed bag.
In 2003 when I began my career as a search marketer, I wasn’t open to changing. Every time Google presented a different way of doing things, I looked for the reasons why it wasn’t right.
When you see as much as I have over the past two decades of change, it becomes clear that ad networks will continue to evolve. Google is a visionary, they are the ones running it, but it’s up to us search marketers to figure out how to make it work.
We are a Performance Max campaign in some aspects. In order to be able to make things work smoothly , we have to do the upfront work.
Accepting change is the first step, even though you may not agree with it. You’ll need to catch up with others who have already started looking for solutions if you continue fighting it.
Don’t hack into the system, or try to find shortcuts. You can accept the status quo and work hard to improve your position in search engine marketing’s future.
These opinions are not necessarily those of Search Engine Land, but they do reflect the views of the guest author. Here are the names of staff authors.
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