stakes That Can Tank Retail Performance Max Campaigns //

Imagine this: A small business owner who relied on Google Ads for sales on Shopify has seen his entire livelihood destroyed by Performance max within two months. His Optimization Score is 100%, sales are virtually zero, conversion cost is up 20x ($6-$120), and conversion costs have increased by 20x ($6-$120).

This is a very unfortunate and real situation, which contradicts Google’s claim that automation makes online advertising more efficient.

It is a clear example of how urgently the PPC advertising community requires better education about ad platform automation, particularly when it comes to something like Performance Max.

The business owner did all that Google suggested, almost destroying his online business. It’s unlikely that he will recover without the assistance of a Google Ads expert.

This is the future Google’s automation was meant to stop, but instead we are still trying to figure out the basics of a campaign style that’s largely black box.

Let’s get it fixed. These are seven common mistakes that Performance Max campaign users make.

Mistake 1: Audience signals and audiences are treated the same.

Audience signals aren’t as effective as audience segments in other campaigns. Performance Max can’t target specific audiences so audience signals don’t work in the same way. Instead, you give signals to Google that tell Google which people to show your ads to. Google then uses this data to expand your audience.

Account managers often underestimate the importance 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 recommendation is to ensure that every Performance Max campaign starts with strong audience signals. These could include:

• Everybody who converted on your site.
• Email subscriber lists.
• Historical customer data
• Customers who are repeat or high-spending.
• Anybody you know who is valuable to your business.

Google will analyze the audiences you have imported at the beginning of a campaign for all the signals it tracks. Instead of spending money guessing, your campaign can start with strong, relevant audience input.

2. Neglecting to feed your data

Retail Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns depend on data feeds to target keywords. An incomplete feed can mean you miss out on potential opportunities.

Many brands that advertise on Google don’t pay enough attention their data feed. This applies to Standard Shopping campaigns as well. While it’s tempting to jump into Google Ads right away, you should take the time to go back to the Merchant Center to optimize your data feed to achieve the best results.

My agency also checks for:

• All products are properly categorized.
• UPC codes can be included where appropriate.
• Descriptions and titles are fully fleshed.
• Descriptions and titles include keywords and search terms that are related to the product.

Google needs high-quality inputs. Keep track of what you share so it is accurate.

3. Mistake: Selecting the wrong campaign structure

Performance Max campaigns have used multiple asset groups to target different audiences signals. However, they all had the same creative and products. This is contrary to the essence of Performance Max.

Instead, we create asset groups around specific product categories or services. Splitting them in this manner is not beneficial, as our targeting is based more on audience signals than lists. Performance Max doesn’t provide any reporting at the asset level, so it is unclear what this means.

You can view data in Google Analytics and offline conversions if you use different UTM parameters for multiple traffic sources. However, different audience signals may still be used to target the same group. Performance Max doesn’t allow you to target a specific audience.

Although it may seem counterintuitive to those who are new to these campaigns, my experience shows that asset groups based on audience signals confuse the system.

4. Mistake: Don’t ignore standard shopping campaigns

Performance Max’s placement of your ads is something that many of my peers don’t like. But there’s a way to fix it.

Two things are required to set up Performance Max as Smart Shopping.

• All creative assets should be removed from the asset group.
• Stop URL expansion at campaign level

These two actions will result in the campaign spending the core budget on Shopping, with very little going to Placements like Search, YouTube, Display.

However, if your data feed is removed completely, your ads won’t appear in Search and Shopping because Google focuses more heavily on YouTube, Gmail Discovery, and Display.

Other than that and a few account exclusions, you really don’t have much control over the placement of the campaign.

We recommend that you run Performance Max and Shopping campaigns together when working with clients who have larger catalogs.

This means that you can manage one product segment in Shopping, whether it’s by category, sub-brand or other attributes, and other segments (like top products) in Performance Max.

We can move products that aren’t selling well to Performance Max if a client is already active on Shopping. Sometimes we may do the reverse and transfer the best-performing products. We are simply testing the best products to determine the best path to profitability.

We recommend that you look for products that are and not getting, if you are just starting with Performance Max.

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Sales

You can exclude them from Performance Max and place them in Standard Shopping campaigns where you have more control.

Manual bidding is a good idea.

5. Mistake: You say ‘yes’ all Google Ads recommendations

This is something I cannot stress enough: You should be the one making decisions regarding how to optimize your accounts, campaigns, and other activities.

Google’s recommendations tend to focus on automation and rely on an average of tens or millions of accounts. Only you can make a business’s nuances a judgment.

How to disable auto-applied Google Ads

The system created a few non-Shopping assets during the transition from Smart Shopping and Performance Max (now complete) and started spending more of its budget beyond the data feed.

Smart Shopping might have divided your budget 90/10 between Shopping & retargeting. However, an “auto-upgraded Performance Max” campaign would spend more on prospecting ads that use auto-generated assets that don’t convert well.

We were able to make sure that these assets were removed and then go back to the core assets, so that campaigns could only target and create ads based on your data feed. While it might spend more prospecting than Smart Shopping but it would be much less if the main focus was on Shopping.

Mistake 6: Don’t optimize assets to sculpt traffic

Performance Max campaigns are analyzed by me first looking at the total campaign spend and performance, versus listing groups, datafeed spend, and 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 be 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 the campaign.

• Does the campaign work better with the data feed? I will lean in and switch to Smart Shopping-style campaigns.
• Are you getting more creative assets out of it? I will work to make them even better, such as introducing top-performing assets via paid social campaigns.

Although Performance Max won’t allow you to view landing page performance reports, you can access the “all campaigns” level and filter for Performance Max. This will allow you to see which pages Performance Max is driving traffic.

You can then exclude specific pages or categories from the campaign’s data feed, or remove them from campaign settings. This will stop the campaign from sending you traffic to these pages.

You can do a lot to control where your ad spend goes. However, this information isn’t available to all advertisers.

Mistake 7: Use the wrong bid strategy at wrong times

Performance Max is an fully automated bidding area. Manual bidding does not enter this discussion. Our goal across all campaign types is to get on Smart Bidding with an ROAS target – the closest possible to profitable campaigns.

We recommend that new campaigns, other than Performance Max, start with Manual CPC and Maximize clicks for the first few weeks. Although it might not be as effective, the goal is still to drive traffic to the site so that the system can see what people click and convert on.

We then switch to Maximize Conversions. This is where we launch Performance Max campaigns, as it’s at the lowest level of that funnel.

• Maximize Conversions is your first step.
• Let the system spend all of its budget.
• Maximize traffic and learn the patterns in the data.
• To Maximize Conversion Value, Change
• Add a target ROAS to your revenue-generating efforts.

Google can tell if you have a target ROAS so it can set a benchmark and push for that goal. 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 spending its full budget and driving plenty of traffic. Next, we want to make sure that we get as many conversions for that traffic as possible and then push it to profitability.

Google claims that a modification in bid strategy places the campaign in a learning phase. Google should be able to adapt by changing your target – CPA to Maximize Conversions or ROAS to Maximize Conversion Valu – to allow it to continue. However, I suggest reducing increments to no more than 10-20%.

Performance Max’s motto is “Don’t shock it.” Any major change will cause Performance Max to search for new traffic sources and reset the learning phase. It can take up to six weeks for campaigns to return to a good place.

Performance Max: Get comfortable

Performance Max is a mixed bag.

In 2003, when I began my search marketing career, I was also resistant to change. Every time Google presented a new way of doing things, I looked for reasons why it wasn’t logical.

When you see as much change in the past two decades, it becomes clear that ad platforms are on the verge of achieving great things. Google has a vision. They run the show. It’s our job, as search marketers, to find ways to make it work.

We are a Performance Max campaign in some ways. We do the hard work to learn new things and hope that things will run smoothly without our constant interference.

Accepting change is the first step, even if it’s not something you agree with. You’ll need to catch up with others who have already started looking for solutions if you continue fighting it.

Don’t try to hack into the system or find shortcuts. Accept the status quo and work hard to improve your position in search engine marketing’s future.

7 Mistakes That Can Tank Retail Performance Max Campaigns was originally published on Search Engine Land.