In November 2021, Performance Max aka Pmax campaigns were first introduced to the world. Paid Search marketers don’t have the option for Shopping and Local campaigns. Pmax has replaced both. Recently, I wrote a blog about Pmax, which you can read here. The challenge is how to make Pmax work for you. Pmax is controlled by Google’s AI algorithm and one can have the sensation of loss of control. However, it doesn’t need to be like that. There are some Pmax hacks you can apply when managing Pmax campaigns. In this blog, I am going to dive a little deeper into the Pmax world.
I never had the luxury to execute old Shopping campaigns, I jumped on the Shopping bandwagon when Pmax was already established and at first I was kind of perplexed by how often Pmax had a lower performance. Yes, maybe it’s going through growing pains because it’s rather new and Google’s AI might still be figuring out bugs. When I took over some legacy accounts I noticed that Pmax was mostly applied to all products from the Google Merchant Center feed. However, that is certainly not best practice.
Pmax will automatically import assets from your product feed but the more assets you add, the better your chances of an optimized Pmax performance. Instead of letting your various products flow into an “all products” Pmax campaign, organize your Pmax campaigns by themes per the website, i.e. like you would organize your Paid Search ad groups according to themes. Separate your Pmax campaign by the various products or services the website offers.
I have seen Pmax campaigns that were launched with tROAS from the beginning. This is not best practice either. Begin your Pmax campaign with a Maximize Conversion bidding strategy that lets the Google machine learning find conversions within your budget. What should your daily budget be for Pmax? If you already have Paid Search data with CPA insights, set your daily Pmax budget at at least 3 times the CPA to start. Let your Pmax campaign run for approximately 4-6 weeks with the Maximize Conversion bidding strategy. This will help your initial Pmax ramp-up period. When your Pmax campaign has passed the ramp-up period analyze your ROAS. It’s of course paramount that you have set up the correct conversion action in line with the right conversion tracking on the backend. If your current Pmax ROAS is for example 150%, set your Pmax tROAS bidding strategy at “slightly” below the actual ROAS. This will allow your Pmax campaign to scale. If you set your tROAS too high, your scalability will overshoot and then probably crash. If you set it too low, your Pmax campaign could become stagnant. Once your actual ROAS begins to increase, raise your tROAS incrementally to scale your Pmax campaign. Remember, do not switch to tROAS bidding strategy until after the initial ramp-up period of 4-6 weeks with the Maximize Conversions bidding strategy.
If your account already has a customer list, best practice is to upload it and let Google’s AI analyze the customer data to help you find new relevant potential customers. Pmax also has a feature that allows you to bid higher for new customers. Make sure you optimize your audience signals. For example, you can add more intent to your audience signals by incorporating high-performing relevant keywords.
Recently, Google rolled out a Pmax experiment feature. I highly recommend you take advantage of that feature before you launch Pmax in an already live account. Test how a newly launched Pmax campaign in mix with your already live campaigns would drive additional conversions. Pick a metric for your hypothesis, e.g. ROAS to monitor the success of your test. The experiment should run for at least 4-6 weeks to give you enough data and insights to make an educated decision.
If you are interested in exploring more about Google Shopping, you can read the article “The Complete Guide To Google Shopping in 2023“. Don’t just launch a Pmax campaign and trust that Google’s machine learning will take care of everything. Put some analysis and strategy behind your Pmax campaign and you can scale for success.
Photo by Arkan Perdana on Unsplash
