How to set up a Performance Max campaign

Performance Max (PMax) is an automated campaign type in Google Ads that drives performance based on your specified conversion goals, delivering more conversions and value by optimizing performance in real-time and across channels using Smart Bidding.

These campaigns combine Google’s automation technologies across bidding, budget optimization, audiences, creatives, attribution, and more. 

They’re all empowered by your specific advertising objective (for example, if you have a CPA or ROAS target) and the creative assets, audience signals, and optional data feeds you provide.

PMax is also available in Microsoft Advertising in open beta.

Key features of Performance Max campaigns

Unified campaign management

• Performance Max campaigns streamline the process of managing ad campaigns across different Google properties, making it easier for advertisers to reach their desired audience without creating separate campaigns for each platform.

Automated bidding

• Google’s machine learning algorithms automatically adjust bids based on the advertiser’s goal and budget, helping to achieve optimal performance while minimizing manual intervention.

Responsive ad formats

• Performance Max campaigns use responsive ad formats that automatically adapt to fit the available ad space, ensuring optimal ad placement and improving user experience.

Advanced targeting

• Advertisers can use a wide range of targeting options to reach their desired audience, such as demographics, interests, and behaviors, as well as create custom audiences based on their business needs.

Comprehensive reporting

• Performance Max campaigns provide in-depth reporting and insights, allowing advertisers to track their performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions for campaign optimization.

Goal-driven optimization

• Advertisers can select specific marketing objectives, such as driving website visits, generating leads, or increasing sales. Automated bidding and targeting will optimize the campaign’s performance to achieve these objectives.

Overall, Google Ads Performance Max campaigns offer a powerful solution for businesses looking to improve their digital marketing performance and streamline their ad campaign management. 

By leveraging Google’s machine-learning capabilities and vast inventory, advertisers can reach their target audience more effectively and drive better results.

When to use a Performance Max campaign

Performance Max is the best option to use when:

• You have specific advertising and conversion goals (for example, driving online sales, lead generation, and others).
• You want to maximize the performance of your campaign, and you aren’t limited by which channel your ads appear on.
• You want to easily access all of Google’s advertising channels using a single campaign.
• You want to get additional reach and conversion value beyond keyword-based Search campaigns.

To create a Performance Max campaign, create a new campaign and select Performance Max from the available options. 

Use with caution

While Google’s Performance Max campaigns can provide valuable results, there are certain scenarios where they may not be the best choice. 

Here are a few reasons a business might want to avoid using Performance Max campaigns:

• Lack of control: Performance Max campaigns use automated bidding and targeting strategies to optimize campaign performance. This means businesses have less control over where their ads appear, which might not be ideal for companies with strict brand guidelines or specific targeting requirements.
• Limited creative customization: Performance Max campaigns use responsive ads, which automatically combine different headlines, descriptions, and images to create ads that are more likely to perform well. This can be limiting for businesses that want to have full control over their ad creatives or have unique design needs.
• Inappropriate for niche markets: Performance Max campaigns may not be as effective if your business targets a specific niche. Automated targeting could potentially show your ads to less relevant audiences, leading to wasted ad spend and lower ROI.
• Not suitable for all goals: Performance Max campaigns are designed for businesses looking to drive online conversions, such as sales, leads, or app installs. Other campaign types might be more suitable if your primary goal is brand awareness, reach, or driving in-store visits.
• Data limitations: Performance Max campaigns require conversion tracking to be set up and a certain level of conversion data for the algorithm to learn and optimize. If your business has low conversion volume or doesn’t have conversion tracking set up, this campaign type may not perform as desired.
• Budget constraints: Performance Max campaigns work best when they have a sufficient budget to test and learn from various placements and audiences. If your business has a limited budget, you might want to focus on other campaign types where you can allocate your spend more strategically.
• Reluctance to trust automation: Some businesses may prefer to have more hands-on control over their campaigns or might not trust Google’s algorithms to make the best decisions for their marketing goals. In these cases, manual campaign management could be a better fit.

Feeding the machine

Performance Max employs machine learning algorithms to fine-tune bids and ad placements to enhance conversions or conversion value in line with your objectives. However, you play a crucial role by supplying valuable inputs such as:

• Audience information (including your customer data).
• High-quality text, images, and videos. 

Additional information can substantially boost your campaign’s performance. 

You can also offer essential insights about your business’s most valuable conversion types by assigning conversion values and configuring value rules. 

To ensure brand safety, you can also use account-level settings to inform Google Ads about the content categories where you prefer not to display your ads.

Read more of The Search Engine Land Guide to PPC:

• What is PPC – Pay-Per-Click marketing?
• Chapter 1: Where PPC ads appear
• Chapter 2: How the PPC ad auction works
• Chapter 3: How to build an effective PPC strategy
• Chapter 4: How to track and measure PPC campaigns
• Chapter 5: How to set up up your PPC account
• Chapter 6: How to structure PPC campaigns
• Chapter 7: PPC keyword research and match types: what’s important
• Chapter 8: How ad assets work in PPC
• Chapter 9: Setting up a paid search campaign
• Chapter 10: PPC campaign budgeting and bidding strategies
• Chapter 11: Ad rotation, scheduling and location setup
• Chapter 12: Search ads automation
• Chapter 13: Performance Max: An overview
• Chapter 14: Beyond keyword targeting in Search: location, device, audience and demographic
• Chapter 15: Bidding and bid adjustments in paid search campaigns