Digital marketing is evolving, and everything appears to either be “smart” or have some form of “machine learning” involved. This technocratic trend has driven everything in the digital world, and the marketing industry is no exception. Google, Meta (Facebook), and other platforms continue to pursue ways to make their ad platform as low-touch and automated as humanly possible, helping companies be successful.
In 2021, Google launched Performance Max, a goal-based campaign type that allows advertisers to access the entire Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. It uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to display responsive ads in Google’s advertising channels.
That said, you may wonder how Performance Max works, its pros and cons, and if you should use it for your business. To help you decide, here’s an overview of Google’s goal-based campaign and whether or not it’s ideal for your business.
What Is Google Performance Max?
Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that essentially takes responsive ads and smart campaigns to the next level, combining these features all in one place. You start by defining a goal and providing the assets and information about what you are advertising. Then, Google auto-generates ads that can be displayed across all available placements, allowing you to run ads on Search, Maps, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discovery networks from a single campaign.
In order to run Performance Max campaigns effectively, you need to provide Google with your marketing objectives and goals, budget, creative assets (text, images, video), geo-targets, feed, and audience signals.
Should you use Google Ads Performance Max for your business?
The answer depends on your business needs, marketing objectives, and goals. Below are key points to consider if your business is ideal for a Performance Max.
Performance Max is best used as a way to supplement your current marketing efforts. Since it’s a goal-based campaign type, you should use it when you have specific conversion goals, such as driving online sales or generating leads, and you’re not limited to where you choose to run your ads in Google.
Additionally, Performance Max makes advertising novice-friendly because it allows you to reach your marketing goals without the hassle of setting up multiple campaigns, helping you avoid the steep learning curve of paid marketing.
Performance Max can be ideal for your business if:
- You don’t have the time or resources to optimise each ad campaign across every channel.
- You don’t have a big budget but want to try different types of Google Ads.
- You have a very large budget and want to discover unexpected market segments.
On the other hand, while Performance Max can be beneficial to novice marketers, it does have some drawbacks when a user makes “novice” mistakes. You may have difficulty managing a campaign like this if you don’t have clear and specific goals because Google won’t be able to optimise your Performance Max campaign properly, which would result in not achieving the goals you’re aiming for.
Additionally, if you rely too much on machine learning and are careless when setting up Performance Max, you’ll see yourself wasting money. Running this type of campaign also means you’ll have less control over bidding. If you like to control every detail of your ads, then you may not get the best results out of this campaign type.
Performance Max is NOT ideal for you if:
- You don’t know what your advertising goals are yet
- You want granular control of every ad campaign
- You want in-depth insights from reports that detail complex buyers’ journeys
Leverage Your Digital Advertising with Google Ads
Still can’t decide if you should use Google Ads Performance Max for your campaign? Let our team uncomplicate your options and set up suitable ad campaigns according to your goals. We provide Google Ads management services to help you make the best decisions for your business. Contact us and learn more about our paid ads management services to get started.