Agency Anecdotes: Lessons learned from Performance Max campaigns

The evolution of Performance Max 

As Google further refines its suite of advertising options, Performance Max campaigns have risen to the top of recent digital marketing discussions.  

A goal-oriented campaign tool, Performance Max campaigns are designed to deliver more conversions across the range of Google platforms, including Search, YouTube, Gmail, Display and Shopping networks. In short, it’s got a little bit of everything.  

What will this mean with respect to your marketing efforts in 2024 and beyond? Turns out, even Google isn’t entirely sure. 

As highlighted in Google’s 2024 Google Marketing Live Conference in May: 

“Advertisers who adopt Performance Max see an average increase of 27% more conversions or value at a similar CPA/ROAS. [Cost per Action/Return on Ad Spend]” 

And as somewhat confusingly highlighted in Google Ads Help: 

“Advertisers who use Performance Max experience an average of 18% more conversions at a similar cost per action.”  

So, while we know Performance Max campaigns expand your digital reach, marketers are wondering what are the real capabilities and impact of this kind of campaign, and what are its limitations in furthering their digital marketing strategy?

Let’s find out. 

The benefits of Performance Max campaigns 

Performance Max campaigns come with a number of distinct advantages when compared to the more traditional types of Google ads. 

Your reach from a set of ad assets has never been greater 

Given Performance Max campaigns have a “little bit of everything”, one of their most significant advantages is their ability to reach audiences, regardless of Google platform. They are Search ads, Display ads, Video ads, In-feed: they try to be everywhere they should be. 

This reach ensures your ads are seen by an audience as wide as possible, thereby increasing the potential for conversions. 

We ran a Performance Max campaign that yielded 188% more conversions than Google Search.

Learn how, below.

Campaign management has never been more focused 

No more separate campaigns for Search and Display, no separate video campaigns on YouTube:  just a single campaign to rule them all. What was once a more disparate endeavor in both set-up and campaign management, Performance Max campaigns’ unified asset inventory mix is ready to be served and optimized through Google AI. 

This holistic view makes it easier for marketers to summarize data. That lets you spend more of your valuable time optimizing campaigns, rather than compiling numbers. 

Google AI 

Performance Max further leverages Google's AI algorithm to optimize the delivery of your ads. The algorithm is designed to identify who should be served your ads, where, and at what time.  

The guiding light here is working to serve your ads to the most applicable users at the most opportune time. This should, in theory, increase the likelihood that a visitor performs some key website event. 

Conversion-based approach 

By design, Performance Max campaigns are made to reach your campaign objectives and marketing goals. Whatever your campaign’s specific objectives – such as downloads or form submissions – Performance Max campaigns aim to deliver results that align with a set of defined conversion goals and costs. 

Design is more flexible 

Many marketers have previously experienced design limitations for their brands and the use of Performance Max. But you can now match brand colors and fonts to generated assets. 

Strong advances have also been made in Image-to-Video asset creation, and there are definite improvements in the dynamic ad creation process and AI editing capabilities.  

The cons of Performance Max campaigns 

Performance Max transparency and 'coming soon'… 

While AI capabilities of Performance Max are powerful, many of the metrics you would typically look at in Search or Display campaigns are sealed, a feature that a number of advertisers have called the “Performance Max Black Box”. Some of these metrics are table stakes for digital marketers: Where are my ads appearing? What search terms have led to the ad being served? 

While this lack of granularity can put off some marketers, changes are reportedly coming soon to Performance Max. For those that wish a more hands-on approach to campaign management, and as indicated in the Google Marketing Live 2024 conference, sometime in 2024 should see the introduction of: 

• Asset level reporting 
• YouTube placement exclusions, and 
• Improved insights interface 

Budget distribution

Given the automated nature of budget allocation across your marketing channels, advertisers cannot manually adjust budgets for a specific channel. This can lead to an uneven distribution of spend, potentially favoring less-effective channels. This issue is further compounded by the black box nature of Performance Max campaigns, mentioned above. 

Creative limitations 

While Performance Max campaigns allow for a variety of creative assets to be quickly introduced into your campaign, issues may arise from the lack of control. For example, we have seen examples of image assets being cropped in odd ways to accommodate ad reconfigurations.  

There are times when advertisers require greater control over which and how assets are leveraged by the Performance Max algorithm.  

Dependence on AI and its learning curve 

Performance Max's success heavily relies on Google's machine learning algorithms. While these algorithms are advanced, they are not always making the best decisions. A significant factor in making the best decision is having sufficient campaign data. For new campaigns or those with limited budgets, initial performance could be less than expected.  

Additionally, algorithmic changes or updates can impact campaign performance unpredictably – which creates challenges when advertisers need to answer, “How did that happen?” Coupled with a recommended learning curve of at least six weeks, this leaves the potential where a long period of time can transpire with mysteriously inconsistent performance. 

Brand safety concerns 

Advertisers are very familiar with using exclusions. Excluding search terms like branded keywords, or excluding questionable websites or YouTube videos, are standard practices for campaign managers. Sadly, this aspect is hit-and-miss with Performance Max campaigns.  

While there have been recent developments in the world of Performance Max campaigns, such as the 2024 Google Marketing Live Conference’s announcement that exclusions for YouTube channels and videos are coming soon, Performance Max campaigns do raise the potential that your ads appear on websites or in contexts that are not aligned with your brand’s values.  

From theory to practice 

Performance Max campaigns are not new, but it’s only recently that they have really gained traction with marketers. Given their reach and touted conversion-based results, they’ll indeed be here for a while.  

While our experience and use of Performance Max campaigns will continue to evolve, we can offer some general data points when looking at campaigns administered so far.  

Full disclosure and background on the data we explored: 

• Our Performance Max campaigns focused primarily on the agricultural sector 
• Our review leveraged campaigns where there was also a concurrent Search campaign running 
• The goal in our campaigns was to further drive High Purchase Intent traffic to our client’s website, focusing on key website converting events: Contact Submissions (i.e. form submissions, click-to-calls, etc.) and Content Engagements (i.e. PDF downloads, online tool interactions, etc.)

Performance Max versus Google Search campaign: A summary 

GOOGLE SEARCH COST PER CONVERSION: 

$42 / conversion 

PERFORMANCE MAX COST PER CONVERSION: 

$24 / conversion 

DIFFERENCE IN OVERALL CONVERSIONS:

188% more conversions (Performance Max) 

From this (admittedly small) sample of Performance Max campaigns, our results greatly surpassed Google’s boldest claim for Performance Max (+27%) – at about 60% of the relative cost per conversion. 

Seems like a success. But…. 

We still need to address the truly invisible elephant in the room: Transparency. 

While our Performance Max campaigns did deliver more conversions, with costs per conversions less than those realized in Search, we don’t know which keywords would have triggered the Performance Max article. In short, we know the campaign worked: but we don’t have the data to tell us exactly why. 

Negative keywords have been crafted over the course of many months in the Search campaign, including the exclusion of branded keywords where our client’s organic presence is strong. This ensures that media dollars are spent attracting net new customers, and not paying Google just because a customer searches for your business or brand name product.  

This leaves us with a number of unanswered questions. How much of our Performance Max traffic would have come to the site as organic traffic if there was no Performance Max campaign in the first place? Was the majority of traffic from Performance Max campaigns just paying for a branded keyword click? As Google has indicated, more Performance Max transparency is coming soon. 

And when it does, part two of this article won’t be far behind. 

If you want to talk more about your digital marketing strategy, reach out.