/Google Performance Max

Google PMax has completely transformed the PPC landscape since the launch in 2022. This campaign type offers many advantages, namely the ability to serve product listing ads across Google Search, Google Display, YouTube, Gmail and more..

🔎 At AdBirds we started testing this campaign type as soon as it was launched by Google and we opted for a more gradual transition from Smart Shopping. We did not allow Google to automatically generate PMax campaigns from our existing Smart Shopping campaigns, but instead, we created brand new PMax campaigns and re-enabled our traditional shopping campaigns to function as a ‘safety net’ and capture all traffic that was potentially lost by the new set-up.

google performance max
Anne Semonin case study

For one of our clients, Anne Semonin Paris, we saw an immediate lift in traffic, which was great 📈, but now we had to finetune our bidding strategy, audience signals and optimise our use of assets.

With Performance Max, every asset you have goes into a single “bucket”, including text, images, and videos. These assets are combined using machine learning to create customised, compelling ads that are delivered to customers across Google channels.

❓ The challenge: We wouldn’t know exactly where those ad formats were being served — and whether those placements would be guaranteed to hit the revenue.

✔ This challenge was tackled after our team implemented a customised script showing spend and revenue allocation per channel within each PMax campaign. This allowed us to open the ‘PMax black box’ and gain valuable insights that allowed us to maximise performance.

We now incorporate PMax campaigns into the marketing mix for all our clients globally and across industries and structure our campaigns with a strategic focus.

🗝 3 Top tips for PMax:

  • Budget and ROAS: make sure changes are gradual to reduce the chance of the system re-entering the learning mode.
  • Structure: organise your asset groups in a strategic way, rather than placing all products in one large bucket. Consider product groups based on margins.
  • Signals: provide affinity audiences and first-party data to construct effective audience signals for each asset group.

Want to find out more about PMax performance and optimisation? Get in touch with our AdBirds specialists for a free audit! adbirds.global/sea/