Hey there, Benjamin from Loves Data here. Welcome back! In this video, we're going to
take a look at the results from my Performance Max campaign. If you subscribe to my channel,
then a couple of weeks ago, I released a video covering Performance Max campaigns,
and in particular, how to set them up. We walked-through the different steps to create and
launch a Performance Max campaign. And I thought I would show you the results from that campaign.
First off, if you haven't watched my Performance Max campaign tutorial, then feel free to take
a moment to check out that video. As I'm just going to cover the results from that campaign
in this video. I've already logged into my demo account. And you can see I have a couple of
campaigns running in the account. Since we're just focusing on the Performance Max campaign today,
let's select the campaign in the menu on the left. Now the first thing that you'll notice if you are
familiar with search campaigns (or even display campaigns) in Google Ads is that there isn't as
much information available for a Performance Max campaign, compared to the other types of
campaigns. For example, if you were looking at a search campaign, you would see metrics broken down
by each of the keywords you are targeting. You can then use these details to optimize the campaign.
This is especially the case if you're manually managing a campaign. So if you're looking after
things like targeting and bidding, then there's lots of different information available to help
you optimize the performance in say, a standard search campaign. With Performance Max campaigns,
it's completely different. They're heavily reliant on Google's machine learning, which means there
are a few inputs that we control in the campaign. So things like our daily budget is important,
and the creative for the campaign. This includes the ad copy as well as images and other assets
that I covered in my tutorial. But when it comes to seeing the results of the campaign,
as we can see on the overview page here, we only get a very top-level of performance.
Overall, they rely on machine learning, along with the objectives you choose.
At the top of the overview, we can see the goals that I selected for my Performance
Max campaign. We can see purchases and sign-ups. I already had these configured
inside my Google Ads account and I selected them as the objective when I created the campaign.
And we can see that I launched the campaign on the 17th of January. Since then, the campaign has
driven 304 conversions on my website. We can also see the cost of the campaign. My advertising spend
for the date range through to the end of January has been just over $500. And then we can see,
based on the conversion data, our cost per conversion, averaging at less than two dollars,
which is quite good. I'll talk more about this in a moment though. And the conversion rate is
just over three point eight percent. I want to briefly talk about when I launched the campaign.
So if you have watched my Performance Max tutorial, when I actually created the campaign,
I began with a $10 a day budget. And because I wanted you to see the results and share them with
you, I got a little bit impatient. So I launched on the 17th with a $10 a day budget, but then I
decided after watching the campaign on the first day, that I only received one click on the day the
campaign was launched. And since I didn't want to keep waiting, I decided to bump the budget up. So
I actually increased the budget from $10 a day to $40 a day. And that had an almost immediate effect
in terms of expanding the eligibility for the campaign. I started to see results very quickly
once I increased the budget. A lesson that you might want to take away (or a tip for you) is
that you might want to allocate a bit more budget when you are launching a Performance Max campaign.
By allocating more budget, you are likely to see greater reach for your ads which will also
help Google's machine learning collect more data to then provide you with quicker results.
So if you've launched a Performance Max campaign and it's not generating any clicks or conversions,
you might not have enough budget allocated to the campaign, so you might not see results as quickly
as I have with my campaign. After the increase, I kept the daily budget at $40 a day, and it's still
at $40 a day at the moment. And we can see on average, it is spending around $40 a day,
some days it's a little lower, other days it is a bit more, but on average, it's around $40. Also
on the overview, we can see some other details. I want to highlight a couple of these. On the right,
we can see some top bidding signals. This gives you some very top level insights about what's
informing the bids. The bids are automated with our Performance Max campaign, so we can't adjust
them manually. We're not doing things like adding bid adjustments, or anything like that. It's all
happening inside Google Ads for us automatically, but we can get some insights about what Google Ads
is using to actually inform the bidding strategy. So it can see here is basically the green
hours are going to India. Signals that have led to increased bids are highlighted with a green arrow.
And signals that have led to reduced bids are highlighted with
a red arrow. This lets you see key things that are impacting the automated bidding strategy for
the campaign. And we can see here, it's providing some insights about the keywords. I'll show
you another area where we can see some more details about our keywords in a moment. Again,
the campaign is automated, so you won't be able to control the keywords for the campaign, but you can
get some quick insights here on the overview. For example, here we can see the query 'skillshop',
which is actually Google's platform where you can take their certifications and learn more about
the platforms. So we can see people searching for 'skillshop' on mobile devices is actually leading
to increased bids for the campaign. And we can see other signals, like time and day. So weekdays
after 8:00 PM, the campaign is going to reduce the amount we're bidding. And we can also see
signals based on geographic locations, and more. Traveling down, there is 'Asset Performance'.
I will talk about asset performance in a moment, but overall, Performance Max campaigns have asset
groups, as opposed ad groups (which you would find in a standard search or display campaign).
An asset group contains the images, the ad copy, videos, logos, and other elements used to create
the ads people see. So this gives you a top level overview of the assets in the campaign,
you can see we have some headlines here and it's showing us how the asset is performing. So we
can see our top-performing headlines. I will cover assets again in a moment. Now let's head
to 'recommendations'. So far I've found that since Performance Max campaigns are automated,
I haven't been given any recommendations. But I haven't seen anything pop up here yet. I
wouldn't expect to see too many recommendations compared to say a search or display campaign,
since the campaign is automated, but I will check back to see if any recommendations are made.
If you're familiar with standard search and display campaigns, Google Ads can automatically
highlight recommendations. This can include things like recommendations about the keywords to target,
the bidding strategy, and so forth. Since the focus of a Performance Max campaign
is really the creative, including images and headlines, I'm guessing that I will
see recommendations to refresh these assets at some point in the future. But I don't
have any recommendations yet. I'll have to keep looking to see if something pops up.
Next up are 'Insights'. This actually builds off the cards we were just looking at on the overview
with the bidding insights, and this could be quite useful. To start, we have some details about
audience segments. When I created the campaign we were given the option to choose custom segments,
our own data (like remarketing audience lists), and areas of interest to inform the targeting and
optimization of the campaign. But here we can see a couple of insights it's picked up automatically.
We can see these audience segments led to a large portion of conversions. These are in-market
segments, so people who are actively researching or looking to make a purchase. These two segments
are interesting, since they don't relate at all to my offering, so 'After-Christmas Sale Shopping'
and 'Mother's Day Dining'. This is telling us that people in these segments have a higher likelihood
of conversion after they've clicked through on my ad. This could be particularly interesting if
you're running other types of campaigns. For example, you could add these as observation
audiences to your search or display campaigns to see if they also lead to higher conversions
and conversion rates for the other types of campaigns you're running. You might even use
them to inform the targeting or bid adjustments you use with your other campaigns in Google Ads.
Traveling down, we can see additional insights. This is one that I wanted to talk to you about,
which is the top search themes. So this does give you an indication of the keywords that people are
actually using to find your search ads through your Performance Max campaign. We saw in the card
on the overview, that the query 'skillshop' was informing the bids for the campaign.
This is actually quite interesting. You can select the particular keywords. And you do
actually get to see the individual keywords people are searching for. This could be a way to inform
your other search campaigns. For example, if you are running a Performance Max campaign in parallel
to a standard search campaign, then you could use this to identify additional keyword opportunities
to use with your search campaign. And for my campaign, we can see this set of keywords is quite
interesting. All of these 'skillshop' keywords led to a high portion of the conversions from my
Performance Max campaign. That's something I might want to consider in terms of my strategy when
it comes to Google Ads and you can see traveling down there are other keyword groups that you could
review. Again, these might inform other search campaigns you are running. I want to highlight,
if you're just looking to run a Performance Max campaign, then this is really about providing
insights, as I've mentioned, it doesn't let us adjust anything. So we can't, for example, add
negative keywords to our Performance Max campaign. This isn't about targeting or optimization,
this is about providing interesting pieces of information about the campaign. However,
Google has said that account-level negative keyword lists are coming and that we will be
able to apply them to Performance Max campaigns. This will be a great addition when it's available.
Next up, we have asset groups. Now this is going to be important in terms of optimization.
I'll talk about this in a moment as we travel through, but basically these are all the different
assets, like the different images and ad copy. Let's click to view the details on the right.
And this is very, streamlined, so we don't get to see things like clicks,
impressions or click-through rate. It's very top level, again, we're relying on machine learning.
I wasn't sure about this at first, but I quite like that it's really simple to understand what's
working and what's not working in the asset group. It tells us the best creative elements in the
group. This means we're more focused on coming up with new assets to try and improve the performance
of the campaign. So we can quickly see the best copy, the best images, and so on. By the way,
if you haven't watched my tutorial yet, then this campaign advertises my Google Analytics Glossary.
So that's what I'm actually promoting with the campaign. And we can see that this particular
headline, 'Google Analytics Glossary', is one of the better performing assets in the group.
We can also see the images I've included. And then the really interesting
thing is, as you start to travel down, you go from best… through to low performing assets.
For my glossary I included an image of the cover of the glossary as one of the assets. And this
didn't actually perform that well at all. So what this means is we can use these insights
to decide what we should create next. We might come up with some other ideas for images we could
use in the asset group. For optimization, we can then edit the asset group and replace the
low-performing assets with new creative. Let's click the edit icon. And what you'll want to
do is you'll want to remove any of those lower performing assets and then replace them with new
assets you've created. You're aiming to improve the overall performance of your asset group
and the Performance Max campaign. We can see all the elements I covered in the tutorial. So we have
images and other assets that are automatically combined to create the ads people see for the
campaign. The other thing that I need to do for my campaign in terms of optimization, is create more
videos specifically for the offer. You can add your YouTube videos to use in the asset group.
And the other recommendation we can see here at the top is that Google is actually saying, you
should add some vertical videos to the group. One of the things I've found with my Performance Max
campaign is that there is a lot of traffic coming from mobile devices, so that's why Google is
recommending vertical videos. So that's something in terms of optimization, you might want to create
if you don't have any, some vertical video content on YouTube. And apart from adding videos, again,
in terms of optimization, we want to replace any underperforming assets with new assets to try and
increase the overall performance of the ads that we're running. So that is the asset group. The
other thing I just wanted to note in terms of your ads, is you can use some ad extensions with your
Performance Max campaign. So I'm not quite sure if I covered this in my original tutorial, but what
I did do is I made sure to add some appropriate ad extensions to the campaign. So that's another good
thing to do in terms of optimizing your campaign. Also in terms of settings, I decided to broaden
the location targeting. I actually went with all countries and territories as I was running this
as an experiment to show you what sort of results you could achieve. So that's another thing that I
decided to do with the campaign in terms of targeting. Now let's take a look at 'Locations'.
Since the campaign is global, we can see there are no particular geographic targets, but I did
want to highlight something in terms of optimizing your campaigns and deciding where to target your
ads. You may already have a good idea of where to target them, but you can select 'Targeted
Locations' and change this to 'Matched Locations', which will show you where your ads have displayed.
And this is actually where we get some more granular detail, which we don't get a lot of with
our Performance Max campaigns, but we can see the different geographic locations. And importantly,
we can see things like how much we're spending by location. We can see the number of conversions
and the conversion rate. So you can use this to inform the optimization of your campaign.
If you find that a Performance Max campaign works well for you and the results look good
in terms of my conversions and conversion rate, like they do in my campaign, then you could even
consider having separate Performance Max campaigns targeting different geographic
locations with more targeted offers. Overall, I'm actually quite surprised by the results I've
achieved from my Performance Max campaign. I'm happy with the number of conversions,
cost per conversion and conversion rate. So I will be continuing to use Performance Max
campaigns in Google Ads, especially to complement other types of campaigns. And as we saw, you may
want to also use some insights, for example, the search queries that we saw to inform your other
search campaigns that you're running. Now, the one thing I did want to highlight here in the graph,
and it might be a little bit hard to see, because it's only been running for a short amount of time.
But currently, it's looking like conversions have reduced, so after waiting a bit longer,
I would want to check this again to ensure I'm still receiving conversions. If we continue to see
conversions taper off, then this may be a result of ad fatigue. So this could be another good
reason to switch up the different assets that are included in the asset group. We will want to take
the time to create new images, write different ad copy, and continue to maintain the campaign
moving forward. The other thing I want to show you is around reporting. As we've seen, it's
quite limited, but a couple of tips… First, come into 'all campaigns' on the top left-hand corner
and then choose 'campaigns'. This is going to show you the information that you can get out of your
Performance Max campaign. It's not a lot, but it's worth having a look at. And what I'm going to do
here is I'm going to add a filter. So I'm going to add a filter and I'm going to search for 'campaign
name', and I'm going to select this, and I'm going with 'contains', and then I'm going to enter
'Performance Max'. And what this will do is it will mean that I'm just focused on the Performance
Max campaign in my account. So I can now see the clicks, the impressions,
the click through rate, and so on. Again, I want to highlight, this is all aggregated.
It is all automated. Everything is wrapped up together. For example, if we click out of here and
choose a segment. What I might want to see is how the campaign performed on display versus search.
We'd normally use this network segment to actually split the campaign apart.
But with our Performance Mac campaign, unfortunately, it's all combined together.
We just get this 'cross network' result. It doesn't provide us with any more detail.
One thing we can look at, and this is a good tip, are the devices people are using.
So let's select 'Device'. This gives us a breakdown of how we're spending our budget,
and the clicks, impressions and click through rate for the different devices. I did mention earlier,
mobile was important with my Performance Max campaign. And we can see that here.
A huge chunk of the budget is actually spent on mobile devices. And interestingly, there's also a
high click through rate, low average CPC, and the majority of conversions, coming from mobile. So
this is something to bear in mind in terms of your strategy around the way that you're using your
Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads, but also importantly, where you're sending people to on
your website. What's that mobile experience like as people actually click through to your website?
The other area in terms of reporting that we have available, it is very limited, but if you choose
'reports', 'predefined reports', and then if we travel right down to the bottom under 'other',
we can see there's this Performance Max campaigns placement report. This is the only report that we
can find inside Google Ads. So let's take a look. This shows us where our ads have shown when ads
are shown on the display network. So we get to see the number of impressions and the different
display placements. Again, we can't control these like we would with a standard display campaign.
In a standard display campaign you might choose to target certain placements. You might choose to
exclude other placements. It's not possible with our Performance Max campaign, but we can get this
detail about where our ads have been shown. I'd love to be able to see conversions by placement,
but unfortunately it's not available. So again, with Performance Max campaigns, you are really
putting your budget in the hands of Google Ads. Yes, it's automated, but I think Performance Max
campaigns look really promising. I'm quite happy with the results from my campaign. It's looking
pretty good in terms of driving people through to my blog and getting them to download my Google
Analytics glossary. So that's my Performance Max campaign. I'd love to know how you went. Did you
create a Performance Max campaign? And if you did, what were your results like? I'd really love to
know, let me know in the comments below. And if you've found this video helpful,
please like it so I know to make more videos like this one. I'll see you in the next video.