Do you have an ecommerce business? Are you using Google Performance Max (PMAX) campaigns? If not, then you should be. PMAX (although not just for retailers) has replaced Google Shopping Ads and is perfect for those who sell online. It’s a goal based campaign type that helps you access all of Google’s ad inventory in a single campaign. Google says “Show up across all of Google’s ad inventory and formats. Find new customers wherever, and whenever they’re searching or consuming content.” Based on information you provide during set up, Google uses AI and machine learning to get your Ads in front of the right audience.
Lets dive a little deeper into PMAX campaigns
PMAX campaigns are Google’s first fully automated ad campaign type. They are a great for focusing on a specific group of products or if you have an offer running, rather than your business as a whole (leave awareness objectives to other campaign types). As mentioned above, PMAX campaigns show up across all of Google’s ad inventory including search, display, YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps and so on.
So how can you show the same ads across all these platforms? Well that’s the great thing about PMAX. You set your campaigns to show a certain range of your products, for example if you’re a garden furniture company then one campaign could focus on garden sofas. You create your asset groups which include the final URL, product images or videos, your business logo, headlines, descriptions and call to action such as ‘shop now’ and then very importantly, you create your audience signals.
What are audience signals?
Defining an audience is quite new to Google (previously it was all about search terms or targeting with display ads based on the types of websites they visited). Audience signals tell Google the audiences that you want to target with your PMAX ads. You can target people in the following ways:
- Age range
- People that have visited product pages on your website, but not made a purchase for example (you create the audiences in GA4)
- People who have visited similar products pages on competitor websites
- By the keywords people use to search
- By the types of searches they have already done
- By interests such as gardens and outdoor furniture
- By life events such as a birthday or upcoming wedding or anniversary
Google’s AI then uses the information provided in your audience signal to serve your PMAX ads to the right people on the platforms they are visiting. It also uses machine learning to optimise ads on an ongoing basis. So it will test platforms and use its machine learning to understand where your ads are performing best, and then show them more on those platforms.
If you have an ecommerce business then we highly recommend you give this campaign type a go. If you think Google PMAX campaigns are the right fit for your business but need help setting them up then please contact us at Q Social Media.
