Thread by @MenachemAni

☄️ OPTIMIZATION: Improving Performance in Performance Max 💯 (Part 3)

While there aren't many levers to manually optimize campaigns, our job is to guide the machines. 🤖

Here's a breakdown of what you can do. 🦾

#PPCChat #PerformanceMax

Time for a thread! 🧵 👇

This is the last in a 3-part series on Performance Max in which we covered:

1️⃣ Setup
2️⃣ Reporting
3️⃣ Optimization ⬅

ICYMI: Part 1: Setup ⚙️

HOW TO: Maximize Performance with Performance Max! 📈

https://twitter.com/MenachemAni/status/1550157191155531778

ICYMI: Part 2: Reporting 📊

REPORTING: ⚡️ Maximize Insights from Performance Max 📈

https://twitter.com/MenachemAni/status/1559984383934742531

Your primary goal with Performance Max is to enable the algorithm to do its job well.

Like most things in life, you get what you give.

The AI can perform better if you provide stronger data inputs (datafeed + audience signals + creative assets) and outputs (tracking) 🎯

Machine learning can only make smart choices when we teach it what is valuable to us.

This is why it’s super important to ensure your campaigns are tracking conversions properly.

pMax requires patience: give it 2-4 weeks to gain momentum while making limited incremental changes

Bid Strategy ♟

Depending on your product/goal. We typically recommend starting with Maximize Conversions so the system can gather data.

Once you have solid historical data, you can layer on a target CPA or switch to Maximize Conversion Value with target ROAS.

Bid Strategy (Cont.) ♟

If you find that you're not spending your full budget, that means your bid is too aggressive. Try increasing your tCPA or decreasing your tROAS targets.

If you are spending your full budget daily, you can likely decrease bids incrementally or spend more!

Audience Signals 👥

If overall performance is poor AND you are not seeing many conversions, try tightening your audience signals. Provide strong data so Google knows who your customer is.

Interests are great, but the best data is your actual customer data.

Highly recommend adding these:

‣ Customer Match: Import customer lists, email + SMS subscribers
‣ Custom Intent: Create audiences with top-performing keywords
‣ Website Visitors: Page Viewers, Converters, etc

https://twitter.com/1128723491685949440/status/1550157257735823362

Creative Assets 🎑

Here's a great thread from @duanebrown on the importance of strong creative in Performance Max.

Similar to Paid Social, pMax is reliant on creative assets to sell your products.

https://twitter.com/duanebrown/status/1560271478930583553

@duanebrown Creative Assets: Ads Creative Studio 📺

Google recently released some tools to make it easier to create and manage your assets.

Ads Creative Studio is an amazing tool to create templates graphics and videos.

👉 adscreativestudio.google.com

https://twitter.com/91220126/status/1407745293420941317

@duanebrown Creative Assets: Video Builder 📹

Video Builder is located in Google Ads and lets you easily create videos from a template.

👉 Google Ads → Tools & Settings → Shared Library → Asset Library → Create Video

https://twitter.com/91220126/status/1250107589225902081

@duanebrown Datafeed (eCommerce) 📃

When submitting products to Google Merchant Center, make sure you are submitting as much info as possible.

Specific attention should be made to product identifiers.

@duanebrown Google looks at the following 3 columns to understand what specific product you're selling:

‣ Brand Name
‣ Manufacturer Part Number (MPN/SKU)
‣ UPC Code (GTIN)

@duanebrown Additionally, but just as important to have:

‣ Descriptive Titles (include keywords in your title, this is how Google knows which search terms should trigger your ad!)
‣ Google Taxonomy/Categorization
‣ Product Type

@duanebrown Exclusions 🛑

Something not working? Exclude it and force the system to focus elsewhere.

‣ Listing Groups: You can exclude by Product ID, Category, Brand, Custom Labels, etc

@duanebrown Exclusions (Cont) 🛑

‣ Negative Keywords: A Google rep can block irrelevant or non-performing KWs.

I don't love this approach as the whole idea of pMax is to allow the algorithm to see real-time revenue and stop non-converting traffic automatically.

@duanebrown Exclusions (Cont) 🛑

‣ Customer Exclusions: Not getting enough new customer acquisition? Block your existing customers from being targeted.

‣ URLs (see next Tweet)

@duanebrown Location📍

If you're seeing irrelevant traffic from countries/locations you're not targeting. Make sure to switch the location settings to "Presence"

This can be found in the campaign Settings → Locations → Advanced Options

@duanebrown Landing Pages 🛍

If you find that pMax is cannibalizing Search and sending traffic to pages that are not converting well, you can:

‣ Exclude Specific URLs
‣ Turn Off URL Expansion

Settings → Additional Settings → Final URL Expansion

@duanebrown Offline Conversion Tracking (Lead-Gen) 🍪

For Lead-Gen campaigns, if you're not getting good quality leads. You can import your offline sales data so Google knows what is driving real revenue.

👉 Offline Conversion Imports Helper: ocihelper.withgoogle.com

@duanebrown Budget 💰

Is your campaign performing well? Increase the budget in 10-20% increments on a weekly basis.

Don't increase too much in one shot, it'll shock the system and force it to find new traffic sources.

@duanebrown Takeaways ✅

‣ Take the time to configure the right data inputs 🔡
‣ Let the algorithm do the work 🤖
‣ Be patient 🙏

@duanebrown FYI - I'm working on another thread on how to make the most of Performance Max for the Holidays 🎄 🛍

Signup to be notified here when the next threads drop:
👉 jxtgroup.com/performance-ma…

@duanebrown That's a wrap!

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