Optimising Performance Max Campaigns in 2024

Summary

In this educational video, Aaron Young from Defin Digital Academy guides viewers through optimizing Performance Max campaigns for Google Ads in 2024. He emphasizes the importance of keyword and audience targeting, ad asset quality, and product feed optimization for e-commerce. Young provides a step-by-step process, utilizing a Google Ads optimization checklist, to refine campaign strategies, ensuring viewers can adapt their marketing for better performance.

Takeaways

• 🔍 Optimize Performance Max campaigns by focusing on keywords, audiences, ad assets, product feeds, and segmentation.
• 🎯 Performance Max campaigns are based on recommendations rather than hard targets or boundaries for Google's ad placements.
• 📝 Asset groups should be organized around products or keyword themes rather than audiences for better ad performance.
• 📊 Use the tiered rating score to review ad assets and prioritize those ranked 'good' or 'best' for better performance.
• 🛍️ For e-commerce, optimize the products in your shopping feed to ensure Google is focusing on items that convert well.
• 📉 Review segmentation to ensure products with different margins, traffic volumes, or seasonality are in appropriate campaigns.
• 📝 Keep a separate notes document to track keywords and audiences that are converting well and should be added to your campaigns.
• 📉 Exclude products from campaigns that have high spend but no conversions after sufficient data has been collected.
• 📈 Monitor the flow of spend and conversions to ensure that high-spend products are also high-converting products.
• 📋 Utilize the provided Google Ads optimization checklist for systematic and regular optimization of campaigns.
• 🔔 Stay updated with new optimization strategies and tips by subscribing and turning on notifications for the video series.

Q & A

What are the key areas to optimize in Performance Max campaigns according to the video?

The key areas to optimize in Performance Max campaigns are keywords and audiences, ad assets, product optimization for e-commerce, campaign segmentation, and automated bidding strategies.

How does Performance Max differ from other campaign types in terms of setting targets or boundaries?

Performance Max differs by not allowing you to set hard targets or boundaries. Instead, you provide Google with recommendations on keywords and audiences to target.

Why is it important to set up Performance Max campaigns with asset groups based on products or keyword themes?

Setting up campaigns with asset groups based on products or keyword themes is important because Google uses these as recommendations rather than hard rules, allowing for more flexibility in ad targeting.

What does the tiered rating score in Performance Max campaigns represent?

The tiered rating score represents the performance of ad assets, ranking them as good, best, or low, which helps in identifying underperforming ads for optimization.

How can e-commerce brands optimize their products in Performance Max campaigns?

E-commerce brands can optimize their products by reviewing and adjusting the products that Google is using in the campaign, ensuring that spending aligns with conversion rates.

What is the significance of reviewing segmentation in Performance Max campaigns for e-commerce brands?

Reviewing segmentation helps e-commerce brands manage different campaigns for products with varying margins, traffic volumes, and seasonality factors, ensuring efficient ad spend.

What is the recommended approach to optimize ad assets in Performance Max campaigns?

The recommended approach is to review ad assets for a 'low' performance rating and replace or update them with new versions to improve the overall ad quality.

How can you identify if a product should be excluded from a Performance Max campaign for e-commerce?

You can identify if a product should be excluded by checking its spend and conversion data over a significant period. If a product has high spend but no conversions, it might be considered for exclusion.

What is the role of the Google Ads optimization checklist mentioned in the video?

The Google Ads optimization checklist provides a guide on the different actions needed for campaign optimization and how often they should be completed.

How can viewers access the optimization checklists used in the video?

Viewers can access the optimization checklists by following the link provided in the video description, which leads to the checklists for both e-commerce and service-based businesses.

Outlines

00:00

📈 Optimizing Performance Max Campaigns for 2024

This paragraph introduces the topic of optimizing Google's Performance Max campaigns for the year 2024. The speaker outlines five key areas for optimization, starting with keywords and audiences, which are crucial for triggering ads and defining the target audience. It emphasizes that with Performance Max, advertisers provide Google with recommendations rather than strict boundaries, reinforcing the importance of setting up campaigns with asset groups based on products or keyword themes. The speaker also mentions the use of a Google Ads optimization checklist and promises to focus on the first three factors in the video, with separate videos for campaign segmentation and bidding strategies due to their complexity.

05:01

🔍 Reviewing Keywords, Audiences, and Ad Assets

The speaker proceeds with a detailed walkthrough of optimizing Performance Max campaigns, starting with a search term audit and audience analysis within the Insights section of a selected campaign. They demonstrate how to identify converting search terms and audiences, and how to add these as recommendations in the campaign's asset groups. The paragraph also covers the importance of ad assets, including headlines, videos, and images, and how to use the tiered rating system to improve ad performance. The speaker provides a practical example of editing low-performing ad assets and stresses the need to regularly review and update them for optimal results.

10:02

🛍️ E-commerce Optimization: Product Feed and Campaign Segmentation

This paragraph specifically addresses e-commerce brands, focusing on optimizing the product feed within Performance Max campaigns. The speaker explains how to review and adjust the products that Google is promoting to ensure alignment with conversion goals. They also discuss the importance of campaign segmentation, tailoring campaigns to different product margins, traffic volumes, and seasonal factors. The speaker illustrates how to identify products with high spend but low conversion and suggests strategies for excluding such products when appropriate. The paragraph concludes with a reminder to access the optimization checklists provided in the video description for further guidance.

Keywords

💡Performance Max campaigns

Performance Max campaigns are a type of advertising campaign offered by Google Ads that aim to drive conversions across various ad formats and channels. In the video, the main theme revolves around optimizing these campaigns for better results in 2024. The script discusses various strategies such as reviewing keywords, audiences, and ad assets to enhance the performance of these campaigns.

💡Keywords and audiences

Keywords and audiences are fundamental to any search engine marketing strategy. Keywords are the search terms that trigger ads to appear, while audiences are the groups of people that the ads are targeted towards. In the script, it's emphasized that for Performance Max campaigns, these are treated as recommendations rather than strict targets, highlighting a shift in how advertisers should approach campaign optimization.

💡Asset groups

Asset groups in the context of Google Ads are collections of ad components such as headlines, images, and videos that are grouped together based on themes or products. The script mentions that these should be set up around products or keyword themes rather than audiences, indicating a strategic approach to ad organization within Performance Max campaigns.

💡Ad assets

Ad assets refer to the creative elements of an advertisement, including headlines, videos, and images. The script discusses the importance of optimizing these assets in Performance Max campaigns by ensuring they have a 'good' or 'best' tiered rating score, which can impact the overall effectiveness of the ads.

💡Shopping feeds

Shopping feeds are a feature in Google Ads that allows e-commerce businesses to upload product information to Google Merchant Center, which then can be used to create dynamic remarketing campaigns. The script mentions optimizing products within these feeds as a key step in managing Performance Max campaigns for e-commerce businesses.

💡Segmentation

Segmentation in the context of the video refers to the division of products or campaigns into different groups based on specific criteria such as product margins, traffic volumes, or seasonality factors. The script suggests that reviewing and optimizing segmentation can help tailor campaigns more effectively to different product types or market conditions.

💡Automated bidding strategies

Automated bidding strategies in Google Ads involve letting the platform's algorithms determine the best bid amounts for ads to maximize performance metrics like conversions or conversion value. The script briefly mentions reviewing and optimizing these strategies as part of the campaign optimization process.

💡Search term audits

A search term audit involves analyzing the search terms that are triggering ads to determine their effectiveness and relevance. In the script, the process of conducting a search term audit is described as part of the optimization process for Performance Max campaigns, where the speaker reviews terms and audiences to identify opportunities for improvement.

💡Conversions

Conversions are the desired actions that advertisers want users to take after interacting with their ads, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. The script frequently refers to conversions as a key metric for evaluating the success of Performance Max campaigns and as a basis for optimization decisions.

💡Optimization checklist

The optimization checklist mentioned in the script is a tool that outlines the various actions needed to optimize Google Ads campaigns, including how often these actions should be performed. It serves as a guide for advertisers to systematically improve their campaigns' performance.

💡E-commerce checklist

The e-commerce checklist is a specific version of the optimization checklist tailored for businesses that sell products online. The script mentions that this checklist takes users through the process of optimizing shopping and Performance Max campaigns for e-commerce, indicating a specialized approach for different business models.

Highlights

Optimizing Performance Max campaigns involves five key areas for better ad performance.

Keywords and audiences are crucial for triggering ads and defining who sees them in Performance Max campaigns.

Performance Max campaigns operate on recommendations rather than hard targets for keywords and audiences.

Asset groups should be organized around products or keyword themes, not audiences, for effective campaign setup.

Insights can be reviewed to add relevant keywords and audiences, reinforcing Google's ad targeting.

Ad assets, including headlines, videos, and images, have a tiered rating system in Performance Max for quality assessment.

For e-commerce, optimizing products in the shopping feed is essential for aligning Google's spending with conversion outcomes.

Segmentation involves reviewing the distribution of products across different campaigns for strategic targeting.

Campaign segmentation is particularly important for e-commerce brands with varying product margins and seasonal factors.

Automated bidding strategies like Maximize Conversions and Maximize Conversion Value are part of campaign optimization.

Aaron Young will release separate videos focusing on advanced account structures and bidding strategies due to their complexity.

A Google Ads Optimization Checklist is used to guide users through the optimization process with recommended action frequencies.

The checklist is available for e-commerce and service-based businesses, with separate versions for each.

Search term audits and audience analysis are part of the optimization process, requiring a separate notes document for tracking.

Green and blue tags in audience insights indicate converting audiences that have or have not been added to the campaign.

Updating ad assets involves adding new headlines and images to improve performance based on tiered ratings.

For e-commerce, listing group analysis ensures that Google's spend aligns with high-conversion products.

Exclusion of products from campaigns can be considered when there is a significant spend without conversions over an extended period.

The optimization process aims to ensure that spending aligns with conversion outcomes for effective campaign performance.

Transcripts

welcome back to get Google ready for

2024 and in this lesson I'm going to be

taking you through the step-by-step

process in how to optimize your

performance Max campaigns now when it

comes to your performance Max campaigns

there's going to be five key areas that

you can go through and optimize for your

campaigns and the first part that you

can optimize in your performance Max

campaigns is your keywords and the

audiences so this is the keywords that

is triggering your ads and also the

audiences that Google is showing your

ads too however what I do want to make

really really clear that with

performance Max is you're not actually

setting targets or you're not setting

boundaries for what Google can and can't

do you're more giving recommendations

and really reinforcing to Google that

these are the keywords that you want to

Target and these are the audiences that

you want to Target and that's why it's

really really important when it comes to

setting up your performance Max

campaigns is that you're setting them

out with your asset groups which are

based around products or keyword themes

not around audiences i' see some people

they recreate uh the same products or

keywords but just targeting different

audiences and performance Max doesn't

work like that because Google makes it

very very clear that the keywords and

audience inputs that you're giving the

asset group are just that very much

recommendations they're they're not

going to be hard rules so that's the

first thing when it comes to keywords

and audiences yes you can go through and

review your insights and you can add in

extra keyword words or add an extra

audiences but please remember they're

just recommendations the second thing

that you can do when it comes to

optimizing your performance Max

campaigns is your ad assets so your

different headlines your different

videos and your different images

remember with performance Max that it

gives you that tiered rating score so

you either get ads that are ranked good

best or low the third thing that you can

do and this is especially true for

performance Max campaigns that are

operating with a shopping feeds so

e-commerce products what you can also do

is you can also go through and optimize

the products that Google is using or the

way that it's Google is spending between

the product feed the other thing that

you can do is you can go through and

review your segmentation and what that

means is that it's actually looking at

how many different campaigns you're

having and what products you've got in

different types of campaigns the reason

for why that is good especially for an

e-commerce brand is let's just say you

have some products which have different

product margins or they have different

traffic volumes or they may have some

seasonality factors so they might be for

example swimwear might be really popular

for 3 to four months of the year but

then aren't really a popular item so in

those cases what you can do is you can

break them out into different campaigns

and then finally you can go through and

review and optimize your different

automated bidding strategies so your

maximize conversions or your maximize

conversion value for today's video I'm

just going to focus on those first three

factors and the reason for that is

because when it comes to campaign

segmentation I'm going to be releasing

another video in the series about

Advanced account structures and then I'm

also going to be releasing another video

to focus purely on bidding because those

two last two optimalization actions are

a little more complicated I wanted to

give you a individual video for each of

those so right now let me take you

through how to optimize your performance

Max campaigns and what I want to let you

know that as we're going through this

process I'm going to be using my Google

ads optimization checklist and this is a

checklist which not only lets you know

all of the different action you need to

complete it also lets you know how often

they need to be completed and if you

want to get access to my Google ads

optimization checklist all you need to

do is to follow that link in the

description below so let's jump into a

screen share so I can show you how to

optimize your performance Max campaigns

the right way in 2024 so for your

performance Max campaigns there's

actually two different checklists you

can use there's this one which is my

e-commerce checklist which takes you

through the shopping and performance Max

or you can go over to my service based

checklist which is search performance

Max and display I will just reference

the e-commerce checklist but what I am

going to be doing is I'll be putting

links down to both checklists in the

video description so what we need to do

is firstly we're going to be going

through and reviewing the search term

Audits and the audiences so what you

want to be doing in here is that you

want to be selecting a performance Max

Campaign which we'll use this one in

here and where you want to be going is

into your insights and you can do both

of these actions on the same screen so

what you're looking at firstly in here

is you are looking at the search term so

we'll go for the last 28 days and then

what you can also do is you can also see

your audiences down here so generally

what I'll do when I'm doing this is I'll

actually have a separate notes document

that I'll have open as well and I

generally have this over to the side of

the screen and I'll show you what we do

from here I'll keep this one in through

here so when we go into the detailed

report is that what we're looking at

doing here is we're looking at are there

any Search terms which have been

converting so I can see through in here

and are there any which I know aren't in

our campaign so what we can do let's

just see here so I go through and just

copy this so I'll add to in here so as

you can see now I would go through and

do this longer but I just want to show

you the process so I've got here some

keywords and then what we go through and

do is that we go down into the audiences

so we need to go back into insights and

when it comes to the audiences what

you're looking at through here is that

when you get enough conversions you'll

see it by Impressions clicks and

conversions and the other things that

you will see in here is you'll see blue

tags and green tags now the blue tags

means that this audience has already

been added to your audience signal the

green tags mean that they haven't been

added but they are converting so Google

is focusing on them and what I basically

do is I don't focus on Impressions don't

even focus on clicks now before you get

this conversions tag you will only see

Impressions and clicks you may want to

add in some of these clicks but as long

as they're relevant but then when you

get to the conversion so for example

this is a baby product and you can see

that we've got this audience group

family vacationers now that makes sense

because obviously see you know you've

got with baby products they're also

families so what we can do from here is

that we then paste that in there and

then luxury Shoppers once again because

this is not a luxury item and because

it's got a personalization and it's not

a necessary kids product that's why it

would be picking up into luxury Shoppers

and what I would do there is I would add

this into my notes so you can see

through here we've got some keywords and

some audiences that we want to add and

then what we want to do from here is

that we want to go into the campaign we

going to go into the asset groups and

then in our signals we want to be doing

two things so we want to go through and

add the search themes which are these

ones in here and then when we're in the

audience signal what we want to do is so

we had family vacationers and also

luxury Shoppers and we wanted to add

them in now as I said remember these are

very much recommendations because as

we've said time and time again when we

come to Performance Max campaign Google

makes it very very clear that these are

just recommendations Google will go

beyond these selections so that's the

first thing that we want to go through

so the next part after after we've

actually gone through and reviewed our

keywords and audiences the next step is

that you want to go through and review

your ad assets so you click on view

details now you can see here that I'm

getting a data saying there's not enough

data and that's because we made some

changes not too long ago now because I

got that warning of not enough data

which can happen if you've recently made

some changes so if that's the case I

would just wait another couple of weeks

come back and check it and then you'll

get the data but what I'm going to be

doing in here is I've come over to

another campaign and and what you can

see through here is we've got this good

best now what we want to be looking for

is if there's anything with a low

performance so what I generally do from

here is you can see on these long

headlines these two have low

performances so I'll go through into

here click the edit button go into the

long headlines and basically choose

those two headlines which had the

perform performance and then add in some

other headlines so what you're wanting

to do through here now this is different

to a search campaign where you've got

two physical ads with this one we're

only using the these performance markers

so what we do is we just go through and

we want to update any headlines or

descriptions that have a low so there's

a couple of images that I need to come

up with and create new versions of those

images so we can add in some extra

testing and then the third thing that we

wanted to go through and show you how to

optimize in your performance Max

campaign and this one is only going to

be relevant for e-commerce Brands so

what you want to be doing is you want to

be going through your listing groups and

what you want to be checking here is

that you want to be checking to make

sure that where Google is spending the

money you you are also getting the same

level of conversion so what I'd be doing

through here is generally what I do is I

I filter this down by cost and what we

can see through here is that you know

we're getting a really good flow of

where we're spending the money we're

also getting the most conversions and

the most conversion value let's just

switch it over to the last 30 days what

you want to be looking at is something

like here this product now we don't have

enough data but you can see that this is

in the top 10 products in terms of spend

but it's not getting any conversions so

when you get a case like this I wouldn't

mark it off cuz this isn't enough data

generally you want to be looking at not

only 30 days let's go back to 60 days

and you can see 60 days it hasn't got

any spend and then let's even go back to

we're looking probably now at about 120

days you can see there's no spend there

so that's the way that you would go

through and have a look and really see

whether we want to exclude this product

now the one thing that I am looking at

through here is if you can kind of see

it was the 10th highest rank in terms of

spend since July but then when we go

back to the last 30 days you see how

Google's bumped it up to number six so

it's increasing the amount that it's

spending once again not enough yet for

me to be able to really exclude that but

if we were really really confident to

just to say look I'm ready to exclude

this product because we've you know

spent maybe $500 $600 on it and we're

not getting any conversions and if you

did want to exclude that you just go

here and press exclude but remembering

what you want to be doing here is it's

more just looking at this flow and you

just want to make sure that where you're

spending the money is also where you're

getting the majority of your conversions

and that's the process that you can use

to optimize your performance Max

campaigns in 2024 and remember if you

want to get access to my optimization

checklists all you need to do is to

follow that link in the description

below and you'll see an option to go to

the checklist for your if you're an

e-commerce brand or if you're a

service-based business so once again

thank you for joining me my name is

Aaron Young and I'm from defin Digital

Academy and remember that if you want to

stay up todate and know every time I

release a new video make sure that you

don't only subscribe but you turn on

that notification Bell and if you want

to go through and watch all of the

videos that have released so far in my

get Google ready series for 2024 just go

through watch this playlist right here

once again thanks for joining me see you

next time