Four Brand New Features For Performance Max

Performance Max is the newest Google Ads campaign and is soon to become the next generation of local campaigns and smart shopping – so I think it’s safe to say that it’s not going anywhere. 

In the last few months, Google has gradually introduced new features to Performance Max including ‘advanced location targeting’ controls and ‘diagnostic insights’ which were rolled out earlier this month. 

Naturally, as a new automated campaign, we previously identified some drawbacks of Performance Max which included ‘lack of control’. However, it seems that with 4 more new features being announced again this month, Google is continuing to look at ways to maximise their Google Ads campaign and offer valuable insights into their performance. 

The following new features have been rolled out to assist with these main areas:

• Get more ideas to improve your results
• Use new levers to steer automation based on your unique understanding of your business
• Gain deeper transparency into your performance

Now take a look at everything you need to know about these new features and how they can help further customise your Performance Max campaigns.

Seasonality Adjustments

Although Smart Bidding already factors in predicted seasonal events, Performance Max seasonality adjustments allows advertisers to prepare for major changes to conversion rates that are sudden. It’s recommended to use seasonality adjustments for short periods and events, usually ranging from 1-7 days, such as a week-long promotion or sale.  Effectively, this new feature will help you inform your bid strategy of any anticipated changes for any future events.

Optimisation Score

If you work in PPC I’m sure you’re all so familiar with optimisation scores. Performance Max campaigns have now fully launched optimisation scores, allowing your campaigns to grow and find recommendations that help you take quick action to drive better results. Keep your eyes on the score as new recommendations will be added over time.

Explanations

Over the coming weeks explanations will become available to all Performance Max campaigns. Explanations give you insights into large changes in your Google Ads account performance. They help identify fluctuations in your performance and even provide recommendations to help diagnose these issues so that you can react quickly. 

Explanations are extremely beneficial for saving time as you don’t have to spend hours manually cross-referencing multiple tools to understand performance shifts. You will better understand any performance changes and will quickly find out why it happened.

Data Exclusions

Excluding data can prevent inaccurate issues with conversion tracking from impacting your Performance Max bid strategy. Data Exclusions can tell Google’s smart bidding to ignore data from dates where your campaign had issues with conversion tracking (any data that affected accuracy of conversions or conversion value). This could be issues such as website outages or any tracking issues. 

Summary

Although Performance Max is still in its ‘learning’ phase and advertisers have mixed emotions and results about this new campaign, it’s inevitable that more features will continue to be announced throughout the year. These new feature updates are aimed at giving advertisers more data, transparency and further control over their campaigns. 

If you’re yet to try a Performance Max campaign, take a look at our ‘beginners guide’ on how to create them here.

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