Everything these days appears to either be “smart” or have some form of “machine learning” involved. Whether it’s a phone, a TV, or a fridge, our transfer of power to the machines may be well on its way.
This technocratic trend has driven forward everything in the digital world and the marketing industry is certainly no different. Tech giants like Google and Meta (Facebook) have relentlessly pursued ways to make their ad platforms as low-touch and automated as sub-humanly possible.
In the past, I have commented on the drawbacks of allowing companies that you give money to, to control how you give them money— but does all of this automation really have to result in some nightmarish marketing Black Mirror episode? Or is it truly a revolutionary step forward for businesses marketing online? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
Google’s latest venture into this realm of automation, Performance Max Campaigns, were released in November of last year and have been built up to be the next evolutionary step in digital advertising on the platform, but is it everything that it was hyped up to be? Is more automation the best decision for you or your business? In this post, I’ll break down:
Performance Max is a campaign type in Google Ads where you define a goal and provide all of the assets and information about what you are advertising, and Google then auto-generates ads that can serve across all of its available placements. That means you can run ads on Search, Maps, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discovery networks all from a single campaign.
Performance Max essentially takes responsive ads and smart campaigns to the next level, combining these features all in one place. In order to run Performance Max campaigns effectively, them, you need to provide Google with your:
The biggest question many have in regards to Performance Max is whether or not it should replace their current campaigns and be the sole source of performance in the account. The quick answer is no. Performance Max is best used as a supplement to your pre-existing efforts. And since it is a goal-based campaign type, it is best used when you have specific conversion goals (conversion goals is a relatively new feature from November 2021) like driving online sales or generating leads) and when you aren’t limited by which channel your ads appear on.
In his review on Performance Max, Dean Long says this campaign type is also best for advertisers who:
The surface objective here—to make advertising on Google’s networks easier and more accessible—is enticing to the novice user who isn’t quite familiar on how to run Google Ads and is overwhelmed by the plethora of options available. So does it work and if so, does it work better than the alternative? Let’s run through some pros and cons of Performance Max campaigns.
Feedback that I have heard about on Performance Max has been generally positive with many of the drawbacks being the ones that I will mention next.
The results of Google’s Performance Max case study—take with a grain of salt, although I don’t doubt the validity of its claims.
The irony of Performance Max is that it inherently should appeal to novice users, yet many of the cons or drawbacks come into play when a user makes “novice” mistakes.
Are you wasting money in Google Ads? Find out fast with the free Google Ads Performance Grader.
Whenever more automation is introduced to digital marketing platforms, there are three major avenues that people within the space typically go:
Here is a look at the two ends of that spectrum.
A lot of the angles or arguments you may get from folks like me who have been working within these digital platforms professionally for many years may air on the side of cynicism but does that mean we’re right or just stuck in our ways?
I recall a time when Facebook sunset its Power Editor tool and blended it into the core Ads Manager. At the time I was furious but as the years have passed the memory of Power Editor has faded and if I were to revert back to it I would probably have a bone to pick.
Power users who have been running ads for a long time are comfortable with the platforms as they exist and aren’t always receptive to radical changes that alter their day-to-day management. But it is possible that Performance Max is actually good for the long run. If it becomes proven to work for clients or the marketers themselves, these criticisms will fade and there will be a greater acceptance that these tools are superior to controlling every button and switch yourself.
PPC influencer Jyll Saskin Gales is one such proponent of this school of thought. In a recent Tweet, she shared that though it took two months, her Performance Max campaign hit the sweet spot, resulting in a spike in conversions and her lowest CPA yet.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who are more skeptical of automation. Some feel that automation is often marketed by Google to users in an altruistic “To help you get more out of the platform” sentiment, when in reality (many times) automation allows these companies to make more money.
(In my opinion), Google reduces visibility (think search terms report) and then says “this marketing thing on our platform is so hard…just give us the keys and we’ll deliver better results for you.” Those who have been in this industry long enough know that Google and Meta’s primary concern above all else is revenue. If the advertiser is in the dark about how very specifically their money is being spent, or if they lack the controls to really refine how that money is spent, they will inevitably spend more money.
The counter-argument is that “wouldn’t novice advertisers spend more in the past when everything was less automated and more complicated?” The answer is both yes and no. Yes, novice advertisers would try and fail and waste money in doing so along the way. However, with automation, it has never been easier to spend more money, deliver some form of return, and continue to use the platform.
So it’s not that users are just throwing money away now; the argument is that they have less control to spend it exactly how they intend to. Therefore the platforms themselves are still effective, yet how much of the money is being spent efficiently and exactly how is more unclear than ever.
I don’t believe AI in marketing or automation within digital marketing platforms is necessarily good or bad. The reality is that we are at a point in the stage of artificial intelligence or “machine learning” where a great degree of human intervention or direction is still required. Is it possible that someday, all of digital marketing will be fully automated? Perhaps, but right now, the key to a successful paid media strategy is that of the individual leveraging the automation in order to get the most out of it. The main point, as with anything in digital marketing, is that every business is different and you have to leverage the tools available to you that are going to help you.
If you want to give Performance Max a try, you can find a helpful tutorial, along with other helpful resources, in our list of free Google Ads training courses. If you’re already using Performance Max, let us know what you think of it in the comments below!
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