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Consumer journeys are increasingly complex. 54% of shoppers have used five or more channels, such as video and social media, to shop over a two-day period.1 With shoppers switching between channels more and more, Google's new goal-based campaign type, Performance Max can accelerate growth & increase conversions within your business through bidding, targeting, creatives & attribution using AI-powered solutions.
Advertisers using Performance Max get over 18% more conversions at a similar cost per action.
[Google Ads & Commerce Blog (2023)]2
Your messaging is your most powerful tool in driving the performance of your ads. By changing your messaging, you can customise your campaign to promote new products or offerings.
With Performance Max, you can organise your creative assets into groups in your campaign – usually around a product or category. Once you have allocated a variety of creative assets to a group, they can be tailored to relevant ad formats by AI to build more ads specific to your target audience.
Creative assets best practices
Google Shopping (GSS) general tips
Create your campaign and upload your assets ahead of time – especially if you have a specific start date. Remember, assets can take a few days to be approved, especially video assets. Set a start date and make sure the campaign and all assets are ‘Enabled’.
Provide plenty of assets. The fewer assets in your campaign, the fewer auctions they’ll be eligible to enter.
Refresh your creative assets as your marketing message evolves or to customise your campaign to promote new products, menu items or sales.
For weekend sales, start the campaign 2–3 weeks in advance, then refresh your assets frequently to move from generic store assets to sales-focused assets.
If an asset is not performing well, don't just delete it; replace it with a new one. Deleting assets will limit ads served in your campaign.
Asset grouping best practices
One asset group should suffice when:
Multiple asset groups are recommended when:
Best practices by asset type
Highlight important information about your products and offerings with keywords that are relevant to your business and add context for your customers. Promotions and discounts can spark interest and drive conversions.3
Use sentence cases in your creative assets for a more organic and authentic-feeling message.
Create text assets that make sense when combined. Avoid repeating messages from your headline in your description, or vice versa.
Use the maximum number of image inventory specs your brand has available.
Use authentic, high-quality images that inspire people to engage with your brand.
Make sure your images are clear at both large and small sizes, as they will probably be resized for different channels.
Use clear backgrounds and avoid text around images.
Avoid overly staged stock photography.
Show your brand or product in the first two seconds.
Add subtitles or voice-overs to your videos. They can boost conversions by 20% and lower CPA by 18%.4
REMEMBER: The more high-quality text, images and video assets you provide, the more formats Performance Max can create – and the more places your ad can appear.
Evaluating your asset performance
1) Asset performance ratings
Within your asset groups, you’ll see ratings for your text, image and video assets. Any new assets you add to a group or modifications you make to an existing group will need to go through this review process again before they can be used.
Asset performance ratings:
2) Ad strength
Ad strength is an aggregated rating of all assets within an asset group in real time. It measures the relevance, quality and diversity of your ad copy and ranges from ‘Poor’ to ‘Excellent’.
3) [New!] Asset-group level reporting
Asset-group level reporting helps you create better-performing assets by showing how your current asset groups are performing in conversions, conversion value, cost and other metrics. The system shows the asset that has the highest probability of driving conversion value at the set target ROAS, taking into consideration audiences, surfaces and position in the sales funnel. If the same asset is assigned to two groups with equal characteristics, historical performance will determine which is more likely to be displayed in the auction.
Continue to Part 2: Integrating, optimising and assessing
