For Google advertisers in 2022, Performance Max campaigns have loomed large, with Google leaning into campaign automation in a big way.

Performance Max is a goal-based campaign type that allows advertisers to access all of their Google Ads inventory from a single campaign across channels like YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. Performance Max combines Google’s automation technologies across bidding, budget optimisation, audiences, creatives, attribution, etc.

Google has pushed its latest offering at every opportunity, even replacing Smart Shopping and Local campaigns by the end of Q3 2022.

Further building on the Performance Max charm offensive, Google has announced three new features that will be rolling out in the coming weeks.

The new updates

New features include a new customer acquisition goal type, consumer interest insights and a one-click upgrade tool. Combined, they are designed to deliver better results than ever before.

Eduardo Indacochea, Sr. Director, Product Management, Google

“Whether you’re looking to stay ahead of shifting consumer behaviour or unlock incremental conversions from new places, Performance Max finds the optimal mix of Google Ads inventory and formats to help you drive better results.”

Here’s how each new feature will play out.

1.     A new customer acquisition goal type

Customer Acquisition goals are new to Performance Max, but Smart Shopping advertisers should be familiar with the type. As the latter is being force migrated to the former, it would have been incredibly rude of Google not to bring across the features that advertisers used – so here we have it, Customer Acquisition on Performance Max.

With this goal, you will be able to bid for customers similar to existing ones and focus on optimising for new customers only.

Brands might find this tool very useful – Google says it can deliver a 12% increase in conversion value. In comparison, big companies such as Estée Lauder Taiwan used it to land a 41% lower cost per acquisition and a 45% better return on ad spend (ROAS).

2.     Consumer interest insights

The Insights page is getting an overhaul, and Google will include Customer Interests Insights within it. With that update, you’ll be able to see which search themes are bringing in the most conversions. That’s kinda a big deal because data of that level has never been provided in Performance Max before.

Google says there’ll be two new insights for Performance Max users:

• Asset audience insights.
• Diagnostic insights.

Eduardo Indacochea, Sr. Director, Product Management, Google

“With asset audience insights, you’ll be able to better understand how your text, image and video assets resonate with specific customer segments.”

Google gives an outdoor retailer as an example of how asset audience insights can be used properly. If you see customers engaging more with images of your product in action (say a mountain bike being ridden down a track) than the image of the product itself, you can use that to guide creative strategy.

Diagnostic insights do what it says on the tin: these provide an overview of setup issues that prevent your ads from showing, and each issue includes suggestions to fix it.

Being provided with more data with which to guide creative policy and an immediate solution to fix ads that aren’t showing has clear benefits – marketers will be able to improve ROI, create content that resonates with their audience better and save money on dud ads.

3.     One-click upgrade tool

The one-click upgrade tool can be used to migrate your campaigns into Performance Max.

Google is rolling this out in phases, and you’ll get a notification in your Google Ads account when it’s ready for you.

Eduardo Indacochea, Sr. Director, Product Management, Google

“When you upgrade your Smart Shopping or Local campaign, it will become a new, separate Performance Max campaign that keeps the learnings from your previous campaign to maintain consistent performance.”

Having a one-click upgrade tool is designed to make marketers’ lives easier, who will be able to migrate everything over without the stress of doing so manually.

With Meta (Facebook & Instagram) performance campaigns tanking post-iOS 14.5, smart advertisers will undoubtedly look to experiment with Performance Max as they attempt to regain lost ground. Both Meta and Google have a combined reach of around 3 billion users each, so Google’s improving non-Search Ads offers fresh hope for frustrated Meta advertisers.

Performance Max campaigns are still reasonably new-ish, so for advertisers looking to break new ground or tune-up existing campaigns, check out some of Google’s recommended best practices here.