Performance Max campaigns were at the forefront of the conversation at Google’s Marketing Live event earlier this year. Here’s what we know: Smart Shopping and Local campaigns will soon be replaced with Performance Max campaigns, with the upgrades to be complete by September 2022.
With the months speeding past, if you haven’t already, it’s time to jump into action to prepare for Google’s Performance Max changeover. Here are the steps you should take.
Familiarise yourself with Performance Max Campaigns
As a novel campaign type, Performance Max campaigns are different to what we have seen before. Advertisers everywhere should be looking to get comfortable with the ins and outs of these campaigns, especially as Google has been continually releasing new features since its launch in November 2021.
Not sure where to start? Don’t worry, we have been busy writing articles to keep you up to date on the latest. If you are already familiar and want to update yourself on the latest features, read our article on (link new post not live yet). If this campaign type is new for you and you need a crash course on the basics, learn what you need to know about Performance Max campaigns.
Create New Campaigns with Performance Max
What better way to understand Performance Max than by creating a campaign yourself? We recommend getting ahead of the game and only creating Performance Max campaigns rather than Local or Smart Shopping from now onwards, as these will shortly be replaced and it’s important to get a good hold of Performance Max before the other options are removed. You’ll still be able to access ad inventory from Smart Shopping & Local campaign types, whilst also discovering new inventory and formats for across the network.
Upgrade with the One-Click Tool
Google has recently rolled out its One-Click upgrade tool, which has been available from April for Smart Shopping campaigns and was released in June 2022 for Local campaigns.
You’ll be able to access the tool from the Campaigns and Recommendations pages as soon as it is made available in your account, which you should be notified about. With the tool, you’ll now have the flexibility and ease to automatically transfer existing campaigns to Performance Max, maintaining the same learnings, budget data and settings as your previous campaign. You’ll also be able to decide which campaigns to upgrade, either one by one or all at once.
This tool was mentioned in our recent article on updated Performance Max campaign features, click here if you’d like to find out more about the new features released recently. (LINK)
Upgrade Automatically
Google has announced that Smart Shopping campaigns will begin to be automatically upgraded from July if they haven’t already been transferred, with all Local and Smart Shopping campaigns globally being automatically updated by September.
Additional Preparations
Once you have upgraded to Performance Max, it is important to optimise creative assets to maximise performance across the variety of formats and platforms that Performance Max enlists.
By adding a variety of creative assets (videos, text and images), you’ll be eligible to run across a greater number of surfaces and allow the campaign maximal opportunity to optimise with more room to experiment. Be sure to keep an eye on the insights to see which creatives are driving results so that you can continually improve your campaign’s performance.
If you would like our award-winning team to take care of your Google Ads account or other digital marketing services, feel free to get in touch and see how we could help.
