PMax has been around for some time now, and it seems that a lot of people talk about it. But I still see some common mistakes being made. So, let’s review some easy-to-fix mistakes that could be affecting your PMax performance.
Negative keywords
Trust me, you need to add negative keywords. Otherwise, you might be spending money on irrelevant searches.
While campaign-level negative keywords are in beta, there is a workaround for adding negative keywords to your PMax campaigns. Write to Google Support. Yes, I know, a shitty solution, but a solution nonetheless.
You can just write to them, telling them you want to add negative keywords. They will send you a form. Or fill out their form in advance. And then include it in your first email.
Usually, they are really within a day when it comes to PMax. But you do have to wait until they confirm that the negative keywords were added.
My tip is to think in advance about what keywords you want to add to your PMax so you don’t have to fill in that form again and wait.
Some people recommend adding negative keywords on the account level. It might work, but here’s what you should consider:
- there is a limit of 1000 negative keywords
- those negative keywords will apply to all campaigns. Make sure you understand that.
- Usually you do want to exclude your brand keywords and have them in a search campaign. In this case, account-level negative keywords won’t help you.
If none of this applies to you, for example, you only have PMax campaigns (which would be a bit weird), then go ahead.
Brand keywords
Exclude your brand keywords from PMax and create a separate Search campaign. If you don’t do it, PMax will take credit for those conversions, and your PMax results will look better than they actually are.
Brand campaign is way better as a separate Search campaign where you can control costs, and you know exactly what’s happening.
PMax is a black box.
Besides, brand traffic is your BOFU (bottom of the funnel) traffic. PMax is MOFU (middle of the funnel traffic). Those should be measured separately anyway.
Search themes
PMax with Search themes will eat your Search campaigns for lunch.
Search Themes are not keywords and don’t work like targeting. It’s more of a guideline for Google to understand the direction you want it to go. Will it go there? Not always, as PMax campaigns learn from data, and can ignore Search Themes if conversions are coming from somewhere else.
You can add words and phrases to help Google understand what you are offering and help PMax campaigns reach the right audience. By combining your expertise with Google AI, you can expand your reach to relevant customers across Google channels, including Search.
By the way, your ads might appear on the Search network without using Search Themes. Performance Max campaigns will use other provided Signals to match certain queries.
Most importantly, PMax will take priority over your broad and phrase match keywords. Only exact match keywords in Search campaigns are prioritized over PMax.
Misunderstanding Audience signals
Similarly, Audience signals are not targeting as well. You have to understand that PMax looks at what converts. It doesn’t care what you have. Whatever you add when creating PMax, is just a guide for Google. There isn’t anything strict about those settings.
So next time you think about your Audience signals, don’t overcomplicate things.
Wrong Lead signals
PMax for leads can work but requires a bit of work. Of course, it won’t work for all businesses, but I’ve seen some great examples.
However, before you run PMax for leads, you have to remember how PMax works. The main goal for this campaign is to get you conversions. If it’s easy to become a lead, for example, just enter a name and an email, then you might be flooded with spam leads, or leads that don’t convert at a later stage.
To avoid this, you have to feed the correct lead signals to PMax, so it can learn what is actually valuable.
You can have your lead sign up as a conversion, but you need to send additional information when that lead becomes a Qualified lead or even signs a contract. What is a qualified lead is up to you. You need to make sure that those initial leads qualify, that they are your target audience and are interested in your product. Then, send this back to Google Ads and use this conversion instead of the initials for PMax campaigns.
This way, it will learn about the “correct” leads and not the spammy ones. You could send your “contracts signed leads” information, but keep in mind that PMax needs a lot of conversions to work properly, so you can’t narrow it down too much.
Not having a Product feed
I’m talking about e-commerce business here. Of course, you can run a PMax campaign without a product feed, but in my experience, it just runs better with it. Remember that PMax transitioned from Smart shopping campaigns.
If you have success without a product feed, great. But if you’re looking for things to test, then try adding a product feed and see what happens.
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