Google Ads Performance Max campaigns are due to be released in 2021 for advertiser who request to be part of the beta test.
The ads will be a “next step” in the use of machine learning throughout the Google ads system.
What Are Performance Max Campaigns?
Performance Max Campaigns Are Conversion Focused
Performance max ads are conversion focused and optimize based on conversion data sent from the advertisers website. Ideally this would be google tracking events for:-
- Sales
- Customer Acquisition
- Lead Generation
The campaigns will need a certain amount of data to start building the audience matching capabilities. Once the machine learning algorithms have enough data they will start segmenting a look-a-like audience for the most valuable visitors.
Most of this is already available within Google Ads but Performance Max campaigns will take it a step further with more advanced ML algos.
Google Ads Performance Max Inventory
Once a target audience is defined the campaigns will run across the entire portfolio of Google properties including:
- Google Search
- YouTube
- Display Network
- Gmail
- Discover
- Google Apps
The actual ads themselves will need to be dynamic ads. This means the advertiser will upload text, images and optionally video. Google will go about using this content to create ads and fit them into the vast quantities of inventory it has available.
Conversion Value Rules
As part of the move towards conversion focused campaigns Google will be adding conversion value rules which will enable advertisers to attach meta-data to conversion events to provide additional data to the algos.
This will make it easier for advertisers to manipulate the data and “teach” the machine learning systems better. AI is only as intelligent as the data fed into it and by providing the best quality of data in the algorithms will be able to closer match the perfect target audience for your ads.
Reading Between The Lines
Google’s announcement looks to be paving the way for them to start incorporating more data into their advertising network.
Data that might not be manually targetable might be made available to the machine learning algorithms to improve campaign targeting performance.
Better performance will lead to higher CPM’s and more revenues for the company ultimately.
Google has more data on us than any other company. They own chrome and have access to search history, google analytics is setup on every other website, android phones literally run on Google software.
Google could bridge privacy concerns by leveraging some of this data behind the scenes to create highly effective advertising.
Google is leading the machine learning revolution. They are behind the widely popular Tensorflow software. Their expertise in AI combined with the data they have access to provides a huge opportunity for performance max campaigns and other initiatives to improve the Google Ads platform.
Facebook Ads is known for the laser targeting and excellent look-a-like audience segmentation. Google might be playing catch up but performance max campaigns could be a step in the direction of using more data for marketing purposes.
Conclusion
Google Ads Performance Max campaigns will be coming in 2021. Brand advertisers and agencies can get beta access by contacting an account rep.
Performance max campaigns will leverage market leading machine learning technology to enhance the performance of their Google Ads campaigns.
Machine learning when combined with the huge resources of data Google has available provides a huge opportunity to revolutionize online advertising.
ML aglorithms will work behind the scenes to match patterns of conversion data and segment highly targeted audiences. This will likely make campaigns more effective and enable advertisers to bid more for traffic.
As with any new technology in the ad-tech industry there is a window of opportunity for performance marketers.
More information can be found on the official announcement here: https://youtu.be/td9UwDomGtY
If you’d like to get on the beta list then speak to your account rep.
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