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Google has announced several Performance Max (PMax) updates to ring in the new year, including additional campaign controls to steer incorporation of AI, deeper search reporting tools and improved asset group reporting.
Campaign-level negative keywords, which allows advertisers to exclude specific queries they don’t want to show ads on, is rolling out globally after being released in beta at DMEXCO last year.
This stands to offer improved brand safety and suitability by ensuring certain ‘negative’ keyword search queries don’t yield results that include specified ads.
Brands can also now use PMax to prioritise winning new customers using its ‘customer lifecycle goals’. Previously only available in beta, 'high value new customer mode’ will be made available to all advertisers, allowing them to use customer match to specify their ads towards high-value customers.
Google AI will use advertisers’ data to then predict which new customers are likely to maximise lifetime value for the business and bid more to win them over.
Reporting for this feature is available at a campaign level, meaning advertisers can see exactly how many new customers a particular campaign is driving and how many are considered high value new customers.
A Google spokesperson told Campaign's sister site PMW: “Advertisers are gaining more granular control with these updates, allowing for more precise AI steering and alignment with specific marketing goals, all the while keeping advertisers in the driver's seat.
“We’re giving PMax campaigns a transparency boost to provide a clearer picture of what's driving results, enabling data-driven optimisation and more informed decision-making. We’re also delivering ways to help advertisers become more actionable and analyse asset effectiveness in more granular detail, ultimately leading to more impactful campaigns.”
Expanded search controls
Search themes is also rolling out to all advertisers, after being previously introduced in beta, letting advertisers indicate queries they know customers are using to search for them and are additive to the queries and placements PMax predicts will perform well based on their assets, feeds and landing pages.
In a blogpost, Tal Akabas, director of product management, Google Ads, said: “You’ll be able to use search terms insights to see whether queries are coming from Performance Max’s keywordless targeting or from the search themes you’ve added.
“You’ll also find an indicator next to your search themes that tells you how useful your search themes are. These new reporting insights will help you understand if the search themes you provided are driving incremental traffic, on top of what Performance Max would find on its own, or whether you’d benefit from updating your search themes.”
Beyond the official launch of these new features, additional tools are also soon to be released in beta, including age-based demographic exclusions and a ‘devices’ beta allowing campaign customisation to specifically target computer, mobile or tablet traffic.
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