Are you already overwhelmed with the number of ads and platforms you have to stay on top of and hate to hear about new changes coming? Unfortunately, we marketers have to keep rolling with the punches, and Google’s new Performance Max is yet another change.
Last November, Google announced that Performance Max had completed its beta successfully and was being rolled out to all merchants. This solution is a new way to buy Google ads across all their properties with the same campaign. It will also replace Smart Shopping and Local Campaigns this year altogether.
Performance Max was made in order to complement Search campaigns with all the rest of Google’s ad inventory, like YouTube, Display, Discover, and Gmail. By leveraging automation through bid and budget optimization, audience, attribution, and more, it can deliver more conversions at a lower cost.
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What exactly does Performance Max mean for Smart Shopping users?
While simplifying ad creation across multiple formats and placements sounds great, getting rid of Smart Shopping may cause concern among those in eCommerce. Rather than thinking of Smart Shopping as going away, think of Performance Max as an upgrade to them. It is, after all, built on Smart Shopping Ad technology.
Starting in April, all Smart Shopping will have a “one-click” upgrade option that will let you manually convert your ads. This will also roll out in June for Local Ads. Any new campaigns you make in April will automatically be in Performance Max. Then, from July through September, your ads will automatically get upgraded and you won’t be able to make old Smart Shopping or Local Ads.
Our go-to Google Shopping expert, Kirk Williams of ZATO Marketing, suggests having a plan in place well before July. This is something we know is going to be mandatory, so it’s best to be prepared on time and to test.
It’s important to note that Google has also stated that they have no plan to eliminate Standard Shopping yet. So, for those advanced marketers who prefer to be more in control, this avenue is still open. For now, at least!
Automation is the future
While some marketers get really nervous about automation taking over more and more of the optimization and management, it’s inevitable. With so many channels and so much performance data coming through, it’s becoming really difficult and inefficient to manage it all by hand.
Google has been pushing its automated solutions heavily in the past few years, while still leaving the door open for those who want to use the manual override.
At Optily, we’ve fully embraced the need for automation. Let robots handle the menial number-crunching so marketers can strategize and be creative.
On that note, we’re working on a Shopify data connector app that will launch next month. With this, we are able to link eCommerce platform data with Analytics, Google, and Facebook Ads metrics, in an industry first.
It’s really exciting that we can soon introduce the Shopify community with a single source of truth for their marketing data. On top of that, we provide instant recommendations on optimizing campaign budgets across Google, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Join our waitlist today and get special perks for being an early adopter!
(Cover image Source: Google)
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