Are Performance Max campaigns superior to Smart Shopping campaigns?

[Irena]

Hello,

Are Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads better than Smart Shopping campaigns? Any opinions?

Thanks!

[p1Commerce]

Google engineers developed performance max to help novice advertisers access all the available assets within one campaign.

Although this makes the campaign setup and configuration less complicated, it can deliver mixed results.

Performance Max serves ads on Youtube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, Maps, and local ads.

Although it sounds nice to have access to all of those assets within one campaign, Google has also simplified the reporting making it harder to know what works and doesn't.

Smart Shopping is a mixture of standard Shopping with display ads integrated.

When using Smart Shopping, you are not getting visibility on Youtube, Search, Discover, Gmail, Maps, and local ads.

We typically like all the control we can get with reporting independent of that asset, which is why we strongly prefer Standard Shopping.

Standard Shopping is similar to Smart Shopping but doesn't have integrated display ads.

When Smart Shopping launched, we were not impressed that they suppressed the visibility of search terms, so we continued to run Standard Shopping with an independent Display campaign.

Beginning in June 2022, Google will start converting the Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max, and if not configured correctly, you can see poor results.

For now, we intend to stick with Standard Shopping and layered Display Campaigns.

Hope that helps. 

[EmmanuelFlossie]

With my clients I would say a small percentage only have performance max. I have experienced very random peaks of costs for no good reason, sometimes no performance, sometimes poor performance, even weeks where it goes down then up.

The issue is, not knowing the data. This causes myself and my clients not to trust Google. If Google was 100% transparent, I would believe trust will be much higher, and PMax would be used a lot more.

However, I do have to say, some clients, it just works really well, and I have not disabled it. But the majority it has not been great, due to the above reasons.

My recommendation, test it out, and see how it goes.

If you rely on automation, then you have no choice then to upgrade in any case, considering Smart Shopping will disappear this year.

So the only choices are standard shopping or PMax

[Irena]

Thank you all for your answers! We have also Standard Shopping campaigns. We can't see upgrade (to PM) option in these campaigns. The question is, if we'll create the new campaigns (Performance Max) with the IDs of the products from these Standard Shopping campaigns, will all the historical data from them be used in the new campaigns (Performance Max)? Is data related to the product ID or how it works? I am a little bit lost here. Thanks! 😊

[EmmanuelFlossie]

When creating a performance max campaign, it will use historical data, yes.

[Irena]

Thank you so much, @EmmanuelFlossie! By the way, can you advice if it makes sense to choose "Optimize campaign for acquiring new customers" option or not - please see the attached screenshot below. Thanks!

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Each business will have different results. I recommend you test 1 month with, and 1 month without. Then compare the data and make a decision based on the results.

[EmmanuelFlossie]

I just want to add that there is no learning period, if you migrate smart shopping to Pmax.

If you create a new Pmax campaign without the migration setup then there is a learning period.

[Irena]

Thank you, @EmmanuelFlossie! I didn't know that. Also, would you recommend creating separate PM campaigns for different product color variations or to add all variations in one PM campaign? Because some variations perform better than other, therefore I thought that it would be logical to create separate campaigns for each variation, so Target ROAS can be different in each. How do you think?

[EmmanuelFlossie]

I recommend you test out what works best. Each business and account is different, even when selling the same items. Pretty much non of my clients setups are the same. All very different.

However yes, if you have different ROAS targets, then separate them into each campaign. Be careful not to split too much, the less data a campaign has, the less it can learn and perform well.

[Irena]

Thank you!

[Scott_Booher]

Could you please expand on the above statement?  Our Smart Shopping campaign has been running for 8 months with very consistent $13 cost/conversion, automatically converted to a Perf Max campaign this month, and now we have a $41 cost/conversion, two weeks in.  Ouch.  I had assumed that Google would bring over the learnings from the Smart Shopping campaign, but that doesn't appear to be the case?  Thanks.

[EmmanuelFlossie]

A lot of merchants have complained that even with the migration, PMax is re-learning causing higher costs. If you go by what Google says, the learning phase can take up to 1.5 months.

For most of my clients I have disabled PMax and went with standard shopping.

[SarahA]

Hi there, 
I'm hoping you can help with this question --I was recently prompted in Google Ads manager to upgrade my Smart Shopping campaign (which I initially set up through Shopify) to performance max, as the notification said that all Smart Shopping campaigns will be switched over to Performance Max anyway in July.

SO, I switched my Smart Shopping campaign in Google to performance max but now the campaign seems to have disconnected from Shopify. I'm seeing a running balance and active conversion information in Google Ads manager but nothing in Shopify under the Google marketing channel report. How do I correct this?

Thanks!

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Don't use Shopify to see data or manage Google Ads related things.

Instead, go directly to Google Ads.

There is no correction, the free app is simply not improved to handle new data. I recommend ignoring Shopify for Google Ads related data.

Besides, you get more data in Google Ads, which will help your business.

[SarahA]

Thank you. Yes, I know that Ads Manager has much more data, but I'm
concerned that now when I update or list new products in Shopify it will
not sync to the new performance max campaign through the Merchant Center.

Shopify Google channel/ and corresponding marketing campaign as viewed in
Shopify appear to be completely disconnected from Merchant Center.

When I log into the Merchant Center, it's telling me that I should
advertise, but I am! So the merchant center & ads are disconnected from
Shopify now that I changed to Performance max and I need to know how to
reconnect them.

Thank you,
Sarah

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Go to Google Ads > click on your Pmax campaign > Products > in 24 hours after you add a new product, it should appear.

If that is not the case, then check Google Merchant Center if it's added.

The issue you have in Shopify, should not affect the feed, however you are using a bugged out app. For example with Google now automatically enabling automatic updates, the free app will not be able to update.

For example product identifiers are not showing correctly.

I never use the free app as it has a lot of issue. Instead for data feed I use: https://apps.shopify.com/multiple-google-shopping-feeds

[shareiteffect]

Performance Max is for all you Google Ads only; while Smart Shopping campaigns can help manage your ads from different platforms.  I prefer Google Ads, because it's free and robust.

[sampymishra]

Hi @Irena 

I would say that Performance max still has to be tested for some time to get more data. It has been working for some of our clients whereas some are not happy. 
One of the advantages is that you get exposure over all the google channels. 

You can also use our app the Easy Google Shopping Feed app by AdNAbu, which manages your merchant center feed and other advanced features such as Multilanguage, Multicurrency, and Metafields. 

You can also get in touch with our experts and request a demo. 

Hope this helps.

[shakeharoon]

Hello Irena, 

How many product variations should I add for any product in my PMax campaign? Is every product variation in shopping ads considered an impression?

For example I sell a desk XYZ which comes in 10 sizes. If someone searches that desk on Google shopping, they might see 6 ads for different sizes. Is each of them an impression? 

If so, doest make sense to show someone 6 ads for the same item. Would rather someone else saw that ad. Would increase my impression share so much. If not considered a separate impression, than its all good. 

Thanks  

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Not because you submit variants, means every variant will be eligible for an ad auction at the same time.

Yes sometimes multiple variants can ben shown to the same user at once, this depends on the search term, the intent of the user, historical behavior, global user behavior and so on. Over 200 factors define what users see.

It is better to show more variants, as the equity you cover is greater, increasing the chances of a click, thus increasing your overall CTR.