Pmax: Testing, Testing... Is This Thing on Track?

Well well well, here we are again. Another blog post about Performance Max campaigns (or “Pmax” if you’re cool like that). Will Google ever give us the transparency we’re craving to fully optimize this new format? Is this just another cash grab luring novice advertisers into an “all-in-one” campaign format? Does 3-in-1 shampoo actually work as well as a more regimented hair care routine? These are the questions we’re ALL asking ourselves in the shower. Don’t tell me it’s just me…

Regardless! I’ve done the due diligence to give you answers. Not about the shampoo thing. The jury is still out on that one. But if you’re wondering where Pmax sits right now compared to your next best alternative, I’ve done some testing and I want to talk about it. If you can commit to reading through it all, I’ll commit to making it readable instead of using AI to log off early. Do we have a deal?

Ok. Pmax. Let’s catch up anyone who is reading about this type of campaign for the first time. I wrote a blog post last year detailing my experience with Google’s favorite way to ask for money in exchange for no transparency newest campaign type. Then, I wrote another one that was a little more flattering. Google listened to user feedback, Google learned, and things started to get better. Well, I’m back with another take, eager to go over “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” of this newer campaign type.

How’d It Go in 2024?

For some clients in 2024, Pmax didn’t just bring home the bacon – it brought home the entire Denny’s^® Grand Slam Breakfast. For a client advertising vintage jewelry, we were able to generate $114,866 in direct sales and another $319,006 in estimated lead value from Pmax campaigns alone. That’s $433,972 off of $92,088 in spend for an estimated total ROAS of $4.71! It was a roaring success… just don’t ask me exactly which keywords led to that success. 

We do get some insight, but the dreaded “Other search terms” section obscures a lot of the detail I would love to have as an advertiser. Plus, search volume of “100k - 1M” is an aggressively wide range. That’s like inviting me to a party and me texting you that I’m bringing between 1 and 10 friends. That’s a big difference!

The bottom line: We were able to drive a lot of success through Pmax for a client in 2024, but understanding how and why it worked remains a bit nebulous. Part of me wants to see granular keyword data to ensure we aren’t losing a significant portion of our budget to irrelevant search terms. The other part of me is just bummed that I can’t see all the different ways people try to spell “Jewellery”.

In another instance, a B2B software client was delighted to see a cost/lead that was about 3x lower than their search campaigns were producing! They were understandably less excited when they analyzed the quality of those leads and found little to no value out of what was being generated. They promptly sent their Pmax campaigns to the digital shredder and doubled down on traditional search campaigns for the rest of the year.

So was it Pmax’s fault that this lead quality was abysmal? While I do like taking jabs at Google from time to time, I can’t fully blame Pmax for this outcome. Google Ads has become dramatically more algorithmic, especially when it comes to bidding. That means the campaigns we set up can only do as well as the data we’re feeding back to Google. The Pmax campaigns didn’t know they weren’t doing a good job. It’s like a dog who brings you a dead bird on Christmas because it thinks it’s exactly what you wanted and it can’t understand why you’re not ecstatic. Ok, that analogy was weird, but I’m going to leave it up to my editors to remove it because I love it. (Editor’s note: I’ve had hound dogs and bird dogs my entire life and none of them have ever brought me a bird, whether alive or dead. That said, I’d be ecstatic if they did! So the analogy stays.)

Google needs to know whether the leads it's driving for you are quality or low-quality in order to optimize. Fortunately, there are ways to talk to Google’s algorithms. By connecting a CRM system like HubSpot or Salesforce to your Google Ads account, you can import lead quality data. That could look like separate conversion events for “leads” and “qualified leads” based on the lead scoring your sales team is providing. Once Google’s Pmax campaigns know which leads are high-quality, they can go out and find more of those quality leads.

The bottom line: As great as it is to have a campaign type that will let you reach all of Google’s placements in a single format, it’s only as strong as the information you feed back to it. Pmax CAN (and often does) work. It’s just not going to work right out of the box. You need a certain level of finesse (and if I’m being honest, technical drudgery) to make it work well, but the juice is very much worth the squeeze.

What are We Testing Now?

In the interest of attention spans, I’ll keep this section brief. What are we testing now to figure out the best way to use Pmax?

1. “Top 20 Product” Campaigns: For our Jewelry client, we originally opened Pmax up to 800+ products, trusting it to find the best ones to show for each user. But, we had a hunch that some products were more compelling than others. We decided to pick the 20 products that we felt were the most engaging and had an appropriate price point for digital marketing. We used custom labels within Google Merchant Center to isolate these 20 products and only included images and videos relating to these specific products. The result was a 93% increase in CTR over the standard Pmax campaign, and an 80% lower Avg. CPC. This represents a monumental increase in the amount of engagement earned from each ad! We are waiting on more time/spend to determine if sales and leads will also follow along with these engagement metrics, but early signs are promising.
   
   
2. Campaigns by Price Tier: Google’s bidding algorithms are great at maximizing revenue, hitting a ROAS target, or ensuring a cost/conv when you have enough budget and data to make them hum. However, high-price items can throw an interesting wrench into the gears when you accidentally signal to Google that it just might hit it big if it plays oooooone more hand of Blackjack. We observed a situation where a single ring priced at $160,000 was eating up a significant portion of our Pmax budget, even though it never sold. Poor Google didn’t know any better than to keep on betting because it understood that even if it takes $50,000 to get to a sale, that’s still a ROAS above $3. The only problem is that if that sale never comes, well…that’s a lot of money down the drain. We began to solve this problem by excluding all rings over $100,000. Then all rings over $80,000. It helped, but we wanted a conclusive understanding of which price point does the best in Google Ads. We set up several different campaigns, partitioning off products for 5 different ranges of prices to help us determine exactly which price point is high enough to contribute a solid AOV but not too high that Google’s algos need to check into Gambler’s Anonymous. So what was the result?!? Well, I guess I’m just going to have to write a part 4 to this series…
   
   

The Verdict

Pmax is weird. It challenges my entire SEM upbringing by asking me to let go of control and just trust it to do what it does best. But then it does a great job and I start to feel the trust issues slowly start to melt away. Until it doesn’t and I’m left asking myself “How can I tinker with this thing until it’s doing what I need it to do?” Fortunately, Google is continuing to roll out further advancements and transparency to this format in 2025 that could finally give advertisers the tools they need to reach their goals. At the very least, it’s fantastic fodder for my burgeoning blogging career, so stay tuned for more updates and reach out to us if you’d like to give Pmax campaigns a whirl in 2025.

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