Google Ads offers a variety of ways to promote your content, products, and services. Whether you’re running local campaigns to gather more clients or a global marketing strategy to increase brand awareness and lead generation, there’s always the right option for your needs.
Among all the options provided, the Google Performance Max campaign is one of the most popular and effective options. They can be the perfect option for boosting your online sales, better understanding your target audience signals, and a series of other objectives. What is Performance Max in Google Ads? We’ve explained that in detail in one of our articles.
One of the best ways to understand how Google Ads Performance Max Campaigns work and get inspiration for creating your own ones is through examples. Google’s advertising channels allow you to display a variety of creative assets, so whether you plan on doing a single campaign or a series of different ads, creativity might be a powerful ally for achieving the desired results.
If you’re looking for Google Ads Performance Max examples to gather insights and inspire your next campaign, this article is perfect for you. We will show you performance max campaign examples regarding every platform where it’s available to ensure you find the right inspiration for your next marketing strategy.
Make sure to look at all aspects to understand better how this kind of campaign works. Here’s everything you need to know about these campaigns and the main examples:
What Are Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max Campaigns are one of Google’s most complete campaign options for businesses that want to reach their objectives in the fastest and most effective way possible. The main difference between these and traditional search campaigns, for example, is that Google Performance Max campaigns display your ads throughout all of Google’s channels. This way, you can not only generate a bigger audience signal but also reach more potential customers than if you create separate campaigns.
Thanks to Google’s machine learning, you can unify your asset group in one big successful campaign instead of featuring multiple campaign types throughout the platforms, like smart shopping and other ad groups. Google will gather the audience signals regarding their behavior and optimize pmax campaigns based on that to generate a more efficient conversion value. Since you’re running one campaign type instead of shopping campaigns and multiple others simultaneously, you can also do more while spending less of your marketing budget. And there’s a lot to cover when it comes to performance max vs smart and shopping campaigns.
It is a powerful tool that makes campaign management easier and can be the perfect option for generating good results quickly. Even though it relies on machine learning, it is essential to know how they work to ensure you reach your goals.
When to Use Google Performance Max Campaigns
PMax campaigns are super effective, and according to Performance Max Statistics 2023, they can increase your conversions by 22% while decreasing your overall CPA by 20%. But this doesn’t mean it should be used for every campaign objective. They serve a specific list of purposes and goals. When selecting the campaign type you want, Google will also ask you to choose your goal and what you want to achieve. Thanks to the campaign settings and how PMax works, these options are limited and very specific to this kind of strategy. We’ve also covered how to create Performance Max Campaigns in Google Ads in one of our articles.
If you don’t know what kind of objectives you can have with a performance max campaign, don’t worry. We will show you each one and what they mean:
Increase Online Sales
If your objective is to drive more online sales and increase your revenue, a Performance Max Google Ads campaign might be the perfect way to do that. One of the main objectives you can select when setting up a new performance max campaign is to increase online sales and, consequently, your revenue.
To do that, Google will invest in making your ads as attractive as possible, with CTAs aiming at your customers to complete the sales funnel and take the desired action, in this case, buying from you. Everything can influence the customer’s decision, from the imagery placement to how the ads will appear to the customer, and that’s where the AI enters.
Once it understands your public and what they want to see, Google starts changing your ads to fit that expectation better. With this, the platform can directly increase the number of clicks on your ads and how many clients complete the sales funnel purchasing from you.
Varos’s article states that by doing Performance Max campaigns, you can have an average customer acquisition cost of $36 dollars or less for every industry, being a great value when compared to this statistic when doing other marketing strategies. Along with this, you can also achieve a cost-per-click of under $0,65 on average, generating even more profit in the end. However, As each industry differs in terms of pricing, factors driving purchases, and competition for advertising space, your results may deviate somewhat or significantly from the benchmarks provided above.
Lead Generation
If your main objective with the campaign is lead generation, Google Performance Max can also be a great pick for your marketing efforts. Generating leads is the first step of the sales funnel, and if you have conversion goals, it is an indispensable step.
Performance max ads will use a smart bidding strategy to detect which platforms your potential customers are more present on. By doing this, the search engine can also understand what kind of ad they need to run to generate more conversions and increase the number of connections between your brand and these users.
You can also align your performance max ads with other strategies to help you reach your objectives. For example, once you gather the new leads through the performance max strategy, you can mix it with other ad formats, like email marketing, to convert these leads into customers.
Speaking of conversions, MyCodelessWebsite also states that Performance Max campaigns can increase your conversions by 15x when compared to traditional online advertisement.
One of the benefits of Performance Max is that you can quickly achieve the stipulated goal. If you make the right advertising strategy to go on with PMax, you can achieve any business objective and generate a huge return on investment.
Increase Website Traffic
Another common objective for performance max ads is increasing traffic on your landing page. Of course, the campaign success won’t depend only on the strategy selected, and you’ll also need a relevant landing page for this to work. Still, PMax can drastically improve how many users visit your website daily.
It is easy to measure campaign performance in this case since you just need to compare before and after the performance max campaign to notice how effective the AI is in gathering new visitors. By analyzing the customers’ behavior, you can also plan how to make your pages more attractive and what you can do to make them complete the sales funnel.
What Are Google’s Performance Max Campaign Platforms
As we mentioned before, the difference between a Google Ads Performance Max campaign is that, instead of creating different asset groups for each platform, it creates one big campaign that is displayed throughout all of Google’s platforms. Here, we will show you which platforms will display your PMax campaigns so you can better plan your content.
Additionally, we will showcase examples of Performance Max Campaigns running in each scenario to illustrate their positioning and highlight various possibilities you can explore when developing your own marketing assets.
Make sure to take a look at all the options to see how your business can benefit from them. Here are the main platforms, along with examples for each of them:
YouTube
YouTube is one of Google’s most popular platforms when it comes to advertising and can be extremely effective if your audience is located there. It is also one of the best ways to communicate with younger audiences, allowing you to promote your business in many different ways. From ads before videos to cards on the homepage, there are various ways to reach the viewers and convince them to click on your ads.
Performance Max also uses YouTube to maximize your results, being one of the main platforms depending on your industry and audience. For this, Google will request you upload a file compatible with the media spaces available for advertisement, whether a video or a card, just like when doing traditional shopping ads. We’ve described the importance of Performance Max in Google Ads Video in one of our articles.
When choosing the assets to be displayed on your campaign, you can create different images for each platform or use the same on every one of them. It is always recommended to create dedicated designs, but investing in only one attractive asset can be equally effective depending on your strategy and objective.
YouTube Example
Here’s an example of a Performance Max campaign being set up on YouTube. This example is from a financial advisor company trying to gather new clients and generate more leads by redirecting them to their website.
In this example, you can see the main characteristics of a solid ad. The ad creator added 11 different images to be used when displaying the ad. Not only that, but they uploaded a dedicated video only for the platform, maximizing the probability of users clicking on your ad. All of that is combined with catchy headlines and good call-to-action to convince the viewer that your company is the best solution to their problem. The text part of the ad is simple and straightforward.
This solid ad copy, combined with dedicated visual assets, creates a solid campaign for YouTube that will surely bring positive results when uploading the advertising efforts.
Google Display Ads
Display ads are also trendy for advertising products and services using eye-catching images and digital assets. It is also one of the main places for Performance Max ads to shine and gather customers to your landing page or to perform any action you desire.
Display ads are characterized by their massive spots for pictures, GIFs, and other image formats. The more creative your ad is, the better your click-through rate will be.
This doesn’t mean you must feature all elements possible in one image. This might confuse people looking at the ad, discouraging them from clicking and going to the landing page.
Keep it simple and straight to the point while featuring creative elements to make it highlight among other ads. This is how you maximize the effectiveness of your display ads.
The thing with Performance Max is that you don’t need to worry about that part. Google’s powerful AI can generate a new image based on the digital assets provided when you create the campaign. This way, it will generate an image based on your customer’s behavior and what they want to see when viewing your ads.
This might not always work perfectly, but it’s a powerful tool, and many marketers worldwide use it for the most various products and services. Google is constantly evolving its tools, and this one is no exception, so expect it to be even better in the future.
Display Ad Example
This is a famous display ad from Apple advertising about their gift cards for AppleTV+. It has many characteristics of a good ad, which is no surprise since Apple has always been known for its quality marketing campaigns.
The display ad featured minimalistic looks and creative text, mixing letters with products from the brand. All of that is done while featuring a catchy phrase and clean layout so the viewer can easily understand what the ad is about.
All elements are correctly distributed throughout the image, and the call to action is highlighted in a different color from the rest of the image. This is the display ad art, but Apple made numerous other assets for the Performance Max campaign, including a YouTube ad and other digital creations.
Search Ads
Search ads are the most popular type you can find, and almost every Google Ads account runs at least one for their companies. It is simple yet very effective, especially depending on the industry you’re in and what kind of audience you have.
Even though many people think that search campaigns are ineffective and a search ad is not the most creative choice, this is not true. The campaign’s performance when doing a search ad can be as successful as any other PPC campaign. Everything will depend on the strategic planning and the customer segments you want to achieve.
You can combine this campaign type with the ad extensions available in Google’s inventory to create really powerful campaigns that not only convert more customers but also take your company one step further than your competitors.
One great example is the image extension. If you don’t want your ad to be straight-up text, you can add images to it, helping to improve campaign performance and make it look better.
It is one of the most versatile advertisement types and is one of the most effective ways to appear at the top of Google search results pages. Whether or not this kind of ad will generate the best performance will depend on your audience and industry.
Before doing search ads, run keyword research to understand the new customer segments you can achieve and the negative keywords you should avoid at any cost. These are important even when using smart campaigns that automatically do most of the work.
Search Ad Example
Here’s an example of how creative and attractive simple search ads can be. This is the perfect way to “steal” your competitors’ audience and clients using a creative title and bidding on the right keywords.
In this example, a company called HoneyBook invested in its competitor’s keywords, so its ad appears first when searching for that specific company. They align this strategy with a fun and creative headline that will likely convince the user to click on the ad. This way, they can grab new leads and customers, generating a bigger conversion rate.
PMax strategies offer an even more simplified campaign management approach, making this strategy even more effective when operating on multiple channels simultaneously.
The ad also uses image extension tools to make it more attractive and likely for customers to click on the ad. But the main reason for the success of this specific ad is its creative headline and backup text, using a funny and casual approach.
There are several valuable lessons you can take from this ad. It is a huge example of how to turn something as simple as a text ad into a highly lucrative campaign.
Discover Ads
Discovery ads are another versatile platform for advertising products and services. Like performance max, it is not restricted to one type of placement. Even though the main place for these ads is the “Discover” tab on Google’s app, your ads can also be displayed on other platforms, like YouTube’s homepage and the promotion tab on Gmail.
The main focus of this kind of format is visually pleasant ads that quickly catch the attention of whoever sees them on their timeline or anywhere else. Another focus of this type of marketing is to appear in different places simultaneously without creating multiple campaigns.
Unlike video ads or other traditional placements, you can create a carousel of pictures displaying multiple aspects of your product or service to help convince customers that this is the best solution for their problems. The more visually appealing your discovery ads are, the more likely it is for visitors to enter your website or make local store visits to your company.
The discovery ad helps the business owner contact potential customers already looking for a solution for their company. For example, if you’re a company producing laptops, discovery ads will make your ad appear directly to users looking for a new laptop. This is why this type of ad is one of the most effective regarding conversion rate and return on investment since the probability of them completing the sales funnel is higher than in other types of ads.
Discover Ad Example
Here’s an example of how your performance max campaigns can take advantage of discovery ads. In this campaign, Pandora took advantage of the three main spaces provided by Discovery to promote their new jewelry collection and drive traffic to a specific landing page containing all products from the collection.
Each advertisement space features different images and carousels containing different points of view for the products, making it visually appealing for the customer. The main focus here is the imagery, but you also have headlines and text pieces to help convince the audience to visit the website.
The text part of all ads is straightforward, presenting details about the collection and its inspiration. This way, the marketing time allowed the visual part to shine, presenting pictures containing only the products and others with models wearing the pieces.
It is a very simple advertisement but highly effective. Since the primary target audience has usually already started the sales funnel, the Discovery ad is typically presented to customers who are already looking for jewelry, increasing the conversion rate.
Gmail Ads
A lot of people tend to overlook email ads when planning a strategy, but the Performance Max campaign shows why it can be a valuable tool and space for promoting your content. Of course, this can drastically depend on your industry and data regarding your audience. Still, it is a great tool for continuing the sales funnel or conducting remarketing campaigns.
The email platform from Google has a tab dedicated to emails regarding marketing campaigns and promotions of products and services. This tab is also present in Performance Max’s portfolio of places where you can insert your advertisements simultaneously, making it a great addition to the strategy.
Even though you can add many different assets to your emails, including GIFs, images, and many others, one of the most vital parts of your entire strategy on Gmail is the text part. Remember that for the users to visualize your email, you need to convince them to click on it. To do that, make sure the title of the email is catchy which will make them want to read more about it.
Even though it’s a relatively simple way of advertising in your Google Ads account, it can also be very versatile and used by almost every industry. When writing these emails, ensure your communication matches your audience and the message you want them to catch.
Gmail Ad Example
This perfectly shows how to create quality titles that make users want to open your ad. The text starts with a promotion saying that the service is entirely free and the customer can enjoy all the benefits without spending any money.
Moreover, another factor that contributes to the effectiveness of this ad is the subtitle. By saying it’s a limited-time offer, the user feels the urge to click on it, or they might lose the opportunity, generating a sense of urgency.
As you can see, all promotional ads are highlighted as paid content, even when doing performance max campaigns. This can be identified through the yellow square saying “ad” right next to the main title of your email ad.
This is another reason why your text part needs to be attractive. Since users can easily spot if it’s an ad or not, it becomes even harder to make them click through the ad.
Maps Ads
The last platform included when doing Performance Max campaigns is the Maps tool. It is the perfect addition if you’re a local business and want to drive traffic to a physical location.
This works for practically every kind of business, whether you’re a bakery, health clinic, or a company from any other industry. By promoting yourself on Google Maps, you can generate more potential customers. Since they’re visiting your physical location, the chances of getting a conversion are way bigger than when advertising online.
Maps is an excellent tool for advertising because it communicates with all kinds of people. It is not a simple shopping tool or a space where people go to buy products. It’s a daily usage tool that has a vast number of users all over the world.
It also uses Google’s AI and machine learning to understand where the user lives and what the best businesses and locations to recommend to them are based on habits and places they usually visit. Maps will automatically display your business at the top of other search results if your business is relevant to them.
Maps Ad Example
If you still don’t know how Maps can help take your business to the next level, here’s an example. In this case, the user is searching for a dentist near them, and there are tons of options.
By using a Performance Max campaign or traditional Maps advertisement, the dental clinic called “The Dental Spa Bondi” is able to appear at the top of all the other search results, maximizing the chances of gathering more clients to visit the place. This strategy, aligned with a good rating on the app, is the key to increasing revenue and passing your competitors in the number of customers.
It’s a very simple way of advertising, yet super effective. Once you use it in the Performance Max strategy, you can dominate both physical and online spaces and make your business grow faster than ever.
How to Increase Your Performance Max Results
If you want to make the best results when running Performance Max campaigns, it is highly recommended that you hire a professional marketing agency to help you with this task. Even though Google features numerous automation tools to let anyone advertise on their platforms, campaign management is not something you learn in one day.
By leaving it to a marketer, you increase your chances of success and optimize your results. At GamerSEO, we have the best professionals on the market with years of experience to help advertise your business and take it to the next level.
Whether you need simple keyword research or an entire performance max campaign planning, we have everything you need.
We will work side-by-side with you in every step of the process to ensure an efficient strategy aimed directly at your pain points and goals. Creative assets and quality ad copy: here you’ll find everything you need to create the perfect campaign. Join us, and let’s create quality marketing together.
Time to Start Planning Your Performance Max Campaign
Performance Max campaigns are a great way to promote your brand and reach new audiences. It makes your company visible on all of Google’s main platforms, so you can generate new leads wherever your potential audience is located. Especially when you can perform Smart Shopping upgrade to Performance Max.
Performance Max can have numerous objectives, and thanks to the powerful AI that assists you, achieving them has never been so easy. Even though most processes are automated, there are lots of details you must manually operate, like the assets creation and the text part of each ad. Take as much time as you need if you want to ensure good performance when uploading your advertisements.
One of the best ways to understand how to make better ads and generate insights for your own business is by looking at examples from other companies to see how they’re marketing their businesses. We showed you examples for each platform where your performance max campaigns will be displayed, but there are hundreds of others you can find and use as inspiration.
Now that you know everything you need, it is time to start planning your PMax campaign. Make sure to create quality assets and creative ad copy to ensure the best results when uploading your campaign to the platforms.
A PPC specialist who started with organic social media. For several years, the core of his activities are:- Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Twitter Ads, Linkedin Ads. He has led campaigns with a global reach, e.g. for FootballTeam, G2A, ETOTO, as well as many smaller campaigns in the sports, construction and financial industries. Has full focus on ROAS. Privately, a fan of football, history of wars and Star Wars.