Optimize Your PMAX Campaigns

Optimization of PMAX campaigns is a crucial step towards achieving better results. This article provides an overview of essential strategies and techniques that will help you improve campaign performance and reach your goals.

1. Clearly define campaign objectives and KPIs

When optimizing PMAX campaigns, it’s crucial to consider the campaign objectives and KPIs. Ask yourself these questions:
– Do I have clearly defined goals and KPIs?
– Does the campaign meet both short-term and long-term objectives?
– Do the goals and KPIs need to be adjusted or refined?
If you find that your objectives have changed, it’s essential to optimize the campaigns according to the new values.

2. Testing Feed-Only and Full Assets

Test different forms of asset groups in the campaign. If your PMAX campaign with Full-Asset is not performing well, try testing Feed-Only by removing all the assets in the ad. You can find a more detailed procedure in the article about setting up PMAX campaigns. You can also test even if Full-Asset is performing well or if you’re already using Feed-Only. When switching asset groups from Feed-Only to Full-Asset, ensure you have prepared high-quality materials.

3. Changing product titles and images

Well-optimized product titles and images can significantly impact campaign performance. Adjustments can lead to better CTR, more impressions, and a higher conversion rate. Guides and case studies on how we optimized product titles can be found here: How to Test Product Titles in Google Shopping Campaigns.

How to optimize the title:
– Check if your title contains all necessary attributes according to Google Ads.
– Try changing the order—put the brand at the beginning or at the end of the title.
– Take inspiration from competitors.
– Adjust the title based on the most searched terms.

How to optimize images:
– Use a higher-quality product image.
– Try a lifestyle product image.
– Test a different background color.

Optimizing product titles and images offers endless possibilities. 📊

4. Using audience signals and search themes for more accurate targeting

PMAX campaigns use audience signals to help Google target ads more precisely. By defining audience signals, such as previous visitors to your website or those interested in specific products, you can improve campaign effectiveness and increase conversions. Try using seasonal audiences (e.g., Black Friday, Christmas) and those found in account-level insights. Audiences with the highest index are the most relevant.

5. Optimizing tROAS and bidding strategies

Optimize your bidding strategies and tROAS regularly. If campaign goals or KPIs have changed, check if you have the correct bidding strategy or use the optimal tROAS value.
💡 Tip: Changes to bidding strategy can affect other campaigns. For example, after adjusting tROAS, a PMAX campaign could take impressions from a Search campaign, reducing its ROAS. The Case Study How to Optimize PMAX Campaign Alongside Search Campaigns provides more on this.

6. Detailed optimization of Asset Groups

Update campaign assets regularly, at least before and after the season. Halloween, Black Friday, and Christmas are great times to review your assets and tailor them to the current season. Make sure you use all recommended image and video dimensions and consider testing new ones. If you’re curious where your PMAX campaign is spending the most, check out our PMAX script. Analysis is key to detailed asset group optimization.

7. Eliminating underperforming products

A key aspect of optimization is removing products that are too expensive to advertise or don’t perform well. You can test these products in a PLA campaign with a different bidding strategy or turn them off entirely. We recommend disabling products only as a last resort. First, try separating expensive products and optimizing them—ideally in a separate campaign where they have their own budget and bidding strategy. A PLA campaign is ideal for underperforming products, especially for effective search term optimization.

8. Turn off PMAX campaign

There may be situations where you’ve used a PMAX script and found that the campaign displays as a video ad, while the client prefers a stronger focus on shopping. After switching to a Feed-Only campaign, it still doesn’t perform well. Or, perhaps you’ve been observing poor performance over time, and despite active optimization, you haven’t been able to improve the results. Switching the PMAX campaign to a PLA campaign may help in such cases. You need to test and optimize thoroughly to find what works best for you. 😉

9. Optimizing “less important” campaign settings

You can also optimize and test other campaign settings, such as:
– Automatically created assets
– Text assets
– Final URLs (don’t forget to exclude irrelevant pages)
– Location (you can switch the location setting from “Presence” to “Presence or Interests”)
– Adding Page feed to PMAX campaigns
Take a look at the basic PMAX campaign settings and conduct a mini-audit. You might find something you’ve previously overlooked that could help improve performance.

10. Excluding Brand from PMAX campaigns

How do you know if your PMAX is showing on your branded terms?
PMAX > Insights > Search terms insights.

If your brand appears in the report, the campaign might be affecting the performance of your brand’s SEA campaign. Excluding your brand is simple: Campaign > Settings > Additional settings > Brand Exclusions.
You can select an existing list or create a new one. Then, you can apply it to the campaigns as a brand exclusion.