🚀 Why I'm Moving Customers OFF of Performance Max

[@martinharrington8922]

This is possibly the best Google Ads related channel.

[@CynHicks]

The pyramid started to crumble?

[@devonthe777]

"You'll have high ROAS all the way until you get fired" GA take home statement of the year 👏👏👏

[@richardrace237]

I am setting up a 2 stage targeting, first is max cheap clicks, then the second stage is retargeting those. Regarding max clicks/ traffic generation- I'm setting up a 10 cent to 70 cent per click rate, and then using multiple pixels to send traffic to different pages at different funnel stages. I've got a bit more testing on this, but it seems very promising.

[@sorintutu2698]

I just love these study cases!

[@solutionseight]

John is so smart. 🤓 Thanks for watching!

[@dcaz342]

I know, I love to see the data he shows. It brings it all together. Very smart, very right to the point. Love it!

[@DaveFogel]

I miss seeing you every week my friend

[@johnmoran5680]

Hahah I miss you too man. I’ll be doing another live in the next few weeks. I’ll keep you posted!

[@vseprozvire2]

Yesss, video with John finally, thank you very much

[@solutionseight]

We aim to please!😉

[@4067Johnny]

I spend abou$1k on google ads/day, cost per conversion is roughly $16, do you think we can chat about you taking on our google ads? I work with google weekly via zoom but I think I need to bring a professional on board

[@4067Johnny]

Pmax is 80% of the budget

[@solutionseight]

Absolutely, we'd love to chat! You can contact us here: sol8.com/contact/

[@cubicasa-mat-berg]

Are you also moving service based/mobile app or non-shopping clients off of Pmax?

[@johnmoran5680]

We actually dont have any service based on Pmax as its too spammy. We follow leads all the way to sale and they are very low converting usually compared to search and KZbin campaigns.

[@BrunoGiosa]

I missed these videos so much! I am glad you are back!

[@sandro_kipiani]

pmax has this option where you choose to emphasize new customer acquisition. Was that option not available by the time of the recording of this video or is it ineffective at targeting new customers exclusively?

[@solutionseight]

Hey there! We reached out to our strategist team and they said yes, it was there, but they didn't find it reliable. John actually created a video on this topic, which you may find helpful: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n4XJZGOseJmmnck

[@sandro_kipiani]

@@solutionseight thank you!

[@MrWissam1983]

Good to see you again John! Are yoy using CPC, or eCPC for the new standard shopping campaigns?

[@johnmoran5680]

Max Clicks with a bid cap!

[@garrysingh8387]

I tried Pmax and got bankrupt in 7 days 😢

[@ecoroots9871]

Also why is the new shopping campaign optimized for "maximize clicks" instead of conversions? Are you teaching this transition in the paid-traffic-mastery course or it's not updated?

[@khalid_essam]

Thanks for sharing. Questions for you, when you look at the 'first order date' in Shopify why are you attributing all the customers to Google Ads? I assume there is a portion of this that is organic, social, and referral too? I think that's the case as it even shows a higher number than the conversions in Google Ads.

[@johnmoran5680]

No sir. We have virtually no organic presence and have stopped all social advertising over 2 years ago. We also had Northbeam on the account for those two years and 95% was attributed to either Google Ads, or Direct. We ended up cancelling Northbeam due to it showing the same metrics as I track now.

[@khalid_essam]

@@johnmoran5680 Thanks makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

[@TheMillerPlanet]

Great video John!🔥 Out of curiosity: Do you have any idea why standard shopping sucks at attribution? I understand how PMAX can over-attribute, but why should Standard Shopping be worse at attributing conversions than an inbound search for example?

[@solutionseight]

Great question! We will run it by John and our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answer may be featured in a future video.

[@johnmoran5680]

Because standard shopping usually is the first click out of many (and many days) Google loses the original source too often and the sale comes in as "direct". That, plus the fact that the user changes Wifi connections and devices so often that if the time lag is longer than 4-5 days, the return paths are usually branded clicks (mutiple) and Data Driven attributes most or all to the branded campaign.

[@TheMillerPlanet]

@@johnmoran5680 Makes sense! What about search: Why is search better at attributing than shopping? Because with broad match and smart bidding, google catches the same customer multiple times throughout the process?

[@johnmoran5680]

@@TheMillerPlanet that part is where my tinfoil hat is shown lol. I believe its on purpose. Google publicly requested in February that all advertisers test Pmax against Shopping to see what reports better. That month, even NorthBeam (who I am an investor in) had large issues tracking the users after a Standard Shopping click and that is when we saw the drop off in Google Ads.

[@entropychef]

Talent. Love this!

[@kateizell8086]

Why not make your PMax settings only bid on new customers if that's the goal?

[@brijgarg2290]

Hi John. Thanks for great insights. Some questions 1. What would be minimum campaigns to run if not running Pmax campaigns? Would it be: a. Search Branded b. Search Non Branded c. Shopping d. KZbin? 2. Would you suggest run Pmax with smaller budgetary allocation to serve as a remarketing tool? 3. You work with large budgets. Do your findings, insights & strategies like low tROAS in shopping, not to run Pmax, apply to smaller budgets as well?

[@solutionseight]

Great questions! We will add them to our list and run them by John and our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answers may be featured in a future video.

[@johnmoran5680]

a. Search Branded b. Search Non Branded c. Shopping d. KZbin (remarketing) e. Competitor campaign

[@brijgarg2290]

@@johnmoran5680 thanks a lot!

[@melaniabecze2733]

Sir, I am also interested in the answers to questions 2 and 3. I'm having second thoughts when the budget is small... Also, the Competitor Campaign should Target Impression Share and the Branded / Non-Branded initially set up with Maximize Clicks, then, after getting Conversions, moved to tROAS 40%? :) Aaand, if the CPC is too high for the Search campaigns, should I switch to MClicks with Bid Cap? Thank you for your valuable case studies and help!

[@dcaz342]

@@johnmoran5680 Gold right here! Thank you John for being so upfront as always. from DCAZ in Boston!

[@pourianastaean3004]

How are you dividing your google ad spend by the 181 new customers in shopify when you didn't filter by just google ads attributed conversions? Does this client have no other traffic sources?

[@johnmoran5680]

They are only spending on Google Ads. They stopped FB ads two years ago as it didn’t work for them and they have no organic rankings. I’ve been scaling them for over 2 years now just on Google Ads.

[@TheJordanDominguez]

"if you measure in app, you're wrong, period" - so what is recommended? I have always felt Google Ads has had bunk data but wasn't sure how to then optimize campaigns.

[@solutionseight]

Hello, and thanks for watching! Here's a video that dives a bit more deeply into the topic: kzbin.info/www/bejne/baXah5WXo9R3sKM

[@ecoroots9871]

Thank you for the exceptional content! I have a specific question about the point you made at the 4:00 mark. You mentioned that you excluded brand keywords from your Pmax campaign, yet observed that the algorithm still displayed your ads on Display, KZbin, and Discovery networks as part of remarketing efforts. You also noted a slight decrease in CPC. Based on this, would you recommend adding branded keywords to the exclusion list as the second-best strategy for reducing remarketing spend in a Pmax campaign, right after your current method?

[@solutionseight]

Thanks for your question! We will add it to our list and run it by John and our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answer may be featured in a future video.

[@matheussantanamiguez1159]

Hi. I have a Performance Max with several products, but the one that spends the most and sells the most in the campaign is my favorite product. However, the difference in spending between the first and second is huge, that is, the campaign is being mostly spent on this product that sells well. Do you recommend isolating the first product that spends the most and sells the most in the campaign, so that other products within the campaign can start spending more?

[@solutionseight]

Thanks for your question! We will add it to our list and run it by our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answer may be featured in a future video.

[@ray330]

If we use a shopping campaign for certain keyword, will it compete with a search campaign for the same keyword?

[@solutionseight]

Thanks for your question! We will add it to our list and run it by our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answer may be featured in a future video.

[@rebeccachapman4905]

What about the people that manage car dealerships? We can't run standard shopping and have been forced to move to PMAX by EOM. I'm testing it w/ feed only, and my CPC's so far are lower than smart shopping. Why didn't you like feed only? Also what about the bid adjustments you can do by platform in pmax?

[@solutionseight]

Great questions! We will add them to our list and run them by John our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answer may be featured in a future video.

[@ZachSemago]

You gotta get that PMAX campaign off of search partners immediately....search arbitragers make hay off of car dealerships/car make keywords.

[@equipment_store]

How long does PMax take credit for conversions? Forever, as long as it can sense that it's the same person?

[@solutionseight]

Thanks for your question! We will add it to our list and run it by our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answer may be featured in a future video.

[@teagan-blue-sense-digital]

Thanks! This was awesome!

[@joeybidner]

great video John! when you made the switch to standard shopping from pmax, was it a hard on/off, or was there a slow transition pulling budget from one campaign to the other over a period of time? Thanks again for sharing!

[@solutionseight]

Thanks for your question! We will add it to our list and run it by John and our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answer may be featured in a future video.

[@SaveThatMoney411]

I’m so confused. What about PMax for e-commerce?

[@solutionseight]

This was actually a feed-only PMax campaign that we paused.

[@JosephineDaniels-r6c]

Thank you !

[@kamilsliw19941]

In this example, what is the reason behind running "Max Clicks" bidding strategy for the standard shopping campaign?

[@solutionseight]

Thanks for your question! We will add it to our list and run it by John and our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answer may be featured in a future video.

[@johnmoran5680]

Google seems to lose these users quickly which is why time lag is so short. So, because automated bidding is based on knowledge of a user, when that knowledge is short, it gets it wrong a lot. So it overbids for a user when it doesnt know much more about them that I couldnt pay 1/3rd with Max Clicks and a bid cap.

[@ecoroots9871]

@@johnmoran5680 How do you determine what bid cap you should start with?

[@JamesBrown-pv4cy]

a😢😅😢😢

[@healydowd8831]

Ja morant?

[@irbazahsan8229]

🧠 big brain moment

[@gabegarcia2017]

If you have lower ROAS, how is Google Ads optimizing for conversions?

[@johnmoran5680]

ROAS is based on conversions. This client has a lot of returning customers and LTV is good. But, if you have 3 people makes 3 repeat purchases, your ROAS is based on 9 sales, when in reality it only brought the first 3. I now only count first time sales as all traffic is cold and non brand, so, now I dont have to "pay" for the repeat purchases anymore. Instead of Google showing a display ad to a person who was going to make another purchase anyway and counting it for itself, I can use that ad spend to target new cold traffic.

[@ericlouisconsulting]

It's easy to show Great ROAS if you're spending against audiences that are "easy lay ups" branded terms, cart abandoners, existing customers" But these people will likely convert with out a big advertising push. For example, before automation, if you had Remarketing List for Search Ads, you would very likely see high ROAS across your remarketing lists - no surprise there. The "conventional" wisdom was to bid them up because ROAS was so great. BUT then you just erode the exceptionally high ROI. Are you even getting more sales from the audiences by spending more on them? Conversely - cold new traffic is harder to convert thus lower ROAS. Again the goal is new customers so to increase new customers you need more cold traffic and you can't accomplish this w/ PMax that will include high ROAS/easy to convert audiences. This looks good ROAS but not the best to advance new customer generation.

[@matheusteodoro8]

That's a great insight! One question: moving to standard shopping, what is the best bid strategy for it? Maximise clicks or enhanced cpc? ( For an account that has enough conversions? )

[@solutionseight]

Thanks for the feedback! And great question. We will add it to our list and run it by our strategists. In the meantime, keep an eye on our KZbin channel, and the answer may be featured in a future video.

[@AdPadawan]

@@solutionseight Please i would like to know that as well and also for a brand new campaign and brand. The very low target ROAS method you prescribed in the past doesn't work without conversion data.

[@johnmoran5680]

I like either Max Clicks with a bid cap, or a low tROAS.

[@johnmoran5680]

@@AdPadawan Try Max clicks with a bid cap until you gain more conversion data.

[@matheusteodoro8]

Thank you! @@johnmoran5680 🙌