[Google Ads Script] PMax seasonality trends in search terms

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll probably know that I like to “keep an eye on Google’s AI”.

This motto paid off once again today.

I was looking at trends in the search term categories of my PMax campaigns and noticed an interesting new opportunity.

The PMax algorithm started matching some of my products to a new category of highly relevant search terms that gained popularity due to seasonal influences (winter is coming). AND these search terms are not yet targeted by any keywords in the search campaigns, nor are they added to the titles of the products in my shopping campaigns.

OPPORTUNITY: let’s add these search terms as keywords and add them to the titles of my products to increase visibility and get some more clicks!

Moral of this very short story: The unpredictable behavior of Google’s AI is full of surprises. Both good and bad. Spotting the good and the bad, and acting on your findings, will allow you to increase the performance of your accounts beyond what Google’s AI can do on its own.

To make life a bit easier for you, here’s a script that enables you to do this on auto-pilot.

My ‘PMax Trending Search Categories’ script creates a Google sheet that reports what search categories are trending in your Performance Max campaigns. The report lists the search categories that show a significant increase or drop in impressions. It compares last week’s data to the week before.

Use cases:
–> Spot seasonality trends in the blink of an eye.
–> Easily see how the inside of the black-box PMax algorithm is changing, and matching your assets to new user queries.
–> Quickly see what types of searches your new products are being matched to.
–> Promptly respond to downward trends in search terms that showed great conversion value in the past.

You can use the insights to:
– add trending search categories as new (broad) keywords to your standard search campaigns 
– tailor your creatives based on trends
– add popular search categories to your landing pages and Merchant Center feed titles and descriptions to boost performance

LINK: https://nilsrooijmans.com/google-ads-script-pmax-trending-search-categories/

Happy scripting!

– Nils

Author: Nils Rooijmans

Google Ads Performance Architect with a passion for PPC Automation & AI, in particular via Google Ads Scripts.