[Performance Max] how do you make sure PMax is not going after branded searches?

 

Here’s the text of my daily newsletter, Apr 14 – 2022.

Fellow list member Samuel Beltman wrote in with an interesting observation in response to some earlier advice I provided during our Strategy Call.

My advice concerned the use of Performance Max campaigns next to standard branded search campaigns.

“IF you decide to test Performance Max campaigns, AND you already have a traditional text ad campaign targetting your brand keywords (you should!)
THEN be sure to add all the close variants of your brand keywords to your traditional brand campaign.”
(BTW, I use a script to automatically do this for me, more details as to why you want to do this are below).

Here’s Samuel’s remark (shared with permission, minor edits for clarity):
“This only works if the branded search campaign is not limited by budget. Unfortunately, my client decided to reduce the budget for brand campaigns so this strategy won’t work for me”

Very true indeed.

Luckily for us, there might be one other way to prevent Performance Max to take priority over your branded search:
contact your Google Rep and ask to exclude branded searches from your Performance Max campaigns.

I have not tried this myself, and it might just be a rumor. Please do let us know if this option has worked for you!

– Nils

PS: Why do you want to add all the close variants of your brand keywords to your traditional brand campaign?

Well, Performance Max takes priority over almost every other ad in your account, except for some keywords (see explanation below).
And you do not want Performance Max campaigns to go after people that are searching your brand keyword.
This is because people searching your brand will have outrageously good conversion rates compared to almost any other traffic, and this traffic will contaminate the Performance Max conversion data.

Keeping branded searches outside of your Performance Max campaigns will give you a clearer picture of the actual performance of this new campaign type and keep full control over your branded ads.

EXPLANATION WITH NITTY-GRITTY DETAILS

“Performance Max ads are equivalent to keywords that don’t exactly match the search term or the spell-corrected search term for selection preference. (*)”
” If a keyword isn’t preferred based on the above rules, Performance Max ads are selected based on the highest Ad Rank in comparison to other keywords in the account. ”
SOURCE: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2756257?hl=en#zippy=%2Ca-campaign-is-limited-by-budget%2Cone-of-your-keywords-isnt-eligible-to-trigger-an-ad

It is my current understanding that Performance Max takes preference if and only if

1. you do not have a keyword in your search campaign whose keyword text exactly matches the user query and the campaign is not limited by other targetting and/or budget constraints, (note that the keyword does not need to be an exact match type keyword)

AND

2. the user query is not matched to another matching keyword in your search campaigns that has a higher ad rank for that search

(*) The set of preferences detailed in the Google support doc determines which keyword/campaign is used to enter an ad into an auction. Once the ad enters the auction, it’s then compared with ads from other advertisers, and your cost-per-click is what’s minimally required to clear the Ad Rank thresholds and beat the Ad Rank of the competitor immediately below you, if any.