[Performance Max] please don’t repeat my mistake

Here’s a painful mistake.

One of my clients decided he wanted to get rid of a line of products from a particular brand;
let’s say footballs from Adidas (example, not the real product).

We had similar footballs from Nike, with similar margins, lined up in the same PMax campaign.

Performance was decent with roughly 50 conversions per week, spread evenly between the two brands.

Here’s what happened:
1. client reduced prices for Adidas footballs with a discount that dwarfs even the current inflation rates (>50% discount)
2. conversion rates for Adidas skyrocketed for 5 days (*), until
3. all Adidas footballs were out of stock
4. PMax campaign was sent back to learning mode (with the only product left, Nike footballs)
5. two weeks in learning, and still zero goals…PMax is not even showing 20% of impressions from before.

PMax seems to have a hard time relearning how to play the game score some.

Here’s my learning:

With PMax campaigns, make sure to NOT include products with drastically changing conversion rates (seasonal products, sale promotions) next to your regular products.

Next time, I will be splitting the Adidas footballs out into their own (standard) Shopping campaign.

(*): and consequently, conversion rates for Nike footballs tanked

– Nils

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Google Ads Scripts FAQ: My list of frequently asked questions about Google Ads Scripts.

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