Performance Max feed-only campaigns enable advertisers to promote their products on Shopping ads using product feed while retaining PMax AI capabilities like automated bidding and targeting.
Although it sounds simpler, setting up a PMax feed-only campaign, optimizing it for conversions, and monitoring its performance involve more nuances.
In this guide, we will explore how to create a feed-only PMax campaign, cover all the methods for implementing it, and uncover specific strategies for running it successfully.
Table of Contents
Introduction to PMax Feed-Only Campaigns
Performance Max feed-only campaign is a type of Google Ads campaign that focuses on promoting products on Google Shopping Ads (Product Listing Ads) and dynamic remarketing.
Unlike Performance Max campaigns that use assets such as headlines, descriptions, images, videos, and more, PMax feed-only campaign entirely depends on the Google Merchant Center feed. They automatically generate ads from product feed using product titles, descriptions, prices, images, etc.
PMax feed-only campaigns are ideal for e-commerce merchants whose primary focus is to drive sales without investing in creative assets. These types of campaigns enable merchants to launch a campaign quickly without additional assets.
Pros and Cons of Feed-Only Performance Max Campaigns
Pros of Feed-Only PMax Campaigns
- More Control: With the PMax feed-only campaign, you can direct your Google Ads budget towards Shopping ads and gain maximum conversions.
- Focus on Product Feed Only: feed-only is a great option when you don’t want to invest in additional PMax assets. You can pull product information from the GMC feed and get your ads up and running faster, without any creative work.
- Focus on Bottom-of-the-funnel Traffic: Feed-only PMax campaigns targets high-intent purchasers who have previously interacted with your products or website.
Cons of Feed-Only PMax Campaigns
- Limited Reach: While PMax feed-only campaigns help you focus on shopping ads, you might miss potential customers on networks such as YouTube and Discover, narrowing your reach.
- Limited Optimization: Without additional assets, advertisers experience limited creative flexibility to optimize ads for various audiences and placements.
- Not Supported by Google: Although advertisers use PMax feed-only campaigns widely, you must know that Google does not officially support them.
How to Create a Feed-Only PMax Campaign: Step-by-Step
PMax feed-only campaigns do not have a dedicated option when selecting a campaign type. Creating PMax feed-only is a workaround and there are various methods to create one. In this section, we will uncover all of them.
Important: Before you proceed with the process, ensure you have set up Google Merchant Center account and have fully optimized product feed. If you need some help in optimizing product feed, we have covered it in the following sections.
Method 1: Performance Max Campaign
Step 1: Go to your Google Ads account >> select create >> click campaign >> choose a campaign objective. For demonstration purposes, we are going with ‘sales.’
Step 2: Select conversion goals. Ensure campaign objectives and goals align. For example, if you choose sales as an objective, ensure your conversion goal is purchases or something similar.
Step 3: Select Performance Max campaign.
Step 4: In the next step, select your Google Merchant Center account, enter a name for the campaign, and click ‘continue.’
Step 5: In the next screen, select bidding strategy ‘maximize conversions’ or maximize conversions value.’ You can also set up a ‘customer acquisition strategy, ‘ which means you can bid higher for new customers or optimize your bidding strategy to show your ads only to new customers. Click ‘next.’
Step 6: Next comes the asset generation page. This is the critical step when creating a PMax feed-only campaign.
Do not enable the Final URL expansion or text customization options, as shown in the image below. When you enable them, Google AI automatically generates assets, which contradicts our mission of creating a feed-only campaign. Not only that, but Google will also spend your budget on creating assets also.
Step 7: Ensure not to add any headlines, descriptions, or images.
Step 8: Although we have disabled all the assets, you can still add PMax audience signals to guide Google’s AI in delivering ads to users most likely to convert.
Step 9: Add budget and click on save.
Step 10: When you’re done setting up all these elements, publish the campaign.
Method 2: Performance Max Experiments
In this process, we will look at creating a PMax feed-only campaign using the PMax experiments option. As a part of this process, we will convert a standard shopping campaign into a PMax feed-only campaign. Let’s take a look at how it unfolds.
Note: PMax experiments for feed-only campaigns allow advertisers to A/B test different strategies, primarily comparing the effectiveness of feed-only PMax to optimize performance, conversions, and return on ad spend (ROAS).
Step 1: In your Google Ads account, go to campaigns >> experiments >> select Performance Max experiments >> select ‘+’ icon to create new experiment >> select Test Vs. Shopping campaign
Step 2: In the next screen, select an existing shopping campaign.
Step 3: Enable the ‘create campaign for me’ option.
Step 4: Click Schedule.
Go back to the experiments page and you will see that your campaign is ‘in progress.’
With this step, we are almost there. There’s one last step to complete the process. For that, you must wait for a day or so and come back to the experiments page.
Once on the experiments page, select the ‘Apply’ button in the experiments campaign you’ve set up. And select confirm.
To verify if the campaign serves as feed-only, go to the assets report, and you will see no assets associated with the experiments campaign. This indicates that you have created a PMax feed-only campaign. You can access the assets report by navigating to campaigns >> assets >> assets.
Method 3: Google Merchant Center
Note: Ensure you connect your Google Merchant Center account and Google Ads account before proceeding with the process.
- Step 1: Go to your GMC account >> select ‘Ad campaigns’ from the left-hand side menu >> click on ‘new campaign’
- Step 2: Configure campaign settings such as average daily budget, bidding strategy, Target ROAS, conversion goals, etc.
- Step 3: Under “Add products to this campaign”, check the box labeled “Advertise products from a Merchant Center account”.
- Step 4: In the following step, do not upload any assets. Review your campaign settings before launching the campaign. Click ‘create’ to launch.
Optimization Strategies for Feed-Only PMax Campaigns
Before we explore a few optimization techniques for PMax campaigns, remember to wait 6 weeks after launching any PMax campaign — this time allows machine learning algorithms to gather sufficient data.
Also, ensure you have set up conversion tracking correctly to provide accurate data for Google AI. With that, let’s look at a few key strategies to optimize your PMax feed-only campaign.
Optimize Product Feed
- Thoroughly understand Google shopping feed requirements and specifications.
- Provide key attributes such as brand, age group, gender, color, size, or any relevant information to product feed.
- Include important information at the beginning of the product titles. For example, If you sell cloths, title for a shirt can be, ‘100% cotton, black shirt for women. ‘ This title clearly says the fabric type, color of the shirt in the beginning of the title.
- Use high-quality images and eliminate any placeholder images or images with promotional messages.
- Maintain accurate product data such as prices and availability using the Content API method or structured data markup.
- Provide the most suitable values for product type and Google product category.
- Provide unique values for the product ID, title, and the GTIN value.
- Regularly update your feed. Any missing information can hinder campaign performance.
- Ensure that product details, pricing, and availability match the landing page. Ensure your landing pages are mobile-friendly, load quickly, and have clear calls to action.
- Follow Google Ads guidelines, Shopping feed optimization tips, and best practices.
- Resolve any Google Merchant Center issues or errors. Keep checking the diagnostics section to get insights into issues.
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Segment Products using Listing Groups
Analyze your product data and identify high-performing, underperforming, and zombie products. Listing groups can segment products based on attributes such as category, brand, item ID, condition, or custom labels.
For example, if you want to promote refurbished products in Shopping ads, you can use listing groups and apply the condition attribute to separate refurbished products.
Organizing products into specific groups allows you to apply targeted bidding strategies and monitor performance at a granular level using PMax reporting features.
How do you access listing groups?
In your Google Ads account, navigate to campaigns >> select a PMax campaign >> click asset groups >> click on listing groups.
Once on the listing page menu, you can create listing groups subdivision. For a detailed process, refer to this official article from Google on listing groups.
Best Practices for Listing Groups
- Use custom labels in product feed to tag products with attributes like “High Margin,” “Seasonal,” or “Clearance.”
- Monitor key performance metrics such as clicks, conversions, and cost-per-click (CPC) for each listing group to identify areas for optimization.
Boost Top Performers
- When running PMax feed-only campaigns, promote high-performing products. This approach enables higher conversions by highlighting high-margin products.
- Create individual campaigns for top performers, allocate a higher budget, and optimize bidding strategy.
- Optimize the Google Merchant Center feed for clear product titles, descriptions, and high-quality images.
Revitalizing Low Performers
- Create separate campaigns for low-performing and zombie products to ensure all products receive visibility.
Run Standard Shopping Campaign along with PMax Feed-Only Campaign
Advertisers often encounter an over-attribution challenge with the PMax campaign; that is, PMax might claim credit for a conversion that occurred through other marketing efforts.
- To avoid this issue, advertisers can simultaneously run PMax and Shopping campaigns. Allocate a higher budget to standard shopping campaigns. And let PMax campaigns focus on new customers to avoid cannibalizing conversions from other sources like TikTok, Instagram, etc.
- Advertisers can also increase CPC bids in standard shopping campaigns to increase their visibility over PMax campaigns.
- Adjusting the manual CPC increases the likelihood of a standard shopping campaign getting more competitive bids. This can help avoid the issue of PMax taking over because of its bidding advantage.
- After setting up your PMax feed-only campaigns and adjusting your budget and CPC, monitoring their performance and examining metrics such as conversions, Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), and first-time transactions is essential to avoid misattributing conversions.
Optimize Bidding Strategy: Target CPA
To optimize your PMax feed-only campaign for increased conversions, modify the campaign bid strategy to ‘Target CPA’. Target CPA strategy allows you to predict and control your conversion costs accurately.
By setting a certain amount as a target you’re willing to pay per conversion, you ensure you are not overspending.
How to modify the bid strategy for the PMax Feed-only campaign?
- In your Google Ads account, go to the campaign you wish to modify. Under the “Bidding” section, select “Change bid strategy” and choose Target CPA. Input the average amount and click save.
Note: Remember to have sufficient conversion data to use Target CPA. Google recommends having at least 30 conversions for the past 30 days. To gather conversion data, you should have set up conversion tracking accurately and resolve any conversion tracking issues.
Tips
- When starting, set your target CPA close to your average historical CPA for optimal campaign performance.
- Remember to monitor campaign performance and adjust the Target CPA accordingly. Do not set a low target CPA; it leads to fewer conversions.
- When managing multiple campaigns, consider using a portfolio Target CPA strategy to apply the same target across several campaigns.
| What is the Portfolio Target CPA strategy? A portfolio target CPA strategy is automated bidding that allows optimizing bidding across multiple campaigns with similar goals. |
Optimize PMax Audience Signals
While adding PMax audience signals is optional, providing audience suggestions enables machine learning algorithms to find similar audiences likely to convert. There are various types of audience signals:
Types of Audience Signals
- First-Party Data (customer lists, website visitors, remarketing audiences).
- Google’s Audience Segments (in-market, affinity audiences).
- Custom Audiences (based on keywords, URLs, apps).
- Demographics (age, gender, income, etc)
In Google’s audience segments, you will find in-market audience signals. These signals indicate groups of users actively researching or comparing products or services similar to yours.
Implementing in-market audiences for a PMax feed-only campaign is beneficial as you can target users with high purchase intent, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
In addition, it helps the algorithm focus on users who are more likely to convert, reducing ad spend.
How to add in-market audiences?
Within your PMax campaign settings, navigate to the “Audience signals” section. Click on “Browse,” then select “In-market audiences.” Save Changes
Dynamic Remarketing with PMax Feed-Only Campaign
Dynamic remarketing is a core component of the PMax feed-only campaign. It allows you to display personalized ads based on users’ past interactions with your website. This approach also lets you focus on users who are more likely to convert, resulting in reduced ad spend and improved ROI.
Important:
- Ensure you set up a Google Ads tag or Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and enable conversion tracking to track user behavior.
- Connect your GMC account, Google Ads account, and GA4 account (if used) for enhanced tracking.
Confirm Asset Optimization Settings
This step is crucial to confirm if you have enabled the ‘automatically generated assets’ option.
How to check?
In your Google Ads account >> click campaigns >> click assets >> click assets >> in the performance report, check if the source ‘automatically created assets’ is showing up in the table.
If yes, enable the automatic asset generation option. To turn off the settings, go back to campaigns, select your PMax feed-only campaign, click on settings, go to the Asset optimization section, and check for text customization and PMax Final URL Expansion options.
If you see they are enabled, disable them and save the changes. Disabling the asset optimization option is crucial as we don’t want Google AI to generate assets for our feed-only campaign.
Alternative Options to PMax Feed-Only Campaigns
If you’re currently focusing on feed-only campaigns and wish to expand further to Google Ads channels such as YouTube, Discover, Display, Gmail, etc. And if you have access to high-quality assets and are looking to target potential customers at various stages of their buying journey, then it’s time for you to shift to a PMax all-assets campaign.
PMax all-assets campaign lets you provide a comprehensive set of creative assets such as images, videos, headlines, and descriptions.
You can transform from a feed-only campaign to an all assets campaign to leverage Google AI’s capabilities in tailoring ads to various platforms and audience segments.
How do you optimize the ‘all assets’ campaign?
- Add various asset types, including headlines, descriptions, images, videos, etc.
- Align these assets with campaign goals such as generating leads or sales, or encouraging visits to a physical store.
You can also go back to creating standard shopping campaigns, which let you have complete control over ad placements, campaign setup, bidding, targeting, and more. We have curated a guide on Performance Max vs. standard shopping to help you decide which is best for your business.
In addition to these approaches, stay informed about Google’s latest updates by frequently checking official Google Ads blogs and other relevant resources.
Conclusion
Performance Max feed-only campaigns are easy to set up making ad management more efficient by focusing exclusively on your product feed. These campaigns drive strong results across Google Shopping and other channels.
For a successful long-term strategy, follow Google Ads policies, optimization tips, and best practices for Performance Max campaigns.
FAQs
How do I set up a Performance Max feed-only campaign in Google Ads?
There are three ways to set upa PMax feed-only campaign. The first method is to choose a Performance Max campaign type, turn off the assets in the asset generation part, and create a feed-only campaign. The second method to create feed-only is using the PMax experiments option. Lastly, create a PMax feed-only campaign in your Google Merchant Center account. We have discussed all the three methods in the blog.
What are the best practices for optimizing a product feed for Performance Max campaigns?
Ensure your product feed has high-quality images, SEO-friendly titles, and descriptions. Update your feed regularly with up-to-date and accurate information. Adhere to Google Ads and Shopping Ads policies.
How can I improve the conversion rate of my Performance Max feed-only campaign?
To improve the conversion rate, optimize product feed, segment top and low-performing products, test different bid strategies, and use audience signals.
What are the differences between Performance Max feed-only campaigns and standard shopping campaigns?
PMax feed-only and shopping ad campaigns allow e-commerce merchants to promote their products through shopping ads. However, the difference lies in the level of control and automation. PMax feed-only campaigns automate bidding and ad placements (which may appear on other Google Ads channels apart from Shopping). In contrast, Shopping campaigns offer granular control and require manual campaign setup.
How does a Performance Max feed-only campaign compare to a full asset Performance Max campaign?
A feed-only PMax campaign uses product feed data to automatically create ads, and its focus is on Shopping ads and dynamic remarketing. A full-assets campaign uses additional assets like images, videos, headlines, and descriptions, designed for diverse ad formats and broader reach. For more detailed information, checkout our blog on feed-only vs. all-assets PMax campaigns.
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