Deep dive into Performance Max placement reports for campaigns
Media Director
Media Expert
Launched in February 2023, Google's Performance Max format has generated significant interest among digital professionals, but it has also raised questions regarding transparency and the quality of the data provided. Google's promise to offer more insights through its new placement report is intriguing. However, despite the anticipation, these reports seem to have notable limitations, particularly in terms of performance optimisation.
Antoine Forêt, Media Director, and Benoît Wadeleux, Senior Media Expert, share their thoughts after several months of usage.
Performance Max: a Promise of transparency... in theory
According to Antoine Forêt, impression location reports for Performance Max campaigns represent a step forward in terms of transparency. They allow advertisers to identify where ads are being displayed, notably distinguishing high-quality sites (such as renowned media platforms) from less relevant locations (mobile apps or secondary websites).
In theory, it's great because Performance Max campaigns have historically suffered from a lack of data that limited their optimisation compared to other campaign types (search, display, or YouTube).
In practice, however, these reports reveal significant gaps that hinder the full use of this information. While they indicate where ads are shown, the data lacks sufficient granularity for detailed performance analysis.
A lack of clarity on essential data
For Benoît Wadeleux, one of the biggest disappointments with these new reports is the absence of key information such as clicks, costs, or generated conversions.
It remains unclear because the data is still insufficient to accurately assess the ad distribution across different placements.
For example, in a recent report for an e-commerce client, 480,000 out of 500,000 impressions were grouped under the category "Google-owned and operated properties," with no further details. This includes locations like Gmail, Google Discover, and YouTube’s homepage, but without providing a clear breakdown of ad distribution across these channels. This lack of clarity makes it difficult to accurately analyse the performance of the placements used, thus hindering campaign optimisation.
Is it possible to overcome the Performance Max’s limitations?
Faced with these challenges, Vanksen's experts are not sitting idle. Antoine Forêt and Benoît Wadeleux explain that they have developed complementary strategies to address the shortcomings of Performance Max. They use customised scripts to extract additional data, such as the breakdown of clicks, costs, and conversions by network type (search, display, shopping, YouTube). This helps them better understand where the budget is allocated and where conversions come from to optimise their Performance Max campaigns.
With these scripts, media experts can determine, for example, that 30% of a campaign's budget was spent on Search, 15% on Display, 10% on YouTube, and 45% on Shopping, while identifying that the majority of conversions came from Search and Shopping. These tools also allow them to export all search queries on which a campaign was displayed, thus facilitating targeting and keyword optimisation.
Conclusion: still not enough transparency in reporting
In conclusion, while the impression location reports for Performance Max provide an initial step toward transparency, they remain largely insufficient to give advertisers the data necessary for thorough analysis and complete optimisation. The absence of critical information such as conversions and clicks prevent a full understanding of the effectiveness of the placements used.
To maximise campaign performance, Vanksen's experts recommend combining these reports with customised solutions, such as scripts, to overcome the limitations of the current tools. A proactive approach is therefore essential to ensure effective management of Performance Max campaigns in an increasingly complex and demanding advertising ecosystem.