TPE #111: new Shopping & pMax updates (my thoughts)

GM, Miles here.

Google just announced a game-changing update:

Standard Shopping and Performance Max will have the same prioritization in the auction, and the campaign with the highest AdRank will serve.

Before the update, pMax would automatically take priority (when used in the same account as your Standard Shopping campaigns).

First seen by James Gibson.

I’m not sure if Google released this update in favor of advertisers or because of the antitrust case that's still going on…

But in today’s issue of The PPC Edge, I’ll share my thoughts and how it might impact your accounts, performance, and decision-making.

I think this update is more impactful for you if your account is pMax-heavy than Standard Shopping-heavy, because it technically gives less weight to pMax in the auction, and more to Standard Shopping.

Let’s dive right in!

The auction dynamics will become more complex.

Performance Max and Standard Shopping now have the same priority in the auction, and the campaign with the highest AdRank wins.

(Which is totally fair IMO)

This makes the auction dynamics more complex as Shopping Ads could be served from different campaigns (with equal weight in the auction).

Because of this, Bob thinks that the chances of Google favoring pMax over Standard Shopping (you vs. competitors) are lower, giving him more confidence that we won’t risk losing out on potential traffic by choosing SS over pMax.

As he said: this assumption is based on speculation and 0 proof, but it sounds plausible.

All-in-all, the auction dynamics will become more complex.

Dormant Standard Shopping campaigns could come back to life.

If you have active Standard Shopping campaigns in your account next to pMax, make sure to keep an eye on your performance because they might come back to life.

This was a great point by Andrew Lolk, check out his post here.

Your ROAS/CPA targets play a bigger role because of the impact on AdRank.

The campaign with the highest AdRank serves in the auction, and your bid strategy and targets play a huge role in this important metric.

So make sure you have more aggressive targets on the campaigns you want to favor.

Branded Standard Shopping campaigns could potentially get a lot more Non-Branded traffic.

This is a big one.

I almost always exclude Brand from pMax and catch this traffic in a Branded Standard Shopping campaign (here’s how that works).

Up until now, pMax would take priority in the auction, catching most Non-Branded traffic.

But since Standard Shopping and pMax will have the same weight, you might catch more Non-Branded traffic in your Branded Shopping campaign(s) which is unfavorable.

So keep an eye on your Branded Shopping campaigns, and keep excluding Non-Branded terms that slip through (and maybe even change your targets to reduce the AdRank of these campaigns).

If Standard Shopping gets priority in your auction, pMax might spend more on non-Shopping placements.

Dids Reeve made an excellent remark on a post by Andrew Lolk: could it be that pMax will divert its budget to non-Shopping placements?

I think this is very plausible, so keep an eye on your spend allocation insights with Mike Rhodes’ pMax script.

If you see that pMax suddenly spends more on Video, Display, and Search, make sure your adjust your targets and budgets accordingly (if this is in alignment with your goals and strategy).

Why my decision-making won’t change.

Even though it’s a great update, it doesn’t change how I think about choosing between Standard Shopping and Performance Max campaigns.

Up until now, if I wanted Standard Shopping to take priority in the auction (and have full control), I would just not use pMax and focus on Standard Shopping only.

The only thing that changes for me is that I can now use pMax next to Standard Shopping, and I have to watch how each campaign type reacts and performs.

But again: if I wanted full control, I would’ve already opted for a full Standard Shopping setup, and that won’t change in the future.

Keep an eye on your accounts in the upcoming weeks.

As always, monitor your accounts and campaigns, but do it even more in the upcoming weeks. Google said they will be “gradually” rolling out the update in Q4 — with no exact timelines.

A big update like this is a lot of fun, but can also break the dynamics of a well-structured account. Since we’re in Q4, I suggest not making any big changes to prevent destroying your setup.

But in Q1, it might be interesting to start testing Standard Shopping vs pMax again.

So keep an eye on your internal matching between pMax and Standard Shopping, and your campaign- and account-level performance.

Another big update, so as you know: never a dull moment in PPC ;-).

That’s all for today.

See you again next week!

Cheers,

Miles (& Bob)