Should you run Search and Performance Max together?

Let's talk about how to pair different aspects of Google Ads for better results. In Episode 41 of Inside Google Ads, host Jyll Saskin Gales answers three of your burning questions about how different Google Ads features interact together.

We're talking about:

• Search & Performance Max: Power Pair?
• Search & Retargeting: Is RLSA still a valid Google Ads strategy?
• Impression Share & Budget: How to increase or decrease visibility

Tune in for your weekly dose of Google Ads strategy, tactics and tips from a Google Ads coach and ex-Googler. Plus, stay tuned until the end of the episode for a new Insider Challenge for you to solve!

Mentioned in this episode: Jyll's article about Keyword Prioritization
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/keyword-prioritization

You can get episode transcripts delivered to your inbox each week by signing up for free at https://free.jyll.ca/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode41

Inside Google Ads is exclusively sponsored by Optmyzr, the ultimate platform for managing your paid ads. Optmyzr analyzed more than 22,000 ad accounts and 835,000 ads to find out what impacts performance the most. Get the inside scoop on PMax, Optiscore, Ad Strength and more at https://optmyzr.com/blog?ref=ywu3y2m?utm_source=insidegoogleads&utm_medium=sponsorship

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Transcript

Nothing in Google Ads operates in a vacuum. 

Your keyword match types affect your Search terms, your bid strategy affects your CPCs. It's like the human body with all these different parts that are interconnected in different ways. 

Today, I'm going to answer three of your burning questions about how different aspects of Google Ads interact together. 

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you. 

This is Inside Google Ads Episode 41: Pairings.

Our first question comes from Yhlbill on TikTok and they ask, is it true to run a Search campaign and PMax together to get better results? 

Google calls this the Power Pair, Search and Performance Max (PMax) together.

It's not true that running them together will get you better results. That sounds like a guarantee and there's no guarantee. 

What is true is that Search campaigns still afford you more control and transparency than Performance Max does, while Performance Max can offer you more reach - and generally more affordable reach - than Search does. 

There's two key things to keep in mind when you're running Search and PMax together. 

First is budget. Only do this if you have enough budget to properly fund each campaign. If not, it's better to just run one properly funded campaign with sufficient budget. 

Second, you have to know about keyword prioritization rules.

I recently wrote an article about keyword prioritization for Word Stream so I'll link that in the episode description, but essentially, what happens when your Search campaign and your PMax campaign are both eligible to serve an ad on the same search is that only one of them will move forward to the auction against other advertisers, since you can only show one ad at a time from your Google Ads account. 

The long story short is that Exact Match Search keywords, which exactly match the user's search, will always win over PMax. Next, Phrase Match keywords, Broad Match keywords, and PMax Search themes that exactly match the user's search get the same priority as each other, behind Exact Match. And third, an AI-based prioritization determines who wins when Search and PMax share equal priority, or when none of the previous two things apply. And then ad rank comes in. 

Let's bring all that confusingness to life with an example. Let's say the user searches for “Google AdWords Course.” You have a phrase match keyword for “Google Ads Course” and a PMax Search theme for “Google Ads Course.” Neither of those exactly matches, because “ads” is not the same as “AdWords.”

Now, if we were just talking about keyword match types, then yes, a user search for “Google AdWords Course” would match to even your Exact Match keyword [Google Ads Course]. But this part of Google Ads prioritization works differently. It looks for identical matches, and given that there is not an identical match to the user search for “Google AdWords Course” in my account, Google will choose whether Search or PMax wins and enter the auction.

But what if the user searches for “Google AdWords Course,” you have an Exact Match keyword [Google Ads Course] and a PMax Search theme “Google AdWords Course”? PMax has the identical signal, in this example, to the user search, so PMax wins. Even though I said previously that Exact Match wins over Search themes, it wins when the user’s search exactly matches your keyword, which in this case, it didn't. 

Okay, what if your PMax has no Search themes and you have the Exact Match keyword [Google Ads Course] and the user searches “Google AdWords Course”? Again, even though Exact Match keywords are prioritized over PMax, there is not an identical Search. So this moves on to AI prioritization and Google can decide whether to show your Search ad or your PMax ad. 

I say all this to say, Search themes are pretty useless in my experience at getting your PMax to show ads on the searches you want. Search themes are just like an audience signal, and ultimately, your Performance Max campaign is going to do whatever it needs to achieve your goals, as laid out by your bid strategy.

But if you're running PMax and Search together, then Search themes are important because of the role that they play in prioritization. Still, we know in this day and age that identical searches to your keywords are a few and far between. And a PMax asset group can only have up to 25 Search themes anyway. So that being said, I've taken the time to explain keyword prioritization and now you can take the whole thing with a giant grain of salt because at the end of the day, it's probably not going to have that much practical impact on your campaigns. 

You're welcome. I think?!

Now, I've been sponsored by Optmyzr for about two months now, and I've had quite a few people I know reach out to me and say, “Hey Jyll, I hear you talking about Optmyzr a lot. Like, is it good? Should I use it?”

Yes, people.

Obviously it's nice that they sponsor my podcast and PPC Zone, but I would not recommend a tool to use that I don't genuinely believe will be helpful to you.

For example, one of my coaching clients recently went out and started their own freelance Google Ads business offering services. They used to maintain tons of Looker Studio dashboards to manage all their different data and gain greater insight into how their ads were performing. And while their Looker Studio skills are very impressive, it was also very time consuming. They started using Optmyzr after hearing me talk about it, and now they're using it to help them scale their business and manage so many clients. They told me it saves them so much time and it's so much easier than having to configure their own custom dashboards. 

Another friend of mine was on the edge about whether they wanted to start an agency or not. And they sent me a DM like, “Jyll, is this Optmyzr thing really good?” Yes, it is. They looked into it, agreed that it was just what they needed to feel confident that they'd be able to manage multiple client accounts, and they have started their agency now with Optmyzr's help. 

These are real stories and perhaps your story will be next. Go to Optmyzr.com to learn more. That's O-P-T-M-Y-Z-R dot com or check the link in the episode description.Our second question comes from Gavin on TikTok and they ask, for Search ads, would you retarget them to Display, YouTube, somewhere else? 

The good old RLSA, remarketing lists for search ads.

What many people don't realize is that you can add audiences to your Search campaigns and Shopping campaigns on Targeting or Observation mode. I explained targeting and observation way back in Episode 2 if you want to learn more about that.

But for Search retargeting, we want to select Targeting, and now you can use your keywords as usual, but your ads will only show if the user’s search matches one of your keywords and the user matches one of your audience selections. You can do this with Website Remarketing, YouTube Remarketing, Customer Match, and App Remarketing.

So how do you use this? Well, a great way to use RLSA is to use it to test Broad Match keywords. Take all of your Search keywords and put them in Broad Match, but apply your remarketing audiences on Targeting. What this means is that you'll become eligible to serve on many more searches, but only if the user is already familiar with your brand, because they're on one of the remarketing lists.

Another way to use RLSA is to test previously unprofitable keywords that you think should be profitable. Would they be profitable if you only serve ads to users who are familiar with your brand?

This is generally how to think about Search retargeting. Don't use it to narrow yourself down into a hole. Instead, use it as a safer way to expand your reach. 

If you want step-by-step tutorials on how to do everything we're talking about in this episode, like implementing Search retargeting or setting up a Performance Max campaign, then check out my course Inside Google Ads. Yes, it has the same name as this podcast. That's where you'll find more than 100 in-platform tutorials, plus you'll get access to a live monthly meeting with me. You can learn more at learn.jyll.ca, that's J-Y-L-L dot C-A, or follow the link in the episode.

Our final question today comes from Ryan Smith on LinkedIn, they ask, when it comes to Impression Share, would your budget be the main culprit for determining Impression Share?

Impression Share is determined by both your budget and your ad rank. Episode 20 of this podcast was all about Impression Share if you want a quick refresher on this concept.

The key is to ensure that you add these three columns to your campaign view: Impression Share, Lost Impression Share Due to Rank, and Lost Impression Share Due to Budget. You'll find them under the competitive metrics section when you go to add columns. 

If you're at the ad group or keyword level, then Lost Impression Share Due to Budget won't be there because budget is determined at the campaign level. But yes, you can even see your keyword-level Impression Share if you want. 

Now, one very important thing to keep in mind is if you're on a Maximize bid strategy - Maximize Clicks, Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value - then the difference between the Lost Due to Rank and Lost Due to Budget columns is meaningless, since budget changes cause bid changes.

But if you're on a Target strategy, Target ROAS or Target CPA, or you're still manually bidding, these two columns can tell you whether you lost out on potential ad impressions because your budget ran out, so you stopped serving ads, or whether you lost out on potential ad impressions because your ad rank was too low, and you lost the auction. And that in turn could be because of a Quality Score issue or a bidding too low issue or both. 

Budget is the easiest thing to fix, so to speak, to increase Impression Share, but higher Impression Share isn't always better. If you're already at 40% or 50% Impression Share on Non-brand Search, it will likely be prohibitively expensive to try to go higher. Remember, there are other advertisers in those auctions, and multiple ads can show on a single search. So outside of your own brand name, it's near impossible to get 100% Impression Share, even 90% or 80% Impression Share. That's not what should be your goal. 

So should you run Search and PMax together?

Feel free to run Search without PMax or PMax without Search. It depends on your goals, your budget, and how PMax is working for your account. 

Should you use Retargeting with Search campaigns?

Absolutely. It's a great way to expand your reach, but more conservatively. And if you've never tried it, it's a great tactic to add to your testing calendar. 

Is budget the main way to increase or decrease Impression Share? 

Not necessarily. Bidding and ad quality are just as important. While budget is the fastest and most direct lever, it's not the only one. And you can max out on budget, leaving ad rank improvements as the only way to increase Impression Share further. 

When you're optimizing your Google Ads campaigns, it's important to remember that everything is interrelated. Making a change over here can have consequences over there. So try to remember to think holistically about your campaigns and your account so you don't inadvertently throw a wrench into something that's working well. 

Today's Insider Challenge is this. Let's say you want to test RLSA, Remarketing Lists for Search Ads. What remarketing lists do you have available to use? Which would you like to use? And what keyword strategy will you try with those remarketing lists?

I've heard from many of you that you love and look forward to the Insider Challenge at the end of each episode, but that you have no interest in writing out your response to me. You prefer to mull it over in your head and think of your response in your own time, maybe discuss the challenge with your colleagues, but that's it. 

I get it. So I'm going to stop telling you to send me an email, blah, blah, blah, with the challenge each week, but of course, my inbox is still open to you if you do want to share how you would respond to the Insider Challenge. 

Remember, there's no right or wrong answer, just an opportunity to stretch your brain on real-life Google Ads problem solving.

Episode 39’s Insider Challenge was this: Think about your Google Ads account or a business you're currently running Google Ads for. What are two things that you could potentially use as a micro-conversion to help a campaign perform better? 

While I'm not currently running ads, two things that I could use as micro-conversions are selecting a time in my Calendly and visiting the offer checkout page.

In order to book a Google Ads coaching call with me, you need to go to my Calendly, select a date, select a time, and then enter your information and pay. So I probably wouldn't want every single person who lands on my Calendly, but if you selected a date and a time and then maybe get a little sticker shock or don't quite feel ready to buy yet, that's a really different valuable action to track, and it's required in order to convert. 

For my courses, you can get there via my course landing pages or links from social media or this podcast. And then you have to click to the checkout page and on the checkout page, you enter your payment info and purchase. So if someone gets to that checkout page, it's a required step en route to conversion. It's also a really valuable action, even if they don't end up purchasing in that session.

That's what I'd do in my business to help my Google Ads campaigns ramp up. Track micro-conversions for selecting a time in Calendly and visiting the offer checkout page on my course website. 

What would you use in yours?

I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.