Have you ever heard of the rule of seven? It suggests that prospects needed to be touched on average 7 times by a brand before they make a purchase. This is from a marketing book by Jeffrey Cant entitled ‘Money Marketing Marketing published in 1987. However, as you may have guessed, in today’s digital era, this magic number has dramatically changed.
According to acclaimed web strategist Wes McDowell, “The new threshold is now more like 21 touchpoints because today’s buyers are inundated with an overwhelming number of choices and marketing messages.”
It’s a non-negotiable that businesses must be everywhere, all the time, all at once. But time and money are limited, and that makes it very difficult for businesses to be omnipresent. But thanks to the geniuses at Google, a new groundbreaking method to run Google ads has emerged that is changing the game. This new approach ensures not only wider visibility in search but also omnipresence across all of Google’s channels. It’s an effective and cost-efficient way to advertise on Google, ultimately saving time, and money, and delivering great results. Enter Google’s Performance Max—the revolutionary and B2B-friendly Google ad campaign that empowers marketers to maximize conversions.
When I wrote my book, Google’s Performance Max had only been launched; and as seasoned marketers understand, it takes time to gauge the true efficacy of a new ad strategy compared to the existing ones. So I did not include it in my book.
After some time has passed, I’m thrilled to share my research findings that validate Google’s claims about Performance Max. It is effective in delivering more valuable conversions in B2B, even from potential customers who might not have heard of your brand yet.
Performance Max covers multiple touchpoints, automatically increasing your reach. It introduces a new way to achieve omnipresence across the internet, precisely reaching the right people at the right time, resulting in a surge in lead conversion.
It leverages Google’s AI predictions to identify high-converting prospects across its multiple channels, including YouTube, display ads, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.
Leveraging its vast amounts of data on your buyer’s online behavior and physical whereabouts, Google can accurately predict the most promising prospects for your offerings.
All you need to provide is your goal, budget, targeting information, and creative assets* (See List Below). Google then skillfully mixes and matches these elements to create personalized conversations tailored to convert each target and automates the best sequence of touchpoints for your prospects to convert.
Harnessing the power of Google’s machine learning, the campaign continuously evolves, becoming increasingly efficient and profitable as it progresses. It discerns and optimizes the most effective tactics for each platform, guaranteeing unparalleled performance for your business.”
*Specifically, to run Google Performance Max, I recommend you to provide the following:
- 3-5 different headlines
- 1-5 longer headlines
- 2-5 descriptions
- 3-20 different images
- Your logo
- Upto 5 10-second videos (optional)
- Call to Action Text
An essential next step that I passionately encourage all B2B marketers to embrace involves precise audience targeting based on fundamental demographics, including age, location, and gender. Furthermore, Google offers a fantastic feature similar to what Facebook ads provide: lookalike targeting. With this powerful feature, you can submit your list of existing customers or buyers with their emails, and tap into an entirely new pool of lookalike prospects.
Finally, I’d like to share some tips if you’d like to test out Google’s Performance Max Campaign:
- Keep your existing search and remarketing campaigns running for now: Performance Max heavily relies on data—lots of it. It’s crucial to continue running your core, keyword-based search campaigns as they provide Google with valuable insights into your business and the effectiveness of keywords on various platforms.
- Provide lots of Assets & Copies: To fully leverage Performance Max’s dynamic ad creation, provide lots of creative assets and ad copies (see above recommendation). The more resources you offer, the greater variety of ads it can generate. The same principle applies to audience data. Share your remarketing lists, customer match lists, and any other relevant data you possess.
- Set clear goals: While it might sound obvious, Performance Max Campaigns thrive when aligned with specific conversion goals. Google can flexibly prioritize multiple goals. This is particularly beneficial for B2B businesses, as we emphasize marketing- or sales-qualified leads (MQLs and SQLs) over direct online sales conversions.