von Thimo Hofner
Performance Max (PMax) campaigns are both a blessing and a curse. You give up a lot of control and hope that, in return, Google’s AI will achieve your campaign goals more efficiently – be it more sales, lower lead prices or more store visits.
To achieve this, Google uses a variety of different signals. You define some of these yourself when creating the campaign. The AI learns the rest over time. This is known as a learning phase. After all, it’s called machine learning for a reason.
To achieve your goals with PMax campaigns, it is very important to understand the learning phase. This will help you to draw the right conclusions and make the best possible use of your budget.
In this concise post, you will find everything you need to know about the learning phase of PMax campaigns. Let’s go
In a nutshell: The learning phase of Performance Max campaigns lasts around 6 weeks. During this time, Google analyzes a variety of data and signals in order to achieve maximum performance.
That was the short answer. If you want to understand the learning phase properly, you’ll find everything you need in this post. Here is the overview:
As the name suggests, Google tries to achieve maximum performance with the PMax campaign type. The basic principle is no different to your manual campaigns:
It’s about avoiding scatter loss and using the budget efficiently where it will lead to conversions.
The learning phase of your campaign begins as soon as you have created and launched it and it generates the first impressions. However, the AI does not start from scratch. This is because you have already provided a lot of important information when creating the campaign. Here is a list:
Campaign goal and bidding strategy: The campaign goal is one of the most important signals. This is because the AI needs to know whether you want to generate sales, leads, website visits or store visits with your campaign.
With the bidding strategy, you can also signal to Google whether you prefer to optimize the number of conversions or the conversion value.
Ad assets: You use asset groups to give Google all the important ad assets to generate ads from. You also enter a target URL in each case. The algorithm uses the information on your target pages (and your entire website) as additional signals.
Make sure that you divide your campaign into meaningful asset groups. You can find out more about the right asset group structure in a separate post.
Audience signals: Here you can tell Google different target groups and characteristics that you think are more likely to convert. These can be remarketing, in-market or affinity audience segments. You can also give demographic signals such as age or gender.
In addition, you can use search themes to enter up to 25 keywords per asset group for which the ad is relevant.
Important: These are not targeting settings as we know them from other campaigns. The AI will also address users beyond this selection.
Keyword restrictions: With PMax campaigns, there are no negative keyword lists as we know them from normal search campaigns, but there are still ways to exclude certain search queries:
You can define negative keywords at the account level and exclude brand keywords via the campaign settings. You can also set up a negative keyword list via your account manager at Google.
Region and language: As usual, you can select the target region and language of your target group when creating the campaign.
Tip: Think of Google’s AI as being similar to ChatGPT. The quality of the results depends heavily on your input.
The more specific and detailed you are about who you want to address with the campaign and what you want to achieve, the faster PMax will achieve good results.
Now you may be wondering what machine learning actually means in the case of PMax campaigns. So…
Of course, we don’t know the exact process of the algorithm – even for Google, it’s probably not always clear how the AI works exactly.
What we do know is which data points the AI collects and analyzes to use your budget more and more effectively over time. This is because PMax campaigns give us a little insight via the insights or the bidding strategy report, for example.
The algorithm obtains this type of data by automatically testing an extremely large number of aspects. Because…
Using the signals you provide as a starting point, PMax campaigns test the influence of various factors on performance.
In my opinion, this is one of the biggest advantages of this type of campaign . Because manually it is simply impossible to test so many variables at the same time and determine the strongest combinations.
What does happen exactly?
Optimization of ads: Using the asset groups, you give Google many different options for possible ads in the various networks. Google creates a large number of ad combinations from the texts, images and videos provided.
During the learning phase, Google identifies the strongest combinations and focuses the budget more on these. You can see which these are and which assets perform well in the asset details.
Read more: Analyze Performance Max asset performance
Testing the landing pages: In the default setting of PMax campaigns, other relevant pages of your website can automatically be used as landing pages. These are tested in combination with the assets.
This is how conversion-strong landing pages are determined.
Testing audiences and keywords: Google determines which search queries and which target group segments lead to conversions. These can also deviate greatly from the self-defined target group signals.
Testing remarketing: PMax campaigns also function as dynamic remarketing campaigns. This means that when users interact with your website, they are addressed again via the various Google networks.
In my experience, the campaigns focus on the “warm” remarketing target groups, especially at the start. This is because the chance of many conversions is naturally greatest here.
Important: The prerequisite for this is the Google Remarketing Tag on your own site.
Factors location, time and more: Other variables that Google takes into account are, for example, the region, the day, the time of day or the user’s device. All this data is analyzed and the AI learns which combinations have a higher chance of success.
Optimize Bidding strategy: There are two options for PMax campaigns: Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value. The algorithm learns how to use the available budget with increasing probability in such a way that it leads to conversions.
Test products: If you use campaigns with a Merchant Center feed to advertise your products in the Shopping Network, these will of course also be tested. Google often identifies the best performers and focuses more on these products.
Google’s AI probably works beyond that, but these are the important factors you should know.
Info: Of course, learning never stops with PMax campaigns. This means that even after the learning phase, the algorithm continues to test, but not as intensively as during the learning phase.
According to Google, the AI needs at least 6 weeks to collect enough data for a performance comparison.
And yes, 6 weeks is a long time in the fast-paced marketing world. But if you want to have a successful PMax campaign in your account, there’s no way around it.
This means it takes around 45 days for the campaign to analyze all the necessary data and train the algorithm. During these 6 weeks, the performance may not look very good. Nevertheless, it is important not to jump to conclusions!
You can make an initial assessment of the campaign after this time.
It is important to plan for this time and adjust your expectations. You must always bear in mind that PMax campaigns are basically 7 campaigns in one, which are all optimized at the same time. This takes time.
By the way: In another post, I collected all the important points for optimizing Performance Max campaigns.
In most cases, this investment pays off and the empowered AI can give you a competitive advantage. Of course, it is also possible that the campaign does not perform as desired.
There is always a certain risk.
As is so often the case, the answer to the question: How long is the learning phase? – should actually be: It depends!
After all, the learning phase is primarily about learning which factors lead to successful conversions. If you have an existing account with existing and well-maintained conversion and audience data, this shortens the learning phase.
This is because PMax campaigns also use the data from other campaigns and the entire account.
Which data is helpful?
Of course, the amount of data also influences the time of the learning phase. If you want to advertise a large number of different products and landing pages with one campaign, the algorithm needs longer to collect and analyze significant data.
Now that we have taken a closer look at the concept of the learning phase, I would like to point out 3 common mistakes that you should avoid.
The data you provide to Google when creating the PMax campaign serves as the basis for the learning phase.
If you change it significantly during the first 6 weeks, this will interrupt – and in the worst case – extend the learning phase.
What you should avoid?
Tip: Set up the campaign as detailed as possible right from the start. Avoid making any changes in the first 45 days. Good planning is very important for this.
By the way: An interruption in the learning phase can also be the reason why your PMax campaign does not utilize the entire budget. If you have this problem, you can find more information in this post: Why Performance Max isn’t utilizing the budget
Conversion tracking is fundamentally important for the success of your campaigns. This is because conversion data defines your success.
It is your tool for communicating to Google what you want to achieve with the campaign.
Any changes to the tracking or changing the campaign goal can have a major impact on the learning phase and overall performance.
The learning phase of a Performance Max campaign lasts about 6 weeks.
As discussed, it is very important to allow this time and not jump the gun. The performance during this time is not decisive for the potential of the campaign.
If you lose patience and stop the campaign early, you could miss out on a great opportunity.
Important: Google only displays the campaign status “Bid strategy learning” for a few days. This display is not relevant for the actual duration of the learning phase.
Machine learning in Google Ads is becoming increasingly important. It is not for nothing that Google constantly recommends changing the campaign type to Performance Max for other campaigns.
In order to run successful campaigns with Google Ads in the future, it is therefore important to understand Google’s AI. Since every company is different, it takes time to learn which factors lead to success.
If you’ve read this post this far (thank you 😄), I want you to take away the following 3 points for yourself:
I hope I was able to help you with this post and wish you every success with your campaigns!
Work Smart – Clicks in Mind
Hi, mein Name ist Thimo Hofner. Ich arbeite seit mehr als 5 Jahren im Online Marketing als Google Ads Manager. Über viele Kurse, Weiterbildungen und vor allem die Arbeit mit vielen verschiedenen Kunden habe ich die besten Strategien für den Erfolg mit Google Ads gelernt. In meinem Blog und auf YouTube teile ich mein Wissen, um Dir zu mehr Online-Marketing-Erfolg zu verhelfen.
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