Imagine transforming your digital marketing game with just one simple tweak.
Well, it’s possible with one of the newest Performance Max campaign features – Search themes.
You might be wondering, what’s the big deal about Search Themes?
Let me tell you: it’s the secret sauce that can skyrocket your conversion rates by a staggering 20%.
This feature is a cutting-edge addition to Performance Max campaigns. It empowers you to share valuable insights about your business and objectives with Google AI. As a result, Google AI becomes more adept at aligning your ads with the most relevant search queries and users.
Stay with us as we break down what Search Themes are and how they can make your Performance Max campaigns perform better than ever!
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Before we deep dive into this new feature and its benefits, just a quick reminder:
Performance Max campaigns are a goal-based campaign type that leverages Google’s AI technology to deliver ads across the entirety of Google’s inventory, including Search, YouTube, Display Network, Discover, and Gmail, which allows you to reach a wider audience and achieve your marketing goals more effectively.
Here are its key benefits:
Automated bidding and budget optimization
Access to all Google Ads inventory
Simplified campaign management
How Search themes transformed Performance Max campaigns
The Search themes beta feature was rolled out on October 26, 2022, and since then, it’s available in all GA accounts. Until that moment, Performance Max used to depend solely on analyzing assets, feeds, and landing pages to determine the most effective placements for ads. However, the addition of Search themes now empowers advertisers to explicitly inform Google’s AI about their business and customers, even if that information isn’t explicitly present on their landing pages. This allows for more precise targeting and better ad placement, especially for new products or services that might not yet have fully fleshed-out landing pages.
By providing an additional data layer, Search themes enable advertisers to inject their own expertise and knowledge into the targeting process. This bridges the gap between the automated decisions made by PMax and the unique circumstances of each advertiser.
What are Search themes?
Search themes are optional signals that you can add to your Performance Max asset groups. Search themes can be broad or specific, and they can be related to your products or services, your target audience, or your overall business goals.
Here’s how they work:
Search themes let you indicate queries that you know your customers are looking for. They are optional and are additive to what queries Performance Max would match you to using your URLs, assets, and more.
You can add up to 25 search themes per asset group.
Search themes will respect brand exclusions in Performance Max and account-level negative keywords.
Results driven from search themes will bring your customers to the landing pages you’ve indicated via your Final URL expansion, page feeds, and URL contains settings.
Search themes will have the same prioritization as your phrase match and broad match keywords in your Search campaigns.
Combining search themes with other Performance Max features, like automated bidding and budget optimization, further enhances campaign performance.
While Google doesn’t currently provide specific performance metrics for individual Search themes, we strongly recommend utilizing this feature to provide Google AI with valuable insights that might not be readily apparent from landing pages or ad copy alone. This additional information can significantly improve targeting accuracy and campaign performance.
Remember!
Performance Max Search themes are still evolving. While these case studies offer valuable insights, it’s crucial to experiment and tailor your approach based on your specific goals and audience.
By leveraging the power of Performance Max Search themes, you can unlock new opportunities for reaching your target audience and achieving your marketing objectives.
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Bojan Bovan, Account Manager
With his extensive background in media buying for some of Inceptly's biggest clients, Bojan is known for his inquisitive mind and attention to detail. He keeps his hand on the pulse of new developments in direct-response advertising and enjoys finding ways to apply innovative strategies and techniques to keep our clients ahead of the curve.
Want to brainstorm with our team on new ways to scale your business with YouTube Ads (and other performance video platforms)?
Join us for a free YouTube ad brainstorming session:
