Should You Use Google Search or Performance Max in 2023?

If you are currently not using performance max campaigns, my very strong Recommendation is that 2023 is the year that you start to switch over to performance max campaigns. And this is true if you are running e commerce service based campaigns, business to business campaigns, selling courses, or even if you're in a tourism niche. And the reason for this is because my very strong belief is that over the next two years, performance max and video campaigns will be the two dominant campaigns on the Google Ads platform. And I want to be clear that this is a massive shift in Google Ads. And the reason for that is because for the past decade, the dominant two campaigns in Google Ads have far and away been their search and their shopping campaigns. Now, as we Fast forward to 2025, I'm not saying that search and shopping campaigns will will no longer be relevant and no one will be using them. It's just that my very strong opinion is by the end of 2025, when we break down the total amount of ad spend that goes through performance max and video campaigns, so all of those campaigns on YouTube, it'll far outweigh the amount of money that is spent on standard search and shopping campaigns. And if you don't believe me, well, right now let's go through the top three reasons why for why I think very quickly performance max and video campaigns will overtake in terms of significance and the amount of money that's spent when compared to search and shopping campaigns. And if you stick around to the end of the video, after we go through these three reasons, I'm going to break down what this means for you and your campaigns right now in 2023. And the first reason is, is that search behaviors by users, so by users like you and me are changing very, very fast. Now, unless you've just come back from a three month elong must inspired trip to space, you would have surely heard about new AI tools which are now available to mere mortals like you and me. Things like Chat, GTP and also Bard. And the rise of these AI tools which is only going to continue with these tools not only being incorporated into our daily lives at a rapid rate, but also more and more of these AI tools coming out nearly every single week. Now it's very, very clear that that we approach search as an individual user will be quite different for as long as I can remember that when we wanted to find out something, you would go straight to a Google search. Whereas already now, so not only in the future people are turning to these chatbot tools like ChatGPT and also Bard, people are also utilizing Voice search commands more and more like hey Google, hey Siri or Alexa and all of these AI tools and voice assisted speakers, whatever networks or devices that you're currently using. This is changing search because as we know, rather than just going to do a Google search and then seeing all these results pop up for success with Google Ads advertising, it's going to take more than just search in that you're going to need your ads to be seen across a various display of networks. So everything From Search to YouTube to Google Display network through to Google Maps, through to Gmail, and even through to different push notifications. And this is where performance max campaigns are better suited for this type of environment as opposed to just straight search or shopping campaigns. Because as we know, performance max doesn't just push your ads out to one network like search pushing to search and like shopping pushing to shopping. Performance max campaigns will push all of your ads through to all of Google's different available networks, which at the moment is search, shopping, YouTube, Google Maps, display, and also Gmail. And that's the first reason why performance max and video campaigns are going to be far more dominant because they just offer so many more variations and one ways that we can show our ads as opposed to straight search. And this brings us to the second point, because one of the main advantages of search campaigns and shopping campaigns for as long as I can remember was that you could target specific keywords, giving very strong rules to Google that you only want your ads to be triggered when someone searches this exact phrase. So the second reason for why performance max and video campaigns are going to overtake search and shopping is because exact match keywords are now dead in Google Ads. Now, if you've been following my channel for the last six months, you would know that this is quite a common theme that I've spoken about through my different videos. The fact that exact match keywords don't operate like they used to. Now, yes, even right now you can select exact match keywords, but they do not operate like the name suggests. Historically, if you're running a lawn mowing service campaign and you had exact match keywords for lawn mowing service, you could set your campaign so that your ads only appear when someone uses that exact search term of lawn mowing service. So if someone was to search grass cutting service, your ads wouldn't appear. Or if someone was to search what is the cheapest lawn mowing service in my area, your ads would also not appear. And let me now show you how that is exactly changed and what you're seeing right now. Is from Google's help articles. And this is the example that we started talking through that if you were previously setting up a search term for lawn mowing service, as I said, you could limit your ads so that they would only trigger when someone put in that exact three words in that order. So it had to be lawn mowing service. If someone was to write mowing lawn service, your ads would not appear. But as you can see now, it even appears for things like grass cutting service. And I do know that this is the examples that Google would give, but I would argue in very real results data that I've seen is that if you were to have an exact match keyword lawn mowing service, Google would even show you ads for someone who would search lawn aeration prices. Now, that's not the argument that I want to get to right now, because what my focus is is explaining to you why exact match keywords are now dead. And because you are no longer able to give Google an exact phrase of keywords that you only want your ads to trigger when they're not only written with those exact words, but also in that exact order. That's the reason for why exact match keywords no longer exist. And when you group that on top of our search patterns changing, you can see now that because users like you and me, our search patterns are now changing because we're using more tools like Chat, GTP and Bard, and also because keyword matching doesn't operate like it used to. This now brings us to that third important reason for why performance max and video campaigns will be the more dominant campaigns by the end of 2025. And the third reason is because user demand for video content is growing rapidly. And this isn't just me saying it or burlo. Data that they reported on their website reported that in 2019, the average user was consuming on average 6 hours and 48 minutes of video content every single week, which represented a 59% increase from that same report and data just back in 2016. So in three years there was a 59% growth. And then other reports also show that on top of that, the average user will be consuming an extra 14.85% of video content between 2023 through to 2025. And it's this reason, because of the high demand from users like me that are wanting more and more video content that's going to bring a further switch to user behavior, which we all know that when user behavior changes, we also know that the advertising behavior and more importantly, the ad spend also changes. And Google is Well aware of this and it's why they're being actively pursuing this video market for a number of years now. Now we already know that YouTube is the world's second largest search platform. But just in the previous month to the time of this recording, In February of 2022, Google started to mon its short video platform or shorts. And the effect that this will have will be significant because what you'll see more and more is that short form content creators will be leaving meta. So Instagram and Facebook Moving over to YouTube for the simple reason of they can better monetize their content. So rather than just relying on brand deals, they can also couple their brand deals with a revenue share model from Google. And knowing that this is happening, I even saw way back at the end of 2021 that large advertisers were making the strategic decision that in 2022, and remember now we're 12 months ahead of that, in 2023, they were already going to be moving 30% of their budget, which they had allocated for TV and radio and billboards across to the YouTube platform. And that's why video is also going to be a core campaign for YouTube as we move ahead over the next two years. So now that we know about the changes that are happening, what I want to discuss now is what this means for people like you and me who, who are actively advertising their businesses or their clients businesses on Google Ads. And by that I mean what does that mean right now in 2023? And there's two scenarios that I want to give you and the first scenario is this is that if you've got successful, and by successful I mean profitable Google Ads, search and shopping campaigns, I wouldn't do anything just yet. I would keep both of those campaigns running so you don't need to quickly rush out and pause those campaigns. And a good marker of success would be is that if you're seeing those campaigns still operating within a 2.0 of their previous 12 months conversion value cost. So for example, if your search and shopping campaigns had been operating at a conversion value cost of 8.0, as long as those search or shopping campaigns are still operating at a 6.0 or higher, I wouldn't do anything just yet. I would keep those campaigns running, however, at some stage over the next six months. So between now and September of 2023, I would look to introduce a performance max campaign. But to make sure that this is a safe changeover, what I would be doing is I would only be using performance max for one of your services or one of your products. So don't switch everything away from search and shopping just yet. Start a new campaign in Performance Max and just target one of those keyword themes, one of those services, or one of those products. And that can be an easy way to get yourself into using Performance Max without risking the profitability and the viability of your total Google Ads campaign. And then the other thing that I would be doing, and this would be a faster action, is that as soon as possible, I would be looking at investing in specific video content and then also starting some video campaigns. And with this, I would start on a smaller budget. Because before you put a massive investment into video campaigns, you first want to test the type of content which is going to be working for you and your business. And now we're going to move on to that second point. But I will just point out that if you do go through to the description of this video, I will share a link where I do give some extra information about setting up video campaigns. So that first scenario was all around that your search and your shopping campaigns are still profitable. So the second scenario would be the opposite of that. If that especially over the last six months or even the last three months, you've really started to see the performance of your search and your shopping campaigns slide away. And once again, we're using that metric of that 2.0 on the conversion value cost, or if you're just using search campaigns with a maximized conversions so you don't have any ROAS goals, this would relate to a 20% drop in your cost per conversion. So for example, if you had that ROAS at 8, so conversion value cost at 8.0, if your conversion value cost now had a 5 in front of it was 5.2 or 5.5, I would be looking to make this change. And the change would be is that I would immediately start a Performance max campaign. But once again, doing it in a safe way, that we're setting up a performance max campaign which is only targeting one of your keyword themes, one of your products, or one of your services. And then when you start to see some good results, you start to move more and more your products and your keyword themes and your services are over to Performance Max. So essentially what you're doing is rather than waiting another six to nine months before you make that change, you're making that change straight away. And then on top of that, similar to the first scenario, I would also look to invest in video and start those video campaigns straight away. And now to help you further, if you're new to this whole world of performance max campaigns and video campaigns. I want to give you some extra resources right now to help you. And the first one is my Performance Max Optimization guide. And this is going to be especially helpful for people who are running e commerce campaigns. And that's why I call it my Google Ads Ecommerce Optimization Checklist. And this is a checklist which will let you know exactly how you need to optimize your performance max campaigns. And if you want to get your free copy now, all you need to do is to follow that link that you're going to be seeing in the description below. And to help you even further with that, right here is a video which will take you through the step by step process in how to optimize your performance max campaign. And if you are completely new to the world of video campaigns, go through and watch this video where I show you how you can set up your very own video campaigns. And that's it. Once again, thank you for joining me. My name is Aaron Young from Define Digital Academy and I'm your 15,000 hour Google Ads Master. And I look forward to seeing you on one of these two videos right now. See ya.