Is Performance Max Google’s ‘Big Short’?
The opaque workings of Google’s Smart Shopping successor could cost marketers plenty, writes Joey Dorrington.
Christian Bale, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling dazzled through the US subprime mortgage crash in the 2015 film, ‘The Big Short’. But the real star of the show was a dodgy financial instrument called a CDO or Collateralised Debt Obligation. CDOs were invented to blend risky ‘subprime’ mortgages with more desirable, higher-rated debts. Masked within a banking ‘black box’, they gave the outward appearance of AAA-rated investments. But inside was a toxic jumble that eventually triggered the GFC.
Seven years on from the film and Google has given the world its own black box, the ambitiously-titled Performance Max. From September, all Google Smart Shopping campaigns will become Performance Max campaigns. And by our estimation, brands could waste between 25% and 40% of their budget if they simply follow the instructions when rolling it out.
Not unlike CDOs, Performance Max derives its value from combining Google’s good assets (YouTube, Search) with its not-so-good assets (Display, Maps, Gmail) then packaging them in container especially designed to shield its inner workings from the outside world.
Interesting suggestion to not get too close to your partners. Not sure how that works.
Well said, my sentiments exactly while trialling this campaign for a few of our clients, but with 0 visibility on where our “results” are coming from.
I also hate that shopping has been forced to pmax, now potentially cannibalising search and display.
Ripping article, I’ve been in marketing for a few years now yet have only been exposed to eComm recently.
This captures my entire realisation when I found out Google ‘Smart’ Shopping had no level of targeting, and was likely pushing branded keywords to boost surface level ROI.
The level of shady product iterations by Google (and then promoted by media agencies) is shocking.