To build a cross-channel strategy, advertisers have traditionally utilized a mix of individual, channel-specific campaign types to reach their customers at different parts of the marketing funnel. However, this limits your performance potential–you won’t get the full benefits of cross-channel bid optimization since these campaigns can’t look for conversion opportunities across other channels in a holistic way.
Single-channel campaigns are also constrained because they’ll be capped once they can no longer find additional conversions that meet your bid target within that one channel. On the other hand, cross-channel campaigns can find more conversions within your bid target because they have the flexibility to look across all the channels available to them.
Performance Max campaigns
Performance Max offers the greatest channel coverage of any campaign type in Google Ads. It takes the guesswork out of figuring out the right mix of channels, inventory and formats by using AI to optimize these in real time to help you drive better results. Advertisers that use Performance Max campaigns in their account see an average increase of 13% total incremental conversions at a similar cost per action.3 Retail advertisers using Performance Max have an average 12% increase in conversion value at the same or better return on ad spend (ROAS) when upgrading from Smart Shopping campaigns.4
Case Study
discovery+ found over 110,000 new subscribers using Performance Max
The challenge
After launching their Direct-to-Consumer streaming platform in January 2021, discovery+ saw their cost per acquisition for new subscribers slowly begin to lose efficiency. With aggressive quarterly subscriber growth goals, the discovery+ team sought to find channels and platforms which enabled them to reach and acquire new customers at a profitable CPA.
The approach
discovery+ joined the early Performance Max beta to get the best of Google's AI in a single campaign type which would serve across all Google channels. They created asset groups based on their content categories like True Crime, Nature, Home & Lifestyle, and more.
The results
From March 2021 through January 2022, discovery+ drove over 100k new subscribers using Performance Max. This represented a 17% growth in subscriptions on top of their existing Search, Video, App, and Discovery campaigns. Not only did the team unlock new subscribers, they did so at a 21% lower CPA than their non-branded Search campaigns. After finding consistent success in the US, Performance Max has become a cornerstone in their performance advertising, and discovery+ has expanded Performance Max campaigns into Canada, Brazil and EMEA.
“When you have a ton of content, creative and potential customers, there can be this tendency to micro segment. So when it comes to ultimately driving subscribers, we don't want to constrain where conversions are coming from, but rather lean into automation and double down on products like Performance Max that end up driving results and take the guesswork out of how we should be buying media"
— Regina Sommese, Group Vice President Paid Media, Global Subscriber Acquisition, discovery+
App campaigns
App campaigns are the cross-channel equivalent of Performance Max for advertisers with app promotion goals. They’re specifically designed for promoting your app across Google’s largest properties and networks, including Search, Google Play, YouTube, Discover, and Display.
Case Study
Flo drove 1 million new downloads per month using App campaigns
The challenge
FLO is the largest omnichannel shoe retailer in Turkey with high online sales growth ambitions on both web and app platforms. During a market slowdown, FLO wanted to grow their online sales by 2x while maintaining profitability. Additionally, FLO’s app users have a higher ROI and retention rate than their web users, and FLO wanted to make sure that they were attributing true value to the correct marketing channel.
The approach
In order to scale their app base, FLO diversified their App campaigns for installs and in-app actions. Wanting to create more room for optimization since App campaigns are fully automated, FLO implemented ad groups with product feeds in order to monitor performance among different ad groups, and see if groups using product feeds performed better.
Since a majority of FLO’s Google budget was dedicated to Shopping ads, FLO also implemented deeplinks to drive Search users with intent directly into their app. Lastly, FLO converted from third-party app analytics and started bidding for Google Analytics for Firebase conversions both in web and their app accounts, improving their overall Google Ads’ conversion and value performance.
The results
As a result of their multi-faceted approach, FLO saw 69% growth in their web and app sales, with a 73% increase in ROI. Additionally, FLO’s monthly active users increased 3.7x with a 23% improvement in CPA with Google App campaigns.
“We drove 1M new downloads per month with Google’s App campaigns for installs, proving the success of our app promotion.”
— Mustafa Kemal Temel, Ecommerce Director, FLO
3. Average uplift in performance based on Google Internal Study - Q4, 2021; Individual results may vary according to campaign details.
4. Google Data, Global, Ads, September - October 2021
