Increase conversions with Performance Planner

Question 1

Why is Planning is the crucial first step to achieving success with Google Ads

Answer 1

Digital marketing is constantly evolving, which helps businesses like yours connect with more customers. By planning your Google Ads budgets on a monthly basis in advance, you can help ensure that when people need products or information, your ads can meet them at the right time to help to maximise conversions and achieve your key performance indicators (KPIs).
Understand the future spend potential of current Google Ads campaigns to help to drive budget decisions.
Take advantage of seasonality to capture incremental opportunities.
Set optimal bids and budgets across your campaigns to help ensure that ROI performance is maximised.
Find new opportunities to grow your sales volumes with Google Ads.

Question 2

What is the Google Ads Performance Planner?

Answer 2

Performance Planner is a new forecasting tool that uses machine learning to reveal the possibilities for your Google Ads campaigns. With this tool, you can explore forecasts for your upcoming monthly, quarterly and annual budgets for current campaigns, while also helping to improve your return on investment.

Question 3

How does the Performance Planner work?

Answer 3

Performance Planner determines the optimal bids and average daily budget allocations across all of your campaigns to help to increase the number of conversions that you can achieve for any future spend scenario. It uses the following process: forecast is grey dot, optimal bids to maximise conversions are the blue line and you can see the changes in campaigns table.

Question 4

How is performance planner calculated?

Answer 4

Forecasting - Google Search ad auctions – made up of billions of searches per week – power our forecast engine, Simulation - Our forecast engine simulates relevant ad auctions with query-level variables, including seasonality, click-through rate, competitors, landing page and time of day, Machine learning - We use machine learning to fine-tune forecasts and achieve a higher level of accuracy, Validation - We perform forward and backward measurements of accuracy for thousands of campaign samples – across one-, seven-, 30- and 90-day periods – to ensure that we’re making valid recommendations

Question 5

How to use Performance planner 1/4

Answer 5

Create a new budget plan to learn the best bids and budgets for your campaigns to drive incremental conversions.

Question 6

How to use Performance planner 2/4

Answer 6

Explore further optimisations and forecast how you can grow your business with Google Ads

Question 7

How to use Performance planner 3/4

Answer 7

Review and implement changes prescribed by your Performance Planner plan

Question 8

How to use Performance planner 4/4

Answer 8

Ensure that you react to external factors and optimise based on the target metrics set. Use Performance Planner on a monthly basis for best results.

Question 9

How to get the most out of your budget at different stages

Answer 9

1. The additional conversions that you can generate at the same spend using Performance Planner.
2. The incremental number of conversions that you can achieve and maximum amount that you can spend without diminishing returns (maintain your current CPA
3. The incremental number of conversions that you can achieve and maximum amount that you can spend at your desired target CPA goal (in order to remain profitable))
4. Additional spend and resulting conversion scenarios at higher target CPA goals (reduce profitability to increase total conversion volume)

Question 10

Why should I use Performance Planner every month?

Answer 10

Seasonality, fluctuating auctions and competitors mean that Google Ads campaigns should be planned and optimised on at least a monthly basis.
Using Performance Planner every month lets you optimise your budgets and bids so that you can drive more conversions for the same investment.

Question 11

Why should you create separate plans for each marketing objectives?

Answer 11

Don’t add all brand and generic campaigns into the same plan. This is because different campaigns often have different marketing objectives. Incremental conversions are achieved by creating separate plans for each marketing objective.

Question 12

Why should you set bid and budget using non-last-click conversions?

Answer 12

By default, Performance Planner will forecast conversions based on what’s included in the Conversions column in your Google Ads front end. To allocate budgets that drive incremental conversions, set bids and budgets using non-last-click conversions in your Conversions column.

Question 13

Why should you regularly check your plan?

Answer 13

Forecasts improve when plans are generated closer to the actual run date. Make sure that you regularly check on your plan before implementing it.

Question 14

What changes will Performance Planner recommend?

Answer 14

One of three
1. Search Manual cost per click (CPC) or Enhanced CPC campaigns
Recommended average daily budget and campaign bid scaling (1.5 scaling means +50% bid scaling)
2. Search Maximise clicks or Maximise conversions campaigns
Recommended average daily budget
3.Search Target CPA or Target return on ad spend (ROAS) campaigns
Recommended average daily budget, Campaign-level Target CPA or Campaign-level Target ROAS

Question 15

How do I see and implement these recommended changes?

Answer 15

You can manually apply these suggestions through the Google Ads campaign management interface, or you can download a Google Ads Editor file and upload to Google Ads Editor to see and implement the recommended changes.

Question 16

Why should you use non-last-click attribution conversions?

Answer 16

Performance Planner forecasts for conversion types that are activated for the Include in Conversions setting in the Conversions column. To allocate budgets that drive incremental conversions, include non-last-click attribution conversions in the Include in Conversions column.

Question 17

Why should you create multiple plans for campaigns that have different marketing objectives?

Answer 17

It’s considered best practice to separate campaigns with different marketing objectives into different Performance Planner plans so that spend isn’t reallocated between two different marketing objectives. Instead, consider grouping campaigns by marketing goal or budget. For example, you could split consideration and intent-focused campaigns by separating generic search campaigns (such as a campaign containing the keyword ‘suv sale’) and brand search campaigns (such as a campaign containing the keyword ‘buy Landrover suv’) into separate plans.

Question 18

Why should you use the performance target feature?

Answer 18

Unpredictable external factors in a dynamic auction environment mean that Performance Planner forecasts may have discrepancies. As a result, it’s important to continually track and optimise performance. Use the performance targets feature to monitor targets set in Performance Planner and receive alerts and recommendations when a campaign isn’t on track.

Question 19

Why should you use optimisation score on the recommendations page to improve your campaigns?

Answer 19

Performance Planner is used for forecasting future periods, and recommendations in Performance Planner can be used as guidance to ensure that seasonality and budget reallocation are accounted for in future periods so that you can prevent your campaigns from becoming ‘Limited by Budget’

Question 20

What are some additional factors that you should check while budget planning?

Answer 20

Seasonality - Take advantage of seasonal trends throughout the year., Market share - Get ahead of fluctuating auctions due to activity from other businesses and other external factors., Growth - Use Performance Planner to compare previous periods and see a forecast of the growth possibilities that you can drive using Google Ads.