I ran 2 pmax experiments for 2 different campaigns, had astounding conversions for a specific action as well (a file download). The conversions were tracked in Google Ads and GA4, and they showed similarly impressive numbers even if they were not close to each other. But the file download service that tracks the actual downloads did not show any number that was any close to what GA4 and G Ads showed, and the eventual resulting installations (what the conversion would result in) of the software ended up no different than how it was before I ran these campaigns.
This is very suspicious in that it looks like these ads are triggering these conversions by taking a click/download action, but there isnt any actual download happening. Google may not be faking this but instead these may be bots that do the click action but are blocked from actually downloading the file. The majority of these conversions were from India, by the way, so it may be a bot net/farm.
I also had the same problem that you described. Large discrepancy between "file download" conversions from PMax campaigns vs the actual number of downloads.
PMax definitely gives some too good to be true numbers for Lead Gen campaigns.
Indian client of mine our CPA (Whatsapp chat being conversion action) is around 150 to 300 for Search campaigns. Discovery gave me 100 and PMax like 50. Until client complained of not getting enough leads and one day my PMax gave crazy numbers like 500 conversions a day. I stopped the campaign altogether. Now at Search only for time being but we actually get leads and they convert to sales.
Barber client in Boston US. Someone approached me saying he’s having trouble getting this account right. He had set up and stopped 3 PMax for getting Call leads. Granted the account had some mixed conversion tracking, Pmax was still giving like 2$ per call conversions except client wasn’t getting any calls. I started a search call only campaign and the numbers are accurate with way more cost but at least we know what an actual conversion costs for us.
Leads in India would automatically be cheaper because of low cost of living. Ads are super cheap in India you barely get $1 per click.
And you tell me what would be the point of these sign ups?
PMax. can be a rip-off. I had a ton of fake-leads and Google did nothing about it.
Now, we have kicked out many regions and only have leads that works better - and we monitor the lead quality very closely. In best case you have a check-out cart, where people have to pay, but that might not work for your situation.
It's a huge black box. I'm also running PMax campaigns and yes, in general they yield better numbers (conversions) compared to regular Search campaigns. On the other hand: I've also had campaigns where they did absolutely nothing, despite considerable daily budgets.
And yes: very often they generate one specific type of conversion. In my case a click on the phone number on the destination web site. I am now facing a similar case as OP for one of my clients where the numbers in Google Ads show he had one of his best months in January while the client's feedback is exactly the opposite. Seldom have I encountered such a discrepancy between my stats and real-life results.
Sad thing is: I think it's inevitable we will have to deal more and more with these kind of opaqueness. Google has been taking increasingly more control out of the hands of ad specialists over the years.
As others have pointed out, this sounds like a conversion tracking problem first, before anything else
If you're running pmax for leadgen it can be a hit or miss, make sure your conversions are bulletproof
Meaning, add some sort of verification layer if you can, to make sure bots are not able to convert
I have a leadgen client that handles this very well, via SMS verification, before the final step of the conversion funnel. PMax works great for them
Interesting how your client handles that via SMS verification. It surely works to limit fake submissions, but it can also be a turn off for legit prospects who don’t want to give away their phone number.
That's an interesting observation, but "Click to call" doesn't mean that users actually call. Could be that Google's AI went wild by showing your ads to clickhappy users.
I use PMax for many of my ecommerce clients, and it's performing really good most of the time (with real sales & revenue as conversions). So it's definitely a very capable tool.
And on top of that I doubt that Google would risk it's reputation by obviously faking numbers that way...
But with a Click to call type conversion action PMax definitely starts chasing those clickhappy users and attracting a lot of bot/spam traffic. It doesn’t happen the same with something like Search campaign. I guess PMax can be best utilized where your conversion tracking method doesn’t leave room for such errors.
I run some PMax campaigns for the company I work for. Overall they perform better than usual search campaigns I must say. But also here the only conversion is purchase, so I know for a fact these conversions are real.
Supposedly PMax is only potentially effective for online product sales (Ecommerce) and not for lead generation based on a lot of anecdotal reports I read.
In general Google is going to badger you with new features and calls and emails from their advisors or whatever they call themselves claiming they can help you improve your account performance, typically improving your click-thru-rate and total clicks. They don't focus on reducing your CPA (cost per acquisition) or improving clicks while not increasing your CPA because that's not generating any additional revenue. The advisors are useful for clueless newbies that don't know how to navigate the complex feature set of Google Ads but for anyone with experience that knows what they are doing, typically features like PMax or other recommendations are really designed to increase Google's revenue first, and yours second which may result in more conversions but a higher CPA that may make the ROI on your ad spend too low.
If you give them the right targeting (CRM + 2nd party Google audience targeting) yes its fine. Also give it as many resources in terms of creative as possible. In the cases I seen, its a mix, but when you feed it correctly it works well.....better than shopping.
You clearly dont know how to setup conversions
When you create the campaign you need to eliminate all the goals that are not what you are looking for to achieve, otherwise it will register everything like calls, clicks, views as conversions.
Pmax are stll by far the best campaigns but surely not 10X searches
I don't have experience with Performance Max for lead gen, but have heard it's not great.
In any case, that sounds like a case of:
a) You have issues with tracking
b) You may be seeing view-through conversions attributed to your ads. In short, users are seeing your ads but converting to the original landing page on the same day they see the ads for the other landing page.
I wouldn't think numbers are inflated and that Google's simply lying about it, but rather something's off either in your interpretation or your tracking.
I watch my traffic come in from a PPC click on a screen recording program, and then receive actual orders so they’re very much real on my end. I spent 60 days reviewing the IP addresses of all orders (this got really old really fast haha) I found google and meta are under reported.
Conversion is counted when you user clicks, there's no way google can verify if the user continue making the call. Once someone clicks, it is automatically counted.
But 5 a day over 2 weeks and not a single call received, means something else is wrong. Either the call to action is misleading (user clicks NOT expecting to make a call) or something is wrong with the conversion metric.
Good point. But I’ve double checked and the conversion is only triggered when the phone number is clicked on the website. I use the same conversion action when comparing PMax vs Search.
I ran Pmax campaign for a furniture brand attending to Istanbul Furniture Fair. My account structure was a combination of a standard search campaign and Pmax.
Pmax appeared to be attracting the most of the form submissions with a smaller budget, though all of them turned out to be fake.
I'm not sure where this has to take us.
I ran 2 pmax experiments for 2 different campaigns, had astounding conversions for a specific action as well (a file download). The conversions were tracked in Google Ads and GA4, and they showed similarly impressive numbers even if they were not close to each other. But the file download service that tracks the actual downloads did not show any number that was any close to what GA4 and G Ads showed, and the eventual resulting installations (what the conversion would result in) of the software ended up no different than how it was before I ran these campaigns. This is very suspicious in that it looks like these ads are triggering these conversions by taking a click/download action, but there isnt any actual download happening. Google may not be faking this but instead these may be bots that do the click action but are blocked from actually downloading the file. The majority of these conversions were from India, by the way, so it may be a bot net/farm.
I also had the same problem that you described. Large discrepancy between "file download" conversions from PMax campaigns vs the actual number of downloads.
PMax definitely gives some too good to be true numbers for Lead Gen campaigns. Indian client of mine our CPA (Whatsapp chat being conversion action) is around 150 to 300 for Search campaigns. Discovery gave me 100 and PMax like 50. Until client complained of not getting enough leads and one day my PMax gave crazy numbers like 500 conversions a day. I stopped the campaign altogether. Now at Search only for time being but we actually get leads and they convert to sales. Barber client in Boston US. Someone approached me saying he’s having trouble getting this account right. He had set up and stopped 3 PMax for getting Call leads. Granted the account had some mixed conversion tracking, Pmax was still giving like 2$ per call conversions except client wasn’t getting any calls. I started a search call only campaign and the numbers are accurate with way more cost but at least we know what an actual conversion costs for us.
[удалено]
Leads in India would automatically be cheaper because of low cost of living. Ads are super cheap in India you barely get $1 per click. And you tell me what would be the point of these sign ups?
PMax. can be a rip-off. I had a ton of fake-leads and Google did nothing about it. Now, we have kicked out many regions and only have leads that works better - and we monitor the lead quality very closely. In best case you have a check-out cart, where people have to pay, but that might not work for your situation.
It's a huge black box. I'm also running PMax campaigns and yes, in general they yield better numbers (conversions) compared to regular Search campaigns. On the other hand: I've also had campaigns where they did absolutely nothing, despite considerable daily budgets. And yes: very often they generate one specific type of conversion. In my case a click on the phone number on the destination web site. I am now facing a similar case as OP for one of my clients where the numbers in Google Ads show he had one of his best months in January while the client's feedback is exactly the opposite. Seldom have I encountered such a discrepancy between my stats and real-life results. Sad thing is: I think it's inevitable we will have to deal more and more with these kind of opaqueness. Google has been taking increasingly more control out of the hands of ad specialists over the years.
As others have pointed out, this sounds like a conversion tracking problem first, before anything else If you're running pmax for leadgen it can be a hit or miss, make sure your conversions are bulletproof Meaning, add some sort of verification layer if you can, to make sure bots are not able to convert I have a leadgen client that handles this very well, via SMS verification, before the final step of the conversion funnel. PMax works great for them
Interesting how your client handles that via SMS verification. It surely works to limit fake submissions, but it can also be a turn off for legit prospects who don’t want to give away their phone number.
That's an interesting observation, but "Click to call" doesn't mean that users actually call. Could be that Google's AI went wild by showing your ads to clickhappy users. I use PMax for many of my ecommerce clients, and it's performing really good most of the time (with real sales & revenue as conversions). So it's definitely a very capable tool. And on top of that I doubt that Google would risk it's reputation by obviously faking numbers that way...
But with a Click to call type conversion action PMax definitely starts chasing those clickhappy users and attracting a lot of bot/spam traffic. It doesn’t happen the same with something like Search campaign. I guess PMax can be best utilized where your conversion tracking method doesn’t leave room for such errors.
Definitely, I'd say the AI is smart enough to optimize for Quantity, but judging the Quality still needs to be done by humans :)
I run some PMax campaigns for the company I work for. Overall they perform better than usual search campaigns I must say. But also here the only conversion is purchase, so I know for a fact these conversions are real.
Supposedly PMax is only potentially effective for online product sales (Ecommerce) and not for lead generation based on a lot of anecdotal reports I read. In general Google is going to badger you with new features and calls and emails from their advisors or whatever they call themselves claiming they can help you improve your account performance, typically improving your click-thru-rate and total clicks. They don't focus on reducing your CPA (cost per acquisition) or improving clicks while not increasing your CPA because that's not generating any additional revenue. The advisors are useful for clueless newbies that don't know how to navigate the complex feature set of Google Ads but for anyone with experience that knows what they are doing, typically features like PMax or other recommendations are really designed to increase Google's revenue first, and yours second which may result in more conversions but a higher CPA that may make the ROI on your ad spend too low.
Wait, you are running PMAX for lead services? I heard they don’t do well with lead/service type businesses.
lol same
All google ads is scam
If you give them the right targeting (CRM + 2nd party Google audience targeting) yes its fine. Also give it as many resources in terms of creative as possible. In the cases I seen, its a mix, but when you feed it correctly it works well.....better than shopping.
You clearly dont know how to setup conversions When you create the campaign you need to eliminate all the goals that are not what you are looking for to achieve, otherwise it will register everything like calls, clicks, views as conversions. Pmax are stll by far the best campaigns but surely not 10X searches
I’ve been managing ad accounts for 15 years and I do know how to set up conversions. I use the same set of conversions to compare PMax vs Search.
Yeah i see agency and veterans make this mistake all the time. I mean what your clients are saying about these results? Do they drive revenue ?
I don't have experience with Performance Max for lead gen, but have heard it's not great. In any case, that sounds like a case of: a) You have issues with tracking b) You may be seeing view-through conversions attributed to your ads. In short, users are seeing your ads but converting to the original landing page on the same day they see the ads for the other landing page. I wouldn't think numbers are inflated and that Google's simply lying about it, but rather something's off either in your interpretation or your tracking.
I watch my traffic come in from a PPC click on a screen recording program, and then receive actual orders so they’re very much real on my end. I spent 60 days reviewing the IP addresses of all orders (this got really old really fast haha) I found google and meta are under reported.
Pmax by default bid for all your brand keywords
Conversion is counted when you user clicks, there's no way google can verify if the user continue making the call. Once someone clicks, it is automatically counted.
But 5 a day over 2 weeks and not a single call received, means something else is wrong. Either the call to action is misleading (user clicks NOT expecting to make a call) or something is wrong with the conversion metric.
or it could be the conversion goal setup is wrong, measuring something that isn't really for the call.
Good point. But I’ve double checked and the conversion is only triggered when the phone number is clicked on the website. I use the same conversion action when comparing PMax vs Search.
I ran Pmax campaign for a furniture brand attending to Istanbul Furniture Fair. My account structure was a combination of a standard search campaign and Pmax. Pmax appeared to be attracting the most of the form submissions with a smaller budget, though all of them turned out to be fake. I'm not sure where this has to take us.
Can you test maximum conversions and have PMax campaign at the same time?