Standard vs Smart Shopping vs Performance Max

As an ecommerce business, it is essential to list your products on Google. In the 2000s, Google allowed businesses to submit their products to Google, and in return, Google would actually show those products on the search results pages completely free of charge. However, in 2009, Google announced that product listing ads would be a part of Google AdWords, and advertisers would have to pay for each click that they received on these product listing ads. 

Product listing ads are a type of Google ad that are specifically designed for e-commerce businesses. These ads include product images, price, and other relevant information about your products. They appear on Google search results pages when someone searches for a product that you sell. 

Standard Shopping Campaigns

Google Standard Shopping campaigns were a simple way to set up your product ads. With Standard Shopping campaigns, you can create ad groups (within your campaigns) that include collections of like products that share the same settings (such as language or location). Each group contains a number of product ads, which are individual ads that feature one of your products.

To get started with Standard Shopping campaigns, you’ll need to set up a Merchant  Center account and submit your product data. Once you’ve done that, you can create an ad group in your Shopping campaign and start adding products to it.

Smart Shopping Campaigns

Smart Shopping campaigns have been a great way for businesses to promote their products and services. With these campaigns, businesses can use automated bidding and ad placement to reach a wider audience. Google’s machine learning will also create different combinations of image and text assets to test what works best.

However, Smart Shopping campaigns was discontinued in 2022. Google is instead recommending that businesses use Performance Max campaigns. Performance Max campaigns are similar to Smart Shopping campaigns, but with a few key differences.

Performance Max Campaigns

Google Performance Max campaigns are a new campaign type that allows businesses to access all of their Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. The campaign is designed to complement keyword-based search campaigns and help businesses find more converting customers across all of Google’s channels. Performance Max uses Smart Bidding to automatically optimize performance in real-time and across channels, and businesses can set their own target return on investment (ROI). This provides businesses with more control over ad creative and the ability to drive better performance.