Interested in getting campaign performance forecasts so you can better plan your Google Ads marketing goals and budgets?
In this video, Kelly breaks down a powerful free tool available to all Google Ads advertisers: Performance Planner.
Learn how to create performance plans, understand campaign eligibility, meet specific requirements, and maximize campaign efficiency so you can achieve the best results within your budget.
If you would like to get a comprehensive list of other simple but necessary Google Ads optimizations, sign up to receive our Ultimate Google Ads Checklist.
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Video Transcription
0:06
Hey everyone this is Kelly I am one of
0:08
the analysts here at Main Street ROI
0:11
we enjoy helping small businesses with
0:13
their digital marketing efforts and one
0:15
of the ways we do that is through our
0:17
marketing tip videos um so today’s
0:19
marketing tip video is about how to
0:22
scale faster and smarter with Google ads
0:26
performance planner um so we’ll move
0:28
right along here
0:31
in today’s video we’re going to cover
0:32
what performance planner is uh what it
0:35
does the benefits of creating
0:37
performance plans the campaign
0:39
eligibility and the requirements to use
0:42
performance planner uh how it works and
0:46
we’ll do a demonstration of creating a
0:48
performance plan in the Google ads
0:51
account as
0:52
well so just a few things what is Google
0:55
performance planner um it’s a tool that
0:58
you have available to you in Google ads
1:01
so you can log directly into your Google
1:03
ads account and access it from there um
1:06
you can use this tool to access
1:09
forecasts for your campaigns uh you can
1:12
determine different outcomes by
1:14
adjusting some of your campaign settings
1:16
uh say that you wanted to change your
1:18
target CPA or you wanted to change your
1:21
um you know Target return on ad spend or
1:24
if you wanted to increase your budget um
1:27
you can understand opportunities that
1:29
are SE seasonal so for example if you
1:31
have um more search volume around the
1:34
holidays and you want to see what an a
1:36
better like an increase budget might do
1:38
for you if you were to uh expand your
1:41
campaigns during that time this would be
1:43
a great tool to use for that um or if
1:45
you have like seasonality fluctuations
1:48
if you um you know if you just in
1:50
general have a better traffic uh turnout
1:53
on your site during holiday times
1:55
whether it’s Christmas or Valentine’s
1:57
Day or any of those things uh any of
1:59
those holidays um this would be a great
2:01
tool for you to use ahead of time to see
2:04
what you know your campaign plan of
2:07
action might be uh you can also use this
2:10
to provide campaign insights and
2:11
projections which kind of covers what I
2:13
already talked about uh so you can do
2:16
this throughout the year um on a
2:18
quarterly basis is what you know what is
2:20
generally recommended and you can also
2:22
use this to manage budgets across your
2:25
different accounts and campaigns so it’s
2:27
a pretty sweet tool that you can that
2:29
you can use fairly easily uh and you can
2:32
figure out where you want to allocate
2:34
your budget depending on what those uh
2:37
performance indicators look like across
2:38
the different campaigns within your
2:42
account so there’s a lot of benefits to
2:45
using this you of course you can review
2:47
the projected monthly and quarterly
2:49
performance and then you can go back to
2:51
the drawing board if there’s something
2:53
that’s not doing well you can you can
2:55
figure out what might need to be changed
2:57
within those campaigns or know when to
2:59
pull the plug if Google’s forecasts are
3:01
just not looking too great um so you can
3:04
also get suggestions that would help
3:06
your campaigns perform better uh within
3:09
the same amount of ads spend so uh for
3:12
example if you’re if you’re stuck on on
3:14
one particular budget and you don’t
3:16
really have much leeway to increase that
3:18
budget uh Google’s performance planner
3:21
will give you some ideas on how you can
3:22
achieve the best results within that
3:24
campaign’s budget without increasing it
3:27
um so you can actually see how the spend
3:29
and per performance goals are affected
3:31
if you do go in to change your campaign
3:34
settings so this is a great tool to use
3:37
before you make any huge changes to your
3:39
bidding strategy um or your targeting
3:42
strategy too so uh a lot of good
3:44
insights from using this
3:47
tool can everyone use it that’s a good
3:50
question um so there are certain things
3:53
that uh that Google requires in order
3:55
for you to actually be eligible to use
3:58
the uh performance plan planning tool
4:00
now this isn’t necessarily a requirement
4:04
um these are just some of the best
4:05
practices for the most accurate
4:07
projections within performance planner
4:09
so you can get um you know better
4:12
feedback and better quality feedback
4:14
from Google’s algorithm if you meet
4:16
these this criteria uh it’s really good
4:19
to just have an organized account and an
4:21
organized campaign structure for the
4:23
campaign you’re going to be uh basically
4:26
using within performance planner of
4:28
course you re really have to have some
4:31
accurate conversion tracking already set
4:33
up within your account so that Google
4:35
has enough data that it can use to base
4:37
these projections off of um and then you
4:40
know of course actively running eligible
4:43
campaigns and we’ll get to more on the
4:44
eligibility factors here in just a
4:47
second uh now this is not a requirement
4:50
from Google whatsoever but I highly
4:52
recommend that you have at least one
4:54
year of historical data for Google to
4:56
use when it’s uh doing these projections
5:00
now one one cool tip is if you don’t
5:04
have enough conversions in those
5:06
campaigns for Google to create a
5:09
forecast uh if you have enough clicks
5:13
then you can actually manually enter in
5:16
what your conversion rate usually would
5:19
be to assess uh potential conversion uh
5:23
forcasts that uh Google will provide you
5:26
so even if there’s not enough
5:28
conversions as long as you do have some
5:30
activity going on within those campaigns
5:32
and you are getting some traffic with
5:34
enough with substantial clicks to uh
5:37
clicks to your uh landing pages then
5:39
Google will allow you to enter in what
5:42
uh what your what Your conversion rate
5:45
normally looks like which can be helpful
5:47
as well if it’s a newer campaign or
5:49
newer
5:51
account so these are um some of the
5:55
campaign requirements now you can
5:57
actually pull these directly from Google
6:00
support article which I can uh show you
6:02
here in just a few minutes but I just
6:05
picked out some of the top three
6:07
campaigns that we generally see uh our
6:09
clients working with search campaign of
6:11
course being one of the primary drivers
6:13
for leads so uh the eligibility
6:16
requirements here um there’s several bid
6:19
bidding strategies that are eligible uh
6:21
you know your manual cost per click your
6:24
enhanced cost per click the maximum
6:26
clicks maximum conversions maximum
6:28
conversion value uh Target return on ad
6:32
spend and your target cost per action or
6:35
Target CPA bidding strategies are uh
6:38
eligible here and the target impression
6:40
share bidding strategy is also eligible
6:43
now this campaign in order to use
6:45
performance planner it needs to have
6:46
been running for at least three days and
6:50
it must have received at least three
6:52
Clicks in the last seven days there
6:55
should be at least three conversions
6:57
within that account in the past seven
6:58
days if the campaign is actually focused
7:01
on conversions so for instance if you’re
7:03
targeting uh or if your bidding strategy
7:05
is using is using Target impression
7:07
share then Google will not require this
7:11
conversion minimum in order to provide
7:13
those projections oh I kind of skipped
7:17
through there a little bit faster than I
7:20
should have I’m sorry but if you um if
7:24
you’ve had any kind of loss and
7:28
Impressions due to to budget of over 5%
7:31
or I’m sorry if you have a search is
7:34
lost due to budget of less than 5% over
7:36
the last 10
7:38
days uh with and this is with only
7:41
target impression share campaigns so uh
7:44
you know keep in mind that’s not going
7:47
to be affecting a lot of campaigns it’s
7:50
for just very specific one uh very
7:52
specific campaign
7:54
goals now as far as display campaign
7:57
requirements um
8:00
you know you can see the eligibility
8:01
requirements here as far as bidding
8:04
strategy it Google requires that there
8:06
be no changes made to that bid strategy
8:08
in the last seven days before you can
8:10
use the performance Planner tool and it
8:12
must have been running for at least
8:13
7even days or more and as far as
8:16
conversions you would have to to have at
8:18
least five
8:20
conversions uh or 20 clicks for a
8:24
maximized clicks bidding strategy and
8:26
have spent more than $10 us in the last
8:29
seven days within that
8:31
campaign and it should not have any
8:34
recent budget constraints so if you’re
8:37
getting notifications about Impressions
8:40
um have been lost due to budget and if
8:42
it’s a significant amount lost due to
8:44
budget then Google may not have enough
8:46
data for you to accurately provide these
8:49
projections so they don’t want any of
8:51
those budget errors popping up on the
8:54
campaign um now performance Max Rec uh
8:58
has actually
8:59
um increased in popularity as of this
9:02
year it is one of the fairly new
9:03
campaign types um so as far as bidding
9:06
strategy goes Google does not want any
9:09
changes to that bidding strategy in the
9:11
last seven
9:12
days and uh you know you you must be
9:15
using a a shared budget for those bid
9:17
strategies with the target um and
9:20
honestly this is just this is a little
9:24
bit vague as far as the requirements
9:26
from Google I have gone in to do uh
9:28
performance planning with performance
9:30
Max campaigns but they were not using a
9:32
shared budget so yeah I’ll have to look
9:33
into that cuz that’s a question I have
9:36
uh too but now the runtime it must have
9:39
been uh
9:41
active and not been paused for fewer
9:45
than seven days so of course it must be
9:48
an active
9:50
campaign um and then as far as
9:53
conversions or the click minimum if it
9:56
is using a maximized conversion strategy
9:58
with or with without bids in there uh or
10:01
a maximized conversion value with or
10:04
without bids it needs to have at least
10:07
10 Impressions um three interactions one
10:10
conversion and then one conversion value
10:13
if it’s a conversion value related
10:15
campaign and you’re targeting uh you
10:16
know for or you’re actually trying to
10:18
bid on the conversion
10:20
value so it’s of course using the daily
10:23
budgets as well
10:25
which of course they are I don’t know
10:28
why Google even puts that as a
10:30
requirement um so we can actually look
10:33
at some of the other campaign types that
10:35
Google um will allow you to use with
10:38
performance planner and I can pull that
10:41
up really quickly
10:43
here so if you go to just this uh
10:47
article about performance Planner on uh
10:50
on Google then you can read a little bit
10:52
more about this um from from your end at
10:55
your earliest convenience but they have
10:59
the same uh table that I shared with you
11:01
on the search and the shopping campaigns
11:04
um and the display
11:06
campaigns
11:09
now you can see the requirements for the
11:12
discovery and demand gen campaigns in
11:14
here as well as app campaigns local
11:17
campaigns and video
11:20
campaigns um there are you know there
11:24
are different requirements for each
11:26
campaign type so if you are running
11:28
different campaigns and your account
11:29
definitely take a look at this and now
11:31
there are a few few reasons that the
11:34
campaign may be
11:35
ineligible so if you’ve changed um let
11:40
me see if the campaign’s been changed to
11:42
meet eligibility requirements but it’s
11:45
been running for fewer than 10 days with
11:47
those new settings then Google will not
11:49
um show it as being eligible in
11:52
performance planner now of course if the
11:54
campaign is in draft or an experiment
11:58
state it’s it’s not going to be eligible
12:00
to uh to use with performance planner
12:03
either and if the campaign’s been
12:04
deleted which you know these are kind of
12:06
intuitive here I don’t think anyone’s
12:08
going to go in and plug in a deleted
12:10
campaign to project forecasts for a
12:12
future month of uh running ads within
12:15
that campaign um so we’ll just uh hop
12:18
back to our presentation
12:21
here so how does Google perform or how
12:24
does Google’s performance planner work
12:26
so the performance forecast are based on
12:29
traffic um ad auction competition and AD
12:34
interactions so it uses data from the
12:36
past seven days and it combines it with
12:39
the years of historical data that Google
12:41
has in its uh server to estimate how
12:45
your campaigns could
12:47
perform now there are three important
12:49
factors to consider and these are what
12:52
Google uses to uh or these These are
12:54
what Google will use to determine the
12:56
projections so the traffic now this can
12:59
fluctuate during different seasons and
13:01
holidays as I mentioned to you so Google
13:04
will take that into consideration based
13:06
on the different industries that are
13:08
active on their platform um now Google
13:11
can estimate the number of AD
13:13
Impressions that your campaigns might be
13:15
eligible for depending on that
13:17
historical data and how that traffic may
13:19
fluctuate over time um so your ad
13:23
auction competition of course the past
13:26
and current ad auction data that Google
13:28
has for your account will be applied
13:30
here um in its projections and it can
13:33
determine you know where and when your
13:36
ads might show based on the competition
13:39
that you’ve had historically in your
13:40
auction
13:41
insights and the ad interactions so
13:44
Google will use the past performance
13:46
metrics of your campaign to provide
13:48
future interactions like click-through
13:51
rates and conversion rates um so it is
13:54
really important to have a good chunk of
13:56
data that Google can use to uh to to to
13:58
give you more accurate
14:02
projections so we can move right on into
14:05
creating your performance plan and if
14:07
you go to your Google ads account you
14:09
can just log in um using the the usual
14:13
usual sign in that you have and then go
14:15
to your uh budget planner and I’ll click
14:18
on this just to show you where it is and
14:22
uh go into this demo
14:27
here
14:32
so I had it pulled up already but I do
14:35
want to explain where it’s found in
14:37
Google ads so you can uh you can just
14:40
click on the tools and settings menu
14:42
option up here and performance planner
14:45
is right here in the set of planning
14:47
tools that uh Google
14:51
provides and I’ll go back
14:55
to our performance planner so we’re
14:58
going to to just uh do a demonstration
15:01
here of what this process looks
15:03
like and you click on create a new
15:07
plan now here you can change the date of
15:12
you know what you want Google to use as
15:15
far as the projections go the time frame
15:18
that you’re looking for uh so for
15:20
instance if uh you know if it’s October
15:23
and you’re you know and you’re a
15:25
retailer or something like that and
15:26
you’re trying to get your campaigns up
15:28
running so that you can get holiday
15:30
sales and everything then you could
15:33
start this plan in October and then just
15:36
give a projection date of say November
15:38
1st through December 31st or something
15:40
like that um and in this case we’ll just
15:42
go for projections for the first quarter
15:44
next year or well for the first few
15:46
months next year you can also get as
15:49
granual as going to next week or next
15:51
month so we’ll just keep this as is for
15:54
now and there are different channels
15:58
available and this may change depending
16:00
on what you have in the account that uh
16:03
that’s active so if you have different
16:05
campaign types that are active then
16:07
it’ll show you different options here
16:09
and these are gr out because we don’t
16:10
have active campaigns for those campaign
16:12
types uh so we’ll do a search campaign
16:15
to start um and then we can do
16:18
conversions because we are tracking
16:20
conversions so if you were if you were
16:22
doing a maximized clicks campaign and
16:24
you were more worried about or or more
16:26
concerned with the traffic volume and
16:28
getting uh you know website traffic then
16:30
you would change this to clicks
16:33
um so as far as the conversions go if uh
16:36
let’s just say if you or if a client
16:39
knows a roundabout number of how many
16:42
conversions they want to see in any
16:43
given period Then you can enter that
16:47
here so if you go to conversions you can
16:51
enter the total number of conversions
16:54
you’d like to see here if you go to uh
16:56
you know your actual spin then you can
16:59
enter in your new budget that you are
17:03
predicting you’ll have or you know
17:05
you’ll have you can do that and then the
17:08
average cost per action so if you have a
17:12
Target cost per action in mind and uh
17:15
and you want to uh maintain that then
17:18
you can use this tool to enter in what
17:20
that looks you know what that might be
17:22
and Google will provide you with
17:23
different uh projections based on you
17:26
know what what you’re trying to achieve
17:29
so we can just say all right so
17:32
conversions and we’ll enter in a number
17:34
a wild number let’s just say we want to
17:36
see you know 350 conversions during this
17:40
time
17:41
period and we can do this for multiple
17:44
campaigns but we’ll just do this for one
17:46
campaign for demonstration
17:48
purposes and it’ll pull up your uh your
17:51
planning dashboard
17:54
here so if the key metric in Target is a
17:58
uh see I put in I put in 350 conversions
18:01
for this time period and Google changed
18:03
it down to
18:05
227 uh but you can actually specify
18:08
which of these conversion goals you want
18:11
to include in the projections so if you
18:13
have purchases or if you have lead forms
18:16
or if your business thrives on more
18:18
phone calls then you can actually just
18:20
say I only want to project phone call
18:23
leads for this um for this
18:27
plan it’s a really cool tool um and you
18:30
can say what the average conversion rate
18:33
is now this particular campaign has had
18:36
a really great conversion rate and our
18:39
conversion rate is not
18:42
5.69% our conversion rate is much higher
18:45
than that so this is the forecasted
18:47
conversion rate that Google is providing
18:50
and you can do
18:52
historical um conversion rate
18:57
instead so we’ll apply the historical
19:00
conversion rate which is double what
19:02
Google was projecting so you you do have
19:05
some control over this it’s a it’s a
19:07
little bit more you know granular you
19:09
can go in and change things and uh base
19:12
it off of your actual account’s
19:15
performance rather than basing it off of
19:17
Google’s forecasts and projections
19:20
so um so you can go on the historical
19:24
conversion rate you can do a custom
19:26
conversion rate
19:28
and you can do a scaled conversion rate
19:30
based across all of your campaigns in
19:32
the account uh so just a few different
19:34
options there now our average conversion
19:37
rate range was about 10.7% which is
19:40
awesome and you can see what uh you know
19:43
you can see what might change if let’s
19:46
just say we want to to reduce our Target
19:48
cost per action um let’s just say we
19:52
want that to be like
19:55
$375
19:56
instead Google recalculate this and show
20:00
you how many conversions you might be
20:02
getting at that Target cost per action
20:05
now this is
20:07
$147,000 in ad spend uh this account uh
20:10
in particular has a roughly $20,000 a
20:13
month uh budget and I believe they’re
20:16
increasing it to $30,000 a month soon so
20:19
that’s awesome uh so let’s just say for
20:21
three months of data at
20:23
$330,000 well that would be more like
20:26
$90,000 in ad spin
20:29
and we can see what Google predicts here
20:33
so you can get 321 conversions which is
20:35
around the 350 that I had put in uh or
20:39
suggested before and then this saying
20:41
you could get that at
20:43
$280 37 cents per
20:48
action so this is our existing settings
20:52
and then you can see the change with the
20:55
planned settings that you have adjusted
20:57
up here with with the different um with
20:59
the different numbers now you can
21:01
actually compare the performance here
21:03
which is another cool um way to Garner
21:06
some insights you can see what the total
21:08
ad spend is with the existing
21:11
settings versus the plan settings excuse
21:14
me and see what the past performance
21:17
looks like
21:18
too so as far as the conversions past
21:22
performance is showing
21:24
114 with the existing settings it’s
21:28
projecting 181 conversions during this
21:30
time frame and then if we change our our
21:34
uh budgeting and settings to what we’re
21:38
entering into the performance planner
21:40
then you can see that the total number
21:42
of conversions jumped up by 140 so this
21:46
is just a really cool tool for you to go
21:48
in and uh play around with with the
21:51
different campaigns that you’re running
21:52
in the account um so whether you’re a
21:55
business owner or a marketer yourself
21:57
and you’re trying to get some insights
21:59
this is a great place to go for that
22:00
especially if you have historical
22:02
campaign data um I I really hope you
22:05
found this video helpful uh if you did
22:08
be sure to subscribe because we’ve got a
22:10
lot more marketing tip videos on the way
22:12
and um you know we we really do enjoy
22:15
helping these uh small businesses as
22:17
well as other agencies uh to to help
22:20
them serve their clients with anything
22:22
related to Google ads uh we also help
22:25
with social media and SEO uh so if uh
22:29
you know if if you do need further
22:31
assistance with that please do reach out
22:33
to us we are happy to help and we also
22:35
have a free checklist for Google ads for
22:37
you um in the description of the video
22:40
below so thanks for watching and we’ll
22:42
see you on the next one
