Learning to segment Performance Max campaigns effectively is crucial for online shops that want to maximize their reach on Google Ads platforms. These campaigns allow advertisers to combine efforts across Search, Display, YouTube, Shopping, and more into one simple setup. While this all-in-one approach offers great potential, it is important to understand how you can manage and segment them properly to get more bang for your buck.

In this blog, we’ll show PPC advertisers and ecommerce marketers how to segment Performance Max campaigns effectively. We’ll cover the basics and provide actionable strategies. Plus, we’ll introduce Shopstory’s Labelizer—an innovative tool that makes segmentation easier and helps turbocharge campaign performance.

What are Performance Max campaigns?

Performance Max campaigns are goal-focused campaigns in Google Ads designed to reach users across all of Google’s advertising platforms. These campaigns combine multiple channels into one setup, allowing businesses to connect with potential customers throughout their buying journey.

Key channels include:

• Search: Engage users who are actively searching for products or services like yours.
• Display: Reach users as they browse websites and apps, increasing your brand’s visibility.
• YouTube: Show video ads to audiences watching YouTube, helping to build engagement.
• Shopping: Promote your products directly in Google Shopping results, targeting users ready to buy.
• Discover: Display visually rich ads on platforms like Gmail and the Google Discover app.

This multi-channel approach offers wide reach and flexibility. For small online shops, Performance Max campaigns help increase ad visibility with a unified strategy. Large ecommerce retailers benefit from managing extensive product catalogs and targeting diverse audience segments effectively.

By using segmentation strategies and tools like Shopstory’s Labelizer, advertisers can fully utilize Performance Max campaigns. This ensures their ads are not only seen but also relevant and impactful at every stage of the customer journey.

Why segment Performance Max campaigns?

Learning how to segment Performance Max campaigns effectively is essential to overcome their “black-box” nature. While Performance Max relies heavily on automation for targeting and bidding, this can make it hard for advertisers to customize their strategies. Segmentation helps regain control, allowing you to tailor your approaches and achieve better results.

Benefits of segmenting Performance Max campaigns:

• Focus on high-performing segments: Allocate budgets and resources to segments with the highest ROAS for maximum returns.
• Identify underperforming areas: Find products, regions, or audience groups that aren’t performing well and adjust your strategies to improve them.
• Customized messaging: Create personalized ads that better connect with specific audience groups or product categories.

By segmenting Performance Max campaigns, you move from a one-size-fits-all approach to a customized advertising strategy. This leads to better results without needing extra resources.

Ways to segment Performance Max campaigns

Segmenting Performance Max campaigns means organizing your products and audiences into meaningful groups. This helps you align your budget, bidding, and messaging with specific goals. Here are the most effective ways to do it:

1. Segment by product categories

Different product categories often have unique profit margins, competition levels, and customer profiles. By separating campaigns based on categories, you can tailor your budget, creative design, and bidding strategies to fit each category's goals.

For example, an online fashion retailer might create separate segments for:

• Women’s apparel: Promote seasonal collections with a focus on trends and exclusivity.
• Men’s accessories: Highlight gift options or premium offerings for special occasions.
• Footwear: Use broader targeting to reach a wide audience with various needs.

This approach ensures each product category gets the specific attention it deserves, optimizing campaigns for maximum relevance and ROAS.

2. Segment by price ranges

Customers have different expectations based on the price of a product. Aligning bids and messaging with price tiers makes your campaigns resonate better with your target audience and drive more conversions.

For instance, a furniture store could segment like this:

• Under $500: Focus on affordability with ads promoting deals and discounts.
• $500–$2,000: Highlight premium quality and craftsmanship to attract mid-range buyers.
• Above $2,000: Position products as exclusive or luxurious, targeting customers who value prestige and uniqueness.

This segmentation ensures your messaging matches customer intent, maximizing ROAS across all price levels.

3. Segment by campaign performance 

Using historical campaign performance to segment helps you allocate resources efficiently and find areas for improvement. By separating high-performing products from underperformers, you can scale what works and test new strategies for other segments.

For example, a tech retailer might divide products into:

• High performers: Allocate a larger budget and use aggressive bidding to capitalize on success.
• Moderate performers: Test new creatives, placements, and bidding adjustments to boost performance.
• Underperformers: Experiment with discounts, seasonal promotions, or different targeting to revive interest.

This data-driven approach ensures resources are used where they have the most impact while nurturing potential in less successful areas.

4. Segment by seasonal trends

Some products sell better during certain times of the year. Aligning your campaigns with seasonal trends ensures your ads are relevant and timely.

For example, a gardening supplies store could create seasonal segments like:

• Summer essentials: Advertise patio furniture, grills, and outdoor décor before warmer months.
• Winter tools: Promote snow shovels, de-icing equipment, and winter gear during colder seasons.

Seasonal segmentation allows businesses to capitalize on peak demand while staying top of mind for consumers during the right time of year. Tools like Shopstory have weather-based flows that allow advertisers to create ads based on weather temperature or conditions.

5. Segment by geo-locations

Geographic segmentation tailors your campaigns to the unique preferences and behaviors of different regions. Adapting your messaging and bidding to match regional characteristics can increase engagement and ROI.

For example:

• A food delivery service might emphasize speedy delivery in urban areas and wide coverage in rural regions.
• A winter gear brand could promote snow boots and jackets in colder areas, while advertising umbrellas and raincoats where it rains more.
• A multilingual campaign could target Spanish-speaking customers in bilingual regions with customized ads.

Geo-segmentation leverages regional differences, making your campaigns more relevant and effective for diverse audiences.

6. Segment by brand and non-brand

Separating branded and non-branded campaigns helps balance customer acquisition and retention. Branded campaigns usually convert more easily, while non-branded campaigns reach new audiences.

For example, a cosmetics company might:

• Branded campaign: Target loyal customers with searches like “Mac Beauty Lipstick,” emphasizing brand trust and quality.
• Non-branded Campaign: Attract new customers searching for general terms like “Best Lipstick for Dry Lips.”

This segmentation allows you to optimize bids for high-intent branded searches while also driving new customer acquisition with non-branded campaigns.

7. Segment by customer type

Splitting your audience into new and returning customers allows for personalized targeting that drives both acquisition and loyalty. New customers may respond better to promotions, while returning customers are more likely to convert with tailored recommendations.

For example, an online bookstore might segment customers by:

• New Customers: Use discounts or introductory offers to encourage first-time purchases and build trust.
• Returning Customers: Promote personalized recommendations, such as new releases or bundle offers, to increase lifetime value.

This strategy ensures you meet the unique needs of each customer type, maximizing conversions and fostering loyalty.

Steps to Segment Performance Max Campaigns

Here’s a step-by-step guide to segment your PMax campaigns effectively:

1. Plan your labels: Decide what factors are most important for your goals. This could be product type, brand, location, customer type. These factors will help you organize your ads effectively.
2. Create asset groups: In Performance Max campaigns, asset groups help organize your ads and materials. Make separate asset groups for each segment to ensure your ads are relevant to each group.
3. Set up custom labels: Use custom labels in your product feed to mark products based on your chosen criteria. For example, label premium products as “High Margin,” discounted items as “Clearance,” or seasonal products as “Summer Collection.”
4. Monitor and Optimize: Regularly check how your segmented campaigns are performing. Use the data to make changes and improve your ad results over time.

The Labelizer Strategy: The Shopping Booster

We talked about how segmentation can greatly improve your campaign's success. But doing it manually is often tedious, time-consuming, and prone to mistakes. For large ecommerce businesses with thousands of products, it becomes impossible to categorize or label them manually or frequently.

This is where Shopstory’s Labelizer can boost shopping ads. It transforms Performance Max segmentation, making the process faster, smarter, and much more efficient.

By automating segmentation, Labelizer not only saves time but also improves campaign accuracy, reduces human errors, and delivers better results. With Labelizer, marketers can focus on strategy while the tool does the heavy lifting.

Key benefits of the Labelizer

1. Saves time: Tasks like tagging 10,000 products, which could take over 100 hours manually, are completed in minutes.
2. More campaign control: Consistent and accurate segmentation helps you create better bidding strategies and improves your campaign performance.
3. Improved ROAS: Focus bids on high-value segments to increase profitability and ROAS.
4. Scalability: Easily manage large catalogs without execution limits, all at a cost-effective price compared to other tools.

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‍A real-world example

‍Imagine an online retailer managing 10,000 SKUs. With Labelizer, they can:

• Automatically label products with discounts between 20% and 50%.
• Group high-margin items into a "High ROAS" feed for targeted campaigns.
• Segment seasonal products for holiday promotions.
• Identify and segment underperforming products for A/B testing to discover improvement opportunities.

And much more. By automating these processes, Labelizer provides actionable insights, faster execution, and the ability to adapt to changes in real-time. This keeps your campaigns optimized and effective.

‍How Shopstory’s Labelizer Works

‍Setting up Shopstory’s Labelizer is a breeze, taking just 15 minutes to integrate with your existing systems. Here's how it simplifies your workflow:Here’s how it works:

1. Define Segmentation Rules: Easily create labeling rules based on product attributes like price, discount percentage, or seasonality. Examples include:some text
   • Products with "Discount ≥ 30%" tagged as “Hot Deals.”
   • Items priced over $500 labeled as “Premium.”
   • Popular items tagged as “Bestsellers.”
2. Sync with Google Merchant Center: Labelizer generates supplemental feeds containing tagged products, which are seamlessly imported into Google Merchant Center for campaign use.
3. Launch Targeted Campaigns: Use these feeds to create tailored asset groups in Performance Max campaigns, applying customized strategies for each segment.
4. Monitor and Optimize: Track metrics at the segment level, refine strategies over time, and stay ahead of performance trends.

Shopstory’s Labelizer changes how marketers manage Performance Max campaigns. It helps you save time, take control, and easily achieve better results. Try it for free with Shopstory today!

‍Conclusion

‍Using tools like Shopstory’s Labelizer, you can easily segment your Performance Max campaigns and focus on growing your business. By organizing your products and audiences into clear groups, you can improve your bidding strategies, increase your return on investment (ROI), and create highly targeted ads that connect with your audience.

Labelizer goes beyond basic segmentation by automating the process with features like dynamic labeling, supplemental feed creation, and customizable rules. It’s designed to save you time, give you more control, and boost your campaigns’ efficiency and performance.

Take the first step toward better campaign management. Start for free with Shopstory today and see how automation can enhance your Performance Max strategies!

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