Liam Walsh
Liam is a Co-Director at Intelligency and heads up the agency's Digital Intelligence & Paid Social activity. Over the last decade, he has worked with brands from the world of sports such as Premier League clubs to entertainment such as Channel 4 and Disney.
The Search Partner Network (SPN) in Google Ads has been shown to deliver a 37% lower return on investment (ROI) compared to regular Google Search ads. While SPN is cheaper, it doesn’t perform as well in terms of generating results. A recent study confirmed that Shopping ads on SPN saw this significant drop in ROI.
Performance Max Ads: How They Work
Before March 2024, Performance Max (PMax) ads were rare, making up just 0.1% of all impressions. But since then, that number has increased significantly, now reaching a median of 5.3%. These ads appear not only in Google Search and Shopping but also on other websites within the Google network. This trend is not limited to PMax ads but is seen across all of Google Ads. For example, during Black Friday, 5.4% of 8.5 million Shopping ads were through SPN, which is similar to PMax’s growth.
The Benefits of Excluding SPN Placements
Google Search Ads are the typical ads that appear when people search for something specific on Google. These ads are aimed at users who are actively looking for something, so they often lead to better results. Advertisers choose keywords that match what people are searching for and create ads around those terms.
On the other hand, Performance Max (PMax) is a more automated ad campaign that uses Google’s system to show ads across various platforms like Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, and other Google sites. PMax doesn’t rely on keywords but instead uses data and algorithms to decide the best places to show ads, aiming to improve results across multiple platforms.
To improve results, it’s recommended to exclude SPN placements across all campaigns, including PMax. By doing this, advertisers may see a better return on their investment, as SPN tends to offer lower performance despite its lower cost.
