Weekly Revenue 20K+ Again, Plus Insights on Google Ads Strategy

Good News This Week

1. Overall performance was satisfactory. Although ROAS 3+ was just decent, conversions and order volume were stable.
2. Once again, no zero-order days. But seeing only 2 orders on Tuesday did cause some anxiety.
3. This week, I officially converted both standard shopping ad groups to PMAX.
4. 2-3 new KOL/brand collaborations are progressing. Some previously partnered KOLs are occasionally generating orders - might be returning to the early stage of actively seeking KOLs, though efficiency won't be too high, still targeted outreach.

Personal Insights on Pmax

Pmax has been Google's heavily promoted ad product. Based on basic trust, I've been trying Pmax since I started with Google ads, but kept giving up for various reasons. Here are my阶段性 insights - small scale, for reference only.

My Basic Setup

1. Most stable state: 2 standard shopping ad groups, one for Australia and one for UK. Using maximize conversion value (TROAS around 200%) as bidding strategy. Performance is quite stable.
2. Starting last week, my Nth attempt at Pmax. Enabled Pmax for UK group, creating one asset group for each product landing page, totaling 10+ groups. Using maximize conversion value (TROAS around 200%) as bidding strategy. I didn't stop standard shopping ads (but they won't run much even with high priority).
3. This week, I enabled Pmax for Australia too. Due to many asset groups, I directly copied the UK Pmax and fine-tuned various settings.

Insight 1: Pmax CPC Analysis

First, Pmax CPC is definitely higher than standard shopping ads but lower than search ads. This is because the core placement in Pmax is search ads. Search ads have the highest CPC among Google placements, about 1.5-2x that of standard shopping ads.

Of course, Pmax has many other placements with some exceptionally low CPCs. So overall, it falls between search ads and standard shopping ads. There are also many subjective variables like your ad quality and landing page quality.

Insight 2: Why Keep Trying Pmax

1. Trust in Google

Google keeps promoting this as their flagship product. A giant user-centric company must have its reasons. We advertisers are their users, and they should serve us with better products that make us willingly pay more.

Don't forget, Google is the world's most powerful search engine, bar none. It understands better than any platform what users truly and urgently need - because whenever people have real urgent needs, they search, and when they search, they use Google.

2. More Placements = Better Scaling

This is obvious. Standard shopping ads have limited placements, though they're quality ones. But for reach, many think more is better, right?

Plus, Google's ads, regardless of placement, will precisely target users with actual search intent.

3. Comprehensive Placements Enable Comprehensive Growth (Key!)

If you're a somewhat professional advertiser or corporate person, you'll understand the user conversion path: Awareness → Consideration → Selection → Conversion.

This conversion path, though summarized as 4 small stages, is complex and lengthy. Solo sellers can't possibly put resources into every stage, so we need to focus on Selection → Conversion.

In other words, solo sellers, you don't have the ability or resources to tell stories to consumers.

User Conversion Path Example

Suppose you sell toy knives and run Pmax ads:

Pmax vs Standard Shopping Ads

Pmax aims to engage from the awareness stage, remembering user intent from the moment they become aware, then continuously reaching them across various channels and placements.

But conversely, that YouTube video the user saw in the awareness stage - they might just scroll past it, not wanting to buy this useless thing. Thus wasting a paid click or paid view.

Traffic is huge but not precise. So short-term ROAS might not look good. This "short-term" could last months, as it's a process of growing together with your brand.

Advice for Newcomers

Newcomers must explore this funnel from bottom to top, slowly. First find the most precise traffic to test your conversions, then consider brand effects.

This is why I want to try Pmax now - I want to explore upward.

Many solo sellers or entrepreneurs with small capital likely fail at the top of this funnel, simply self-indulging in self-moving stories. Like spending big on beautiful videos and images, posting on social media, thinking the awareness-consideration-selection-conversion path can be one-click instant. But this is really too difficult.

Choices After Standard Shopping Ads Stabilize

When standard shopping ads stabilize, I have two choices:

1. Directly increase standard shopping ad budget
2. Expand ad resource formats

My choice is to get option 2 working with sustained decent ROAS, then return to option 1, entering the stage of mindless Pmax scaling.