Google has rolled out an A/B testing feature for its AI-powered ad-serving tool Performance Max. This lets advertisers test how certain changes impact campaign performance, such as changing creative assets or the landing page, giving buyers more visibility into performance, four ad buyers told ADWEEK.
Google announced in late October that it plans to roll out “new experiments” in Pmax, letting advertisers add more assets (images, text, and video) to retailers in beta in November, as well as Final URL expansion (letting Google dynamically select the most relevant landing page).
Some sources said they have had access to The ‘Performance Max Optimization Experiments’ feature for just over a month, gaining early access via a whitelist program, where Google grants select users priority access.
“A/B testing helps advertisers in a big way. Advertisers have taken a set-it-and-forget approach with Pmax because of the lack of insights,” said Andy Goodwin, head of paid search at Brainlabs. “This functionality, once it’s fully available, allows them to be more rigorous and have a renewed focus on Pmax.”
While marketers have been happy to use Google’s three-year-old Pmax, they have also criticized its black-box nature. Often set and then forgotten, media buyers have been unable to optimize campaigns continuously.
“One of the reasons why a lot of clients were not wanting to adopt Performance Max [is because] it was very black box,” said Michelle Merklin, vp, paid search, Tinuiti. “There wasn’t the ability to understand the impact of making changes within a Pmax campaign.”
But split testing shows the impact of campaign changes in real-time.
By contrast, before-and-after comparisons can be unreliable and don’t account for external factors like competitor activity or shifts in business operations.
Despite Google offering more controls, some ad buyers remain skeptical about the reliability of the results.
