TLDR Tech / Marketing
How to make Performance Max focus on net new customers
Performance Max has long defaulted to easy conversions over incremental ones, routing spend toward branded search, site visitors, and existing buyers rather than true prospects. Google's recent first-party audience exclusions change this for the first time. Stacking brand exclusions, audience exclusions for site visitors and email subscribers, Customer Match exclusions for existing purchasers, and a 'new customers only' bidding mode can finally push PMax into prospecting mode. Reported ROAS will drop, but the new-to-returning customer split will more accurately reflect what's actually being acquired.
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