Running PMax across 40 locations without ending up with 40 campaigns

Question

Considering PMax for the franchise group and the structure question is the whole decision.

Forty locations, same services. One campaign covering all of them means I cannot report per
location or set different budgets, and the locations that pay more into the marketing fund
will notice. Forty campaigns means forty learning periods, forty budgets that are each too
small to learn from, and a management overhead I do not have the people for.

The middle option is regional grouping - five or six campaigns by area. That is probably
where I land but I would like to hear from anyone who has done it, particularly on whether
the per-location reporting survives the grouping well enough to keep the franchisees happy.

Priya Deshmukh · Answer

Regional grouping is right and the thing that decides how many groups you can afford is
conversion volume per campaign, not geography.

Work out your total monthly conversions, divide by the number of campaigns you are
considering, and if any campaign lands below roughly the volume you would want to judge a
single ad group on, you have too many campaigns. Group until each one clears that bar,
even if the resulting map looks untidy.

On reporting: you can report per location regardless of campaign structure using location
reporting inside the campaign. It's not as satisfying as a campaign per franchisee, and it
does answer the question they are actually asking, which is "what did my area get".

Tomasz Wojcik · Answer

One warning from doing this with 22. Budget is per campaign, so when you group six
locations together, the busy one takes the budget and the quiet ones get almost nothing.
Franchisee in quiet area then asks why they have no impressions.

Group locations with similar demand, not locations that are near each other. Map looks
strange, complaints stop.

Rob McAllister · Answer

Grouping by demand rather than geography isn't something I would have arrived at on my
own and it obviously right once you say it. Thanks both.

Running PMax across 40 locations without ending up with 40 campaigns

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