top of page
Mana Burn
A PMAX Campaign
Having completed a Google course on digital marketing and e-commerce, I created a campaign for a fictional board games store that is meant to last for 2 months. The full details can be found here.
It is mainly centered around Magic: the Gathering - a trading card game that often has a strong presence in board game stores once they reach a certain scale. While this will be my second project related to my long-time hobby, I decided to go with this topic again mainly because it revolves around a large community. I've been taking part in Magic tournaments for more than 8 years now and I went through many stages of playing the game myself - from barely understanding how the game works to traveling abroad to play in large events with hundreds of participants.
Marketing is no exception to these details: while a new player would generally look for "what's on the shelves", an older one would appreciate a long-running gag in the community and would perhaps also know about the cards from before the 2000s. These player bases are conveniently distributed across the many formats of play, that can include only the most recent cards or allow any card from the 30-year industry of the game to be included in a deck. Or something in between.
This background is meant to help illustrate the reasoning behind my approach to making a Google PMAX campaign
-
Considering that the cost of cards can vary between cents and thousands of euros, focusing on Conversion Value makes more sense. Players never buy just one card for their deck :)
-
PMAX is a campaign that involves machine learning, which is why it is recommended to give some extra time for the algorithm to work.
-
Not defining ROAS from the beginning is done for a similar reason. Setting ROAS based on the results makes the campaign more efficient in the long run.
For this campaign, I decided to first focus on some of the European countries instead of covering the entire continent. While both secondary markets for Magic cards - European and American - do not differentiate between their local economies, I would not think the same way about the purchasing power of consumers. Mana Burn is based in Sweden and to make the most of this campaign, I chose the neighboring countries that are similar in many ways. Further expansion of the campaign would at least require more research - technical, economic, and perhaps cultural.
Performance Max is a type of Google Ads campaign that drives conversion goals while using machine learning. It covers all Google's networks: YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Maps, and Gmail.
It wasn't covered in the course since it was created before the AI boom although I believe PMAX is worth knowing about. It is an all-in-one tool that uses the latest technologies and is especially effective for small scale campaigns.
PMAX is ...
The campaign was divided into 3 asset groups which delved into the most popular formats of play - Standard, Modern, and Commander. Magic: the Gathering is a game, albeit male dominated, that can be played by anyone. Instead of targeting the asset groups at particular kinds of players, I chose formats, since the choice of cards players buy is greatly related to them. There is no point in going into the details of what they are exactly but their primary differences are how long they existed, the average cost of a deck, and pools of cards that are allowed to play within them. Enough reasons to create distinct asset groups.
-
The final URL is different for each asset group.
-
The "Standard" asset group caters to players who are relatively new to the game. They generally buy cards from sets released in the last three years.
-
Each of the asset groups will also mention products related to particular formats. A Standard player would be more interested in "Bloomburrow" than a player of another format.
-
The "Modern" asset group targets players who play modern - a format with 10 year history and old pricey cards. It is also perhaps the most competitive one, which is why the state of this format is of great concern to the players.
-
While Mana Burn is a fictional store, telling about benefits like free shipping and location is something that can be important to all players.
-
The "Commander" group is aimed at casual players who don't visit game stores often and prioritize fun over winning. A card with an alternate treatment is something a Commander player would appreciate more than others.
-
Commander is also a format for which Magic: the Gathering releases premade decks so mentioning available sealed products can be beneficial too.
For this campaign, the images would also be related to Magic and Magic products. Google highly recommends sticking to "lifestyle" images that are unedited and don't contain a lot of context but since this campaign is mainly about the "game pieces", adding a couple of images that showcase the product can be relevant. Wizards of the Coast, the creators of Magic: the Gathering, shares marketing material for their products on their website, so making an ad like the one on the left fits all asset groups isn't challenging.
Made in Canva
PMAX Campaigns also allow adding extra details to the links in the search engine, so for this one, I chose to use a call to action, site links, and structured snippets. The last two help expand on the products the store has and add more info on the kinds of Magic decks Mana Burn sells. A particularly important detail for casual players. In the search engine, they would look something like this.
Extra
The sheet can be found here.
bottom of page