Since its global launch in November 2021, Performance Max is no longer a novelty – it’s a fully embedded part of the Google Ads ecosystem.
Designed to streamline campaign management, automate optimization, and boost performance, PMax promised to revolutionize how advertisers run campaigns.
But has it lived up to that promise – or simply traded control for convenience?
Bottom funnel by default: How Performance Max runs the show
Performance Max is a fully automated campaign type that runs across all of Google’s channels – Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Maps – in a single campaign.
Advertisers provide the basics: budget, goals, and creative assets.
Google’s system takes it from there, deciding where and when ads appear and how the budget gets spent.
The name says it all: Performance Max is built to maximize performance.
PMax doesn’t support optimization for objectives like website traffic, impression share, or CPM.
Instead, its only available targets are conversion volume and revenue. In practice, that means driving as many leads or as much ecommerce sales as possible.
This highlights a point marketers sometimes overlook: Performance Max is primarily built for bottom-of-the-funnel activity. It targets users with the highest purchase intent.
Relevant search queries remain the core focus.
When other channels come into play, like Display and YouTube, the ads are shown to people most likely to convert.
That includes users who have previously visited your site or similar websites and apps.
PMax was designed with results-driven advertisers in mind – especially smaller and medium-sized businesses for whom creating campaigns other than search ads may have seemed like too much effort or potentially unprofitable.
By launching Performance Max as campaigns promising above-average results through cross-network activity, Google effectively pushed advertisers to invest beyond search ads.
The fact that PMax does not offer a choice in this regard seems very much by design.
Lack of transparency and control
From the very start, Performance Max campaigns have largely operated as a “black box.”
It’s a bit like being told: “I’ll deliver results, don’t ask me how.”
Despite Google gradually adding new reporting features to Performance Max, we still know surprisingly little about what these campaigns actually do – especially compared to the transparency we’re used to in legacy Search, Display, and YouTube campaigns.
And even in the few areas where Google has lifted the veil, advertisers often can’t act on what they learn.
The system still doesn’t allow them to limit or exclude unwanted ad placements.
That said, transparency and control in Performance Max have gradually improved – partly thanks to pressure from advertisers and agencies.
Search terms and negative keywords
PMax search ads are triggered by Google’s algorithm based on website content rather than keywords provided by the advertiser.
Advertisers quickly spotted one of the key drivers behind high ROAS in Performance Max: branded search queries.
Users already searching for a specific brand are naturally more likely to convert.
So while ads shown to them often deliver strong click-through rates and ROAS, they typically contribute little to actual sales growth.
Initially, Google tried to hide it and obfuscate the actual non-brand ROAS.
Today, Performance Max provides search term reports in:
Aggregated form.
A format similar to classic search campaigns, where we can analyze cost and ROAS for all substantial queries.
Negative keywords are now available directly in the Google Ads interface, both at the account level and within individual campaigns.
This functionality initially required reaching out to Google via a special email form.
Additionally, advertisers can now apply brand exclusions to prevent ads from appearing for searches related to specific brands – including their own.
Unlike negative keywords, brand exclusions offer broader, more comprehensive coverage.
They’re among the most valuable tools available in Performance Max, and absolutely worth using.
Cross-network: All or nothing
Performance Max campaigns use all advertising networks available in Google Ads.
These include search ads, shopping ads, display and video ads, in Google Maps and Gmail.
Google was reluctant to disclose details about how budgets are distributed across these channels and the effectiveness of each channel.
Some insights could be gleaned from the product report, which showed performance and spend for shopping ads, as well as from the display impressions report.
A major breakthrough was Mike Rhodes’ famous PMax script, which automatically generates tables and visual reports showing performance across different networks:
Search.
Shopping.
Display.
Video.
Google Ads now provides a channel performance report, offering detailed effectiveness data across each network.
Even so, third-party scripts remain a valuable tool for understanding what’s really happening inside Performance Max campaigns.
Particularly helpful are time-course charts and multiple campaign views.
Unfortunately, although our curiosity has been satisfied, we can make relatively little use of this knowledge.
The Performance Max algorithm still decides how to distribute the budget across individual channels.
If it works, why dig deeper?
It’s a fair question: does it really matter which channel the sale comes from?
From a business perspective, a conversion is a conversion – whether it comes from Shopping, Search, or Display.
However, when it comes to budget control, the lack of visibility and flexibility across channels often becomes a problem.
Conversion tracking defines the outcome that Performance Max is designed to maximize.
If a user interacts with an ad and then completes a conversion action within the conversion window (30 days by default), the campaign attributes that conversion as a result.
But does that mean our actual sales increased by that amount?
Not necessarily.
The fact that someone made a purchase after clicking an ad doesn’t automatically prove the ad caused it.
A classic example is branded keywords in search ads. These often show high conversion numbers – but the actual growth they generate is usually much smaller.
That’s because users searching for a brand would likely find it anyway through organic results.
So even if we choose to run branded ads, we typically exclude them from other campaigns to keep their performance and budget separate.
Most marketers understand this when it comes to Search. But what’s often overlooked is how conversions are tracked in video campaigns.
In Google Ads, a conversion can be recorded not only after a click, but also after an engaged view – when a user watches at least 10 seconds of a skippable video.
That means a later conversion can be attributed to a video view just as if it came from a Search ad click – even when the ad may not have been the real driver.
If such an ad view was the first touchpoint, we could probably assume that it was crucial for the conversion.
In Performance Max campaigns, though, these video views are often remarketing ads.
Showing ads to users who’ve already started the purchase process can help recover abandoned carts – no question.
But it’s equally clear that many of those users would have completed the purchase anyway, with or without seeing an ad in the meantime.
In ecommerce, Performance Max campaigns typically focus on Search and Shopping ads, with only a small share of budget going to Display and Video.
But over time, that balance can shift – especially toward channels that generate post-view conversions.
This usually happens when seasonal changes reduce the volume of relevant searches, yet the advertiser still signals they’re willing to spend more.
Google Ads Expert Łukasz Chwiszczuk shared:
“When running Performance Max campaigns with creative assets, keep in mind that Google determines which assets are shown and how the budget is distributed across channels.”
“It’s important to monitor the share of engaged-view conversions – just go to Segments > Conversions > Ad event type.
A high number of view-through conversions is a clear indicator that your campaign is leaning heavily into video.”
To limit such “surprises,” advertisers are increasingly launching shopping-only Performance Max campaigns using Merchant Center product feed as the sole asset.
This maneuver is becoming harder to perform because when attempting to remove other assets, an error is reported.
Google does not allow such changes to be saved. (So far, a workaround is launching a PMax campaign from Merchant Center.)
But even that does not guarantee that ads will only appear in search.
The performance report has revealed what marketers have long suspected: even without assets, PMax campaign ads can still appear in the display network, in Gmail, or even on YouTube – and these will not be just product ads.
Torn between desire and fear
The lack of control over Performance Max campaigns prompts many advertisers to consider alternatives.
For ecommerce companies, classic shopping campaigns are still available in Google Ads.
These campaigns offer high transparency and wide range of automated optimization strategies.
In addition, advertisers still have access to Search, Display (including fully controllable remarketing), and – if needed – Video campaigns, where they can decide exactly where ads appear and who sees them.
On the other hand, we keep hearing that Performance Max is Google’s most advanced advertising solution using AI and providing the highest effectiveness in generating results.
Recent case studies show that Performance Max campaigns enable advertisers to increase revenue and improve advertising efficiency.
Google also encourages verifying the effectiveness of Performance Max campaigns and conducting A/B tests (e.g., PMax for ecommerce compared to legacy shopping campaigns) to see if they can generate more revenue at a similar ROAS.
However, such comparisons are not entirely unbiased.
Performance Max campaigns, with their broader channel mix and post-view attribution, often show more reported conversions.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the Shopping component within PMax performs better than a standard Shopping campaign.
In my own tests, performance in the Shopping channel was comparable across both – with no statistically significant differences.
The additional lift in reported results from PMax often comes from cannibalizing other campaigns, like branded search ads or remarketing targeting already-engaged users.
Still, despite these concerns, performance FOMO continues to push marketers toward PMax. Classic Shopping campaigns are increasingly seen as outdated – even though they remain available.
And while Smart Shopping campaigns were forcibly migrated to PMax years ago, Google has yet to announce a sunset date for the classic version.
Let’s be honest: Performance Max also offers convenience.
When there’s no time to build and manage campaigns across Google’s networks, PMax steps in and handles it.
AI-generated creatives can even outperform human-made ones – though, like any automation, they occasionally produce ads we’d rather not claim as our own.
Rhodes highlighted:
“PMax is here to stay… Knowing how to make sense of the data, draw conclusions and make adjustments based on your insights is critical to improving performance.”
“Although Google is gradually increasing transparency and providing channel performance reports, it is still worth diving deeper into the data to better understand how the budget is being used: which products, locations, search queries, or landing pages generate sales, and how the automatic allocation of funds between channels within PMax progresses over time.”
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure. But equally having the data doesn’t matter if you’re not willing to take action and make changes to your campaigns.”
For small companies, where the cost of building and managing a wide range of campaigns could prove disproportionately high relative to the budget, Performance Max may be the only rational choice.
This is also one of the reasons why Google is creating increasingly automated advertising solutions – so that advertisers whose budgets do not justify hiring specialists or agencies can independently run campaigns with reasonable effectiveness.
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Living with PMax
Despite all its limitations, it is hard to imagine Google Ads without Performance Max.
When properly managed and controlled, PMax can deliver spectacular results.
Many of the latest Google Ads features are designed solely for Performance Max (or at least become available in PMax long before other types of campaigns).
For this reason, not using these campaigns cuts us off from these sophisticated optimization methods.
The goal of Performance Max campaigns is to maximize results. The key to their success is defining a goal aligned with our business objectives.
If our task is to maximize revenue, we should not optimize for maximizing the number of conversions because (quite likely) these numerous conversions may be of low value.
If the customer lifecycle is long, a strategy of acquiring new customers and recovering lost customers will bring us closer to achieving our goals rather than just generating sales.
Automatic campaigns using machine learning work better on large data sets, so sometimes we have to wait until enough historical data accumulates.
Frequent and significant changes to campaign goals can cause the campaign to revert to the learning phase, so patience and consistency will be our allies here.
Each Performance Max campaign operates with its own strategy to achieve its specific goal. (Unlike other campaign types, there are no portfolio strategies that optimize across multiple PMax campaigns.)
That’s why campaigns shouldn’t be fragmented without good reason.
Splitting them up can reduce optimization precision, slow down learning, and delay response to market changes.
Marketers often create separate Performance Max campaigns for different product groups – even when it’s unnecessary.
If those products share the same business goal, it’s usually better to include them in a single campaign and organize them within asset groups.
In many cases, the most efficient setup is one PMax campaign containing all products, optimized toward a single ROAS goal.
That said, this approach doesn’t fit every situation.
If product margins vary significantly, applying the same ROAS target across all items can distort profitability.
In these cases, it might make sense to separate products into different campaigns, each with its own ROAS goal.
But even that strategy has limits.
Customers often purchase products other than the one they initially clicked on, which can make campaign-level segmentation by margin misleading.
Using cart-level conversion tracking can provide clearer insights into actual performance.
If your products have significantly different margins, it’s better to pass actual profit margin to Google Ads – not just revenue.
This allows you to keep all products in a single campaign while assigning a ROAS goal that aligns more closely with your business objectives.
A unified campaign also gives Google more flexibility to shift budget across product groups, making it easier to respond to demand fluctuations or market opportunities.
However, if you do run multiple Performance Max campaigns.
For example, to allocate separate budgets to different product segments, be especially careful with the final URL expansion feature.
Without tight controls, a campaign might start promoting entirely different parts of your catalog than originally intended.
Help the algorithm
Performance Max is designed to optimize based on real results:
Adjusting to shifts in market conditions.
Changing conversion rates.
The varying performance of audiences, devices, times of day, and locations.
This optimization process is highly complex and data-driven – something no human could manage manually.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t guide or accelerate it.
One of the best ways to do that is by providing audience signals.
By supplying demographic data, life events, interests, search behavior, or custom segments, we can suggest that certain user groups may be more likely to convert.
For example, if we know a product appeals to newlyweds or users who’ve visited specific sections of our site, we can upload those segments as audience signals.
This helps the campaign learn faster – but it doesn’t restrict targeting only to those groups.
The algorithm will only prioritize them if the data confirms they convert at higher rates.
On the flip side, excluding low-performing audiences is trickier.
While the algorithm should eventually reduce bids to less effective groups, negative audiences aren’t supported in Performance Max like they are in other campaign types.
There’s also no official guidance from Google on using negative audience signals.
That said, if you’re using New Customer Only Mode, you can try a workaround.
Add unwanted audience segments to your existing customer list. This signals the system not to target them.
While splitting product groups into separate campaigns is generally discouraged (see earlier), creating separate asset groups within a single campaign is a best practice – especially if you can match creative assets and audience signals to each group.
Finally, a smart way to help the algorithm is by using seasonal adjustments.
If you’re running a multi-day promotion and expect a temporary spike in conversions, you can notify the system in advance.
Likewise, after a big event, if you anticipate a drop in conversion rate, setting a seasonal adjustment can prompt the algorithm to lower bids faster than it would under normal learning conditions.
Maciej Lewiński shared:
“If you use Performance Max like a toaster – switch it on, walk away, and expect it to just get the job done – you might be surprised by what pops out of your campaign.”
“I’ve seen campaigns with impressive ROAS, but when we looked closer, it turned out that half the conversions came from people who were already likely to buy – because they searched for the brand, were on a remarketing list, or had just received an email campaign.”
“PMax can be your best-performing salesperson – or an expensive illusion of control. It all depends on how you approach strategy, signal quality, and performance analysis.”
The future of PMax
Google continues to emphasize that it’s “listening to advertisers” and shaping the evolution of Performance Max around calls for more transparency and control.
These assurances have been repeated at multiple Google Marketing Live events.
And while progress hasn’t been rapid, it’s clear that PMax has come a long way.
Today’s campaigns offer far more visibility and levers than they did even a few years ago.
The channel performance report is a notable improvement.
Google has signaled that control over budget distribution by channel may be coming soon – a long-awaited step.
More detailed insights into asset performance are also expected, making it easier for advertisers to optimize and refine campaigns.
New customer lifecycle features are also on the horizon, which will be particularly useful for businesses focused on repeat purchases or lifetime value.
In addition, Google plans to introduce incrementality reports, which will help advertisers distinguish between correlation and actual uplift.
Instead of just tracking interactions and conversions, these reports aim to show how much new revenue a campaign actually generates.
This could lead to more informed, confident ad spend decisions.
For advertisers who want to stay hands-on – diving into the data and actively guiding the algorithm – there’s still plenty of room to steer campaigns toward better business outcomes.
And with time, the results will likely improve further.
But for those who prefer to set it and forget it, Performance Max is also ready to take the wheel.
After all, it’s Google’s flagship AI-driven campaign type – surely it knows what’s best, right?
Special thanks to Łukasz Chwiszczuk, Maciej Lewiński, and Mike Rhodes for their thoughtful review and feedback on this article.