Google Ads Performance Max: Is it worth it?

What is Performance Max?

Performance Max is Google Ads AI-powered campaign type, designed to maximize your reach and conversions across all of Google's channels. For the first time, you can run Search, Shopping, Display, Discovery, Gmail, Video, and Maps ads all out of a single campaign. It leverages Google's AI to optimize your bids, targeting, and creative assets for you.

Who can use Performance Max?

Every Google Ads account is eligible for Performance Max. In fact, if you try to launch a regular Shopping or Display campaign, the Google Ads interface will “nudge” you into choosing PMax instead. And when you create a new Google Ads account, Google will try to get you to set up Performance Max as your very first campaign.

As you'll learn through this article, that may not be such a good idea...

The Four Things You Need to Run an Effective Performance Max campaign

Performance Max is powerful, but it's not a "set it and forget it" solution. To get the best results, especially for beginner to intermediate practitioners, a solid foundation is crucial. Based on my experience as a Google Ads Expert who has helped optimize more than 10,000 Google Ads accounts over the last decade, here's what you need for success with PMax:

1. Conversion tracking: Performance Max is purely designed for conversions. If you don't have robust, full-funnel conversion tracking set up, it's not the right campaign type for you. Performance Max can be a great fit for ecommerce businesses with clear conversion goals like purchases. But for lead generation businesses without offline conversion tracking (where leads are tracked through to qualified opportunities or sales), Performance Max may optimize for form fills rather than high-quality leads, leaving you susceptible to spam.
2. Creative assets: In order to run a Performance Max campaign, you have to provide lots of high-quality assets: headlines, descriptions, images, logos, and videos. If applicable, you’ll also need your shopping feed or store locations. Engaging and relevant creative assets are incredibly important, as they are the front-facing representation of your business and help attract your target audience. Poor creative = poor performance.
3. Customer data: What's different about Performance Max vs. other Google Ads campaign types is the concepts of an “audience signal” and "search themes." In a normal Google Ads campaign, like Search or Display or Demand Gen, you tell Google what keywords or audiences you want to target. But in Performance Max, those are treated as "signals" rather than true targeting. Ultimately, Google decides who it wants to show your ads to, based on who it thinks is most likely to convert. The best signal you can give your PMax campaign (and your entire Google Ads account) is a customer list. The more high-quality audience data you provide, the better PMax can optimize.
4. Sufficient Budget and Patience: Performance Max needs time to learn and optimize. Allocate a reasonable budget (I recommend a minimum of $50/day for at least 2-3 months) and allow the campaign to run for a while before making significant changes, as the AI needs data to improve and learn.

How to optimize a Performance Max campaign

Historically, Performance Max has been a bit of a "black box," offering limited insights. However, Google has made significant strides in increasing transparency, giving us more tools to understand and optimize our PMax campaigns.

• Search Terms Report: Previously, you could only see "search term categories." Now, you have access to a comprehensive list of actual search queries that triggered your Performance Max ads, along with detailed performance metrics like impressions, clicks, CTR, and conversions. This is invaluable for understanding user intent and identifying opportunities.

• Negative Keywords: Alongside the full search terms report, you now have the power of add negative keywords in Performance Max. You can add up to 10,000 negative keywords per campaign and use negative keyword match types, giving you control to exclude irrelevant or low-converting searches. While you might still see "other search terms," just like in a Search campaign, this is a vast improvement in PMax management.

• Audience Insights: There is an audiences report on the Insights tab; if your top performing audiences don’t seem like the right fit for your customers, you may need to rework your creative to better appeal to your target customers and/or try a different audience signal

• Channel Reporting: This new feature, rolling out globally, allows you to see how your impressions, clicks, conversions, and costs are distributed across various Google channels like Discover, Gmail, Search, Shopping, and Maps. To find this, navigate to "Insights and Reports" on the left-hand side of your PMax campaign, then select "Channel Performance." While this provides transparency, it's crucial to note that you do not have direct channel controls; you cannot deselect or turn off specific channels within Performance Max, as the system is designed to optimize across all eligible channels.

• Asset Reporting: You can now access more robust asset reporting metrics within your PMax asset groups. By choosing the "Table" view and adding the right Columns, you can see the performance of individual headlines, descriptions, images, and videos. Focusing on click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate can help identify your top-performing assets and guide your creative strategy.

• Bid Strategy: The most important optimization lever at your disposal is your bid strategy! If your PMax is not hitting your goals, revisit your conversion setup, bid strategy and budget to ensure they’re working together, rather than against each other, to drive results

Who is Performance Max best for?

Performance Max may be difficult to manage and get good results if you're a small business owner or new to Google Ads: you have to have perfect conversion tracking, lots of creative, first-party customer data and sufficient budget for it to work effectively.

Assuming you have those 4 key pillars in place:

For Ecommerce Businesses: Performance Max can be a powerful tool for ecommerce, especially if you have a well-optimized product feed and clear conversion goals. You may be interested in this article: Performance Max vs. Standard Shopping: Which is better for ecommerce?

For Lead Generation Businesses: Performance Max can be challenging for lead generation if you lack offline conversion tracking. Without this, PMax may drive volume but not quality. For most B2B and/or lead generation businesses, I recommend starting with Search campaigns for better control and targeting. You may be interested in this article: Performance Max vs. Search: Which is Best for B2B Lead Generation?

If you want to set up and optimize your Performance Max campaigns step by step alongside me, be sure to join my Google Ads course, Inside Google Ads.