Guide · Paid media
Performance Max Campaigns: How They Work and Risks
Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that runs ads across all of Google's channels from a single campaign. You give it a goal, a budget, a set of creative assets and some hints about your audience. Google's AI then decides where each ad shows and what to bid. This guide explains how it works, what you can still steer and the risks to check before you spend.
What Performance Max is
Google released Performance Max to all advertisers worldwide on 2 November 2021, after a beta. Google describes it as a goal-based campaign type. One campaign can reach YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Google Maps.
It is meant to sit beside your keyword-based Search campaigns, not replace them. Google's help pages say it uses Google AI for bidding, budget, audiences, creative and attribution.
Google also said retailers and stores with physical locations should keep using Smart Shopping and Local campaigns at first. Those two were due to upgrade to Performance Max the next year.
Treat the numbers Google shares with care. At launch, Google said advertisers saw an average gain of 13% in total incremental conversions at a similar cost per action. In February 2023 it said the average was over 18%. These are Google's own figures, not independent tests.
Sources: Google Ads Help, Drive conversions across Google’s ad channels with Performance Max campaigns; Google Ads & Commerce Blog, New ways to multiply your results with Performance Max
What the campaign type automates
Most of the daily decisions move from you to the system. That is the appeal, and it is also the trade you are making.
- Bids. Smart Bidding sets a bid for each auction in real time, based on your goal.
- Placements. The system picks the channel, such as a YouTube view or a Search result, for each ad.
- Ad mix. It builds ads by mixing the text, image and video assets you upload.
- Search matching. With final URL expansion on, it can send people to other pages on your site and write dynamic headlines to match what they searched.
Search campaigns keep priority in one case. If a search is identical to an eligible keyword in your account, of any match type, your Search campaign is favoured over Performance Max. For other searches, the ad with the best Ad Rank wins.
Sources: Google Ads Help, Drive conversions across Google’s ad channels with Performance Max campaigns; Google Ads Help, About Performance Max campaigns
What you still control
You are not left with nothing. These are the main inputs, and they decide how well the campaign does.
Control What it does Conversion goals and values Tells the system which actions count and which are worth more Budget and bid strategy Maximise conversions, or maximise conversion value with an optional target return Asset groups Sets of text, images and video grouped by one theme, like ad groups in other campaign types Audience signals Hints about who is likely to convert, including your own customer data Final URL expansion Can be left on or turned off Negative keywords Account-level lists became available in February 2023 Brand exclusions Campaign-level lists that stop serving on brand searches you want to avoid Google says to group assets by common themes and to supply as many text, image and video assets as you can. More variety gives the system more ways to fit each channel.
Brand exclusions apply to Search and Shopping inventory. Google said in 2023 that they would also help block most misspellings of a brand and searches in other languages. You can add your own brand terms to a list.
Sources: Google Ads Help, About Performance Max campaigns; Google Ads & Commerce Blog, New ways to multiply your results with Performance Max; Google Ads Help, New brand settings in Search and Performance Max campaigns
Risks to watch
Automation helps, but it can hide problems. Here are the ones to plan for.
- Less visibility. You do not pick placements one by one. Google offers an asset report and said in 2023 that asset group metrics were coming, but you will see less than in a Search campaign.
- Brand traffic can look like growth. A campaign may collect searches for your own name, which people would have made anyway. Add brand exclusions and compare results with and without them.
- Overlap with Search. A query identical to one of your eligible keywords goes to Search first, but other queries compete on Ad Rank. Check that the two are not bidding against each other.
- Weak inputs. If your conversion tracking is wrong or your values are guesses, the system will optimise toward the wrong target.
- Thin assets. Few or poor images and videos limit where the ads can show well.
- Final URL expansion. It may send people to pages you did not plan for. Review the landing pages it uses, or turn it off.
Google began rolling out experiments in 2023 so you can test Performance Max against your current mix. A test is the fairest way to learn whether it adds sales or only moves them from another campaign.
Sources: Google Ads Help, About Performance Max campaigns; Google Ads & Commerce Blog, New ways to multiply your results with Performance Max
A check before you launch
Use this short list with your agency or in-house team.
Question What a good answer looks like What is the one goal? A named conversion, such as a lead or a sale, that is tracked correctly Are conversion values set? Values reflect real worth, or you use the plain conversions strategy Are brand terms handled? Brand exclusions are in place, and brand results are reported apart Are assets themed? Each asset group has its own theme with text, images and video Is there a test plan? An experiment or a clear before and after window is set Who reviews it? Someone checks search terms, landing pages and asset results on a schedule Google lets an account hold up to 100 Performance Max campaigns, but it advises combining them where you can. Fewer campaigns with more data usually give the system more to learn from.
Sources: Google Ads Help, Drive conversions across Google’s ad channels with Performance Max campaigns; Google Ads Help, About Performance Max campaigns
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