Updated July 2025
Performance Max is a new campaign type that complements and combines elements of the other campaign types within Google Ads – such as Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Shopping, and even Gmail and Maps – into a single goal-driven campaign. It relies heavily on automation and smart bidding to find leads and customers across Google’s entire advertising ecosystem.
What is Performance Max
Performance Max allows advertisers to access all of Google’s ad inventory from one campaign, including Search (and Search Partners), Display, YouTube, Shopping, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. It uses Google’s machine learning and AI to dynamically assemble and deliver ads to the users most likely to convert, based on intent signals, behavior, demographics, and your provided audience inputs. Instead of manually managing separate campaigns for each channel or setting keywords and bids, your job is to feed the system high-quality creative assets, structured data, and clear conversion goals. Google’s algorithms then do the heavy lifting of finding the right placements and audiences in real time.
TL;DR
- Performance oriented
- Easy automation-driven setup
- Ability to find new opportunities that your other campaigns might miss
- Full-funnel targeting within a single campaign
- Initially had limited reporting, no keyword negatives and very few manual controls.
- Update: Reporting has improved with channel-specific breakdowns and search term data, and you can now add negatives via new features – see below
- Brand campaign cannibalization is a risk (though you can now exclude your own brand using the new brand exclusions feature)
- Still very limited control compared to other campaign types
Let’s dive into whats what.
Understanding Campaign Priorities
Since Performance Max campaigns ‘compete’ with your other campaign types especially if you are leaning heavily on Search, it is important to understand where it takes priority in Google Ads auctions. Below is a table that shows these priorities:
Campaign Priorities within the Google Ads System – Source: Google via Alex van de Pol
The most important thing to understand here is that Performance Max will enter into search auctions normally targeted by your regular Search Campaigns. This is not necessarily a problem and it is even useful in ‘filling the gaps’ that might not necessarily be covered by your Search Campaigns. You need to be careful and must have dedicated campaigns with exact keywords for your high converting search terms and especially your branded terms. Performance Max will cannibalise your branded terms (more on that later) if you are not careful and produce amazing results which are just a consequence of appearing on your brand searches.
The importance of Diverse Creative Assets
You will be targeting users across several networks (Search, Display, Video), it is especially important to have a diverse variety of creatives so that the system can create combinations that will be meaningful for users at various touchpoints. Here is a table recommended by Google:
Performance Max Asset Type Recommendations – Source: Google Ads API
The Google Ads system will provide a score on how well you’re doing in terms of your ‘Ad Strength’. Try to go for good or better, the system will guide you on what’s missing:
Important tip: Do not omit providing a video – otherwise Google will auto-generate a pretty awful video for you. If you upload at least one video asset, the auto-generated video will not serve.
Bonus tip: If you upload an unlisted YouTube video specifically for the campaign, you’ll be able to see how many views that video is getting. Since it’s only served by the Performance Max campaign, this gives insight into how many of your PMax impressions are actually on YouTube.
New (2024+) – Automatic Asset Generation: Google now automatically generates headlines, descriptions, and even image assets if your campaign is missing any creative inputs. These AI-generated assets are based on your website content, feed data, and past performance. You can opt out of this feature, and it’s a good idea to keep an eye on it – sometimes the AI suggestions work well, but other times they may produce off-brand or mismatched messaging. In 2025, Google also introduced brand-consistent AI creative tools that let you upload your logo, brand colors, and font styles so that any auto-generated images better match your brand’s look and feel. This helps maintain brand integrity if you rely on Google’s asset generation.
Reporting
When PMax first launched, one of its biggest critiques was the lack of visibility into what it was doing. Advertisers couldn’t see which channels their ads were showing on, what search queries were triggering ads, or which creative combinations were actually working – it felt like running a campaign blindfolded. Thankfully, that’s no longer entirely the case. While PMax still isn’t as transparent as a manual Search campaign, Google has rolled out several major reporting updates over the past year in response to feedback.
Channel-Level Performance Reporting (New)
One of the most important updates in recent memory is the introduction of channel-level reporting for PMax. There is now a Channel Performance page that breaks down your campaign’s results by channel: Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Discover, Maps, and so on. On this page, you’ll find a summary and a visualization of how each channel contributes to your conversion goals. For example, you might see that the majority of conversions are coming from Search and Shopping ads, whereas YouTube is eating 40% of the spend with little to show for it – a red flag that might prompt you to add more targeted video assets or exclude certain placements.
Channel-level performance breakdown in PMax (Google Ads interface, 2025). The new report shows how each channel (Search, Display, YouTube, etc.) is contributing to impressions, cost, and conversions, helping identify where your budget is going.
While you still cannot set channel-specific bids in a PMax campaign, these insights help you make informed decisions about adjusting your creative strategy or exclusions. For instance, if you discover that YouTube is spending a lot but not converting, you might supply better video assets or limit your PMax to focus on other channels. If Display Network placements are high volume but low quality, you might use placement exclusions or feed optimizations to improve relevance. The channel breakdown finally lets you hold PMax accountable by channel, similar to how we analyze cross-channel performance elsewhere.
The Channel Performance page also provides format-level breakdowns within channels (for example, distinguishing between video ads vs. product feed ads on YouTube, etc.). If you’re a retailer using a product feed, you can see how Shopping-format ads are performing on Search versus how dynamic product ads perform on Display or YouTube. And for deeper analysis, there’s a channel distribution table below the chart – a granular table of metrics for each channel, which is downloadable for offline analysis. This is great for sharing data or combing through performance by channel in spreadsheets.
Google even added some channel-specific diagnostics on this page. These will highlight if a particular channel is under-utilized due to something fixable – for example, if your PMax isn’t serving on Maps because a store location feed is missing, or if Search coverage is limited because your landing pages aren’t relevant enough to certain queries. The system might suggest enabling Final URL Expansion in cases where your chosen landing pages are holding back Search performance.
Search Term Reporting (New)
Originally, PMax only provided “Search category” insights – essentially clusters of related queries (themes) in the Insights tab, which were quite vague compared to actual Search terms. It grouped queries into high-level themes, leaving advertisers guessing the exact terms. Up until Google Marketing Live 2025, these broad search themes were all we had. We had created a script to give you additional insights which can be found here.
Now, Google is finally rolling out full Search terms reporting for Performance Max campaigns. This means you get a report of the actual search queries that triggered your PMax ads, just like the Search Terms report for Search or Shopping campaigns. It’s a huge leap in transparency – you can see the real keywords users searched that led to clicks and conversions. Using this information, you can create new text assets tailored to high-value queries, or identify searches that aren’t relevant and add them as negatives at the campaign level.
In fact, campaign-level negative keywords were a beta feature in 2024 that is now rolling out to all advertisers. This means if you spot any search terms in the new report that are a poor fit (e.g. unrelated meanings of a word, or searches for something you don’t offer), you can directly add negatives to your PMax to block them. (We’ll discuss negatives more in the FAQ section below.) The combination of seeing actual search terms and having native negative keyword controls finally lets you trim wasted spend that was previously hidden inside the “black box.”
Search themes “usefulness” indicators in PMax (Google Ads interface). Advertisers can provide Search theme keywords as hints; Google now shows if each theme is driving incremental traffic beyond what the AI would find on its own.
Alongside raw search queries, Google has enhanced the search insights with a new “source” column and “usefulness” indicators for any Search Themes you add. Search Themes are an optional input where you can tell Google specific keywords that you know are relevant to your business. In the search terms insight report, you can now see whether a given query was found by PMax’s own AI or came from one of the Search Themes you provided. Google even labels each added theme as “useful” or not, indicating if that theme is actually bringing in incremental queries that PMax wouldn’t have caught by itself. If a theme shows as not useful (meaning PMax would’ve gotten those queries anyway), you might replace it with other keywords. If it is useful, that’s confirmation your hint is expanding reach in a good way. This helps you fine-tune any Search Theme guidance you give to the campaign.
(As a side note, the old Search category insights report is still around for a high-level view. You can still use those broad themes to spot areas to refine – e.g., if you see a category of queries performing well, you might break it out into its own asset group or dedicated Search campaign. But the new search terms report is far more actionable for direct optimization.)
Asset Group and Asset-Level Performance
Each Asset Group in PMax (analogous to an ad group) now includes more performance metrics to help you understand what’s working creatively. You can view metrics like impressions, clicks, conversions, conversion value, and CTR for each asset group. This way, you can compare performance across different asset groups (which might represent different themes, audiences, or product lines in your campaign). If one asset group is consistently outperforming others, use it as a blueprint – examine its messaging, creative, and audience signals, and apply those learnings to your other groups.
Moreover, you can dive into asset-level reporting within each group. Google used to only give qualitative labels (Low, Good, Best) to indicate relative asset performance, which wasn’t very detailed. Now, they are adding actual numbers for each asset: impressions, clicks, cost, conversion value per cost, average CPC, etc.. In other words, you can see exactly how many impressions or conversions each headline, image, or video got – across the entire campaign or per asset group. This is huge for creative optimization: instead of guessing why Google labeled one image as “Low”, you might see that it had half the impressions of another image and a lower CTR, etc. You can then swap out underperforming creatives with new ideas and double down on the assets that drive results.
New asset-level reporting in PMax (Google Ads interface). Advertisers can now see metrics like impressions, clicks, cost, conversion value, CPC and more for each ad asset – replacing the vague “Good/Best” labels with real data.
Even better, the asset group performance view can be segmented by dimensions like device, time of day, etc., for finer analysis. And Google heard the feedback about accessibility – you can download asset group performance data as a report now. This allows teams to share and analyze PMax asset data outside the Google Ads UI, which is great for reporting or for those who prefer working in Excel. (As of early 2025, this download feature has started rolling out; if you don’t see it yet, keep an eye out – it’s coming soon)
Audience Signal Contribution
The Audience Signal is the targeting hint you provide in each asset group – it can include keywords, first-party data (like customer lists or website visitors), and Google’s interest segments. Originally, this was a pure “signal” with no reporting on its impact (since PMax will go beyond these signals anyway). Now, Google has given us a bit more visibility into how our audience signals are performing. In the Insights tab, you can see which audience segments are contributing to conversions and how much. For example, you might see that your Customer Match list contributed 40 conversions, while a certain in-market audience contributed only 5. If a particular signal is showing very low engagement or conversion contribution, it might be a sign to refine it or try a different audience segment. Conversely, if one audience signal is driving a lot of conversions, that insight could inform your broader marketing strategy (maybe those users are especially valuable, so you invest more in them across channels).
Optimization Tips and Performance Enhancers
Even as PMax automates many levers, there’s still plenty for a savvy marketer to optimize. Here are some tips to get the most out of Performance Max, given its latest features:
Creatives, Creatives, Creatives
As mentioned in the Creative Assets section above, your ads are only as good as the assets you provide. Make sure your images are high-quality and cover different formats (square, landscape, portrait), your headlines and descriptions cover a range of messages, and you include a strong call-to-action. Increasingly, as digital marketing becomes automated, the concept of “targeting by creative” has become important – meaning, the creative itself helps draw in the right audience. When everything else is automated, the assets you feed into the system act as the bait to attract your ideal customers. So feed the machine with a strong variety of assets to give it the best chance to find what resonates with different audience segments.
If you have the resources, take advantage of Google’s new creative tools. For example, try the brand-certified asset generation (upload your brand style guide so the AI can create on-brand visuals), or use the new video enhancement features. Google’s AI can now automatically reformat your videos to different aspect ratios and even create short, condensed video ads from longer videos by identifying key moments. These can help ensure you have video coverage without needing a full production team for every format.
Use Exclusions to Maintain Control
If certain placements or contexts consistently underperform, don’t hesitate to exclude them. Google now allows placement exclusions at the campaign level for PMax (this was introduced in late 2022), meaning you can block specific websites or YouTube channels/apps where you don’t want your ads to show. You’ll find this in the campaign’s “Content” settings. Previously, you could only exclude placements account-wide, which was a blunt tool – now you can do it per campaign for PMax.
For keyword negatives, as discussed, you finally have a way to add these directly. Initially, PMax had no ability to add negative keywords (except via hacky methods through Google support). That changed with the introduction of account-level negative keyword lists (rolled out in 2023) and more recently campaign-level negatives in 2024-2025. We recommend proactively setting up negative keywords or brand exclusions before you launch PMax, especially if there are obvious queries you know you want to avoid. Don’t wait for performance to tank – add your brand terms (if you want Search campaigns to handle those) or irrelevant matches to a negative list early. This will guide the AI and prevent wasted spend.
Similarly, URL Exclusions and Final URL Expansion settings are crucial. In your PMax campaign settings, you’ll see the URL options:
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“Send traffic to the most relevant URLs on your site” – Be careful with this default option. It allows Google to expand beyond your provided landing page and send traffic to any pages it deems relevant. This can sometimes lead to odd placements (I’ve seen PMax send traffic to a privacy policy page when this was left unchecked!). If you use this, be sure to add plenty of URL exclusions to prevent irrelevant pages from being targeted.
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“Only send traffic to the URLs you provide” – This is often the safer choice, especially for lead generation or when each asset group is tied to a specific landing page. It keeps the campaign focused on the pages you’ve intended. If your asset groups are granular enough, each one should have a dedicated URL/landing page and you can stick to this setting.
New for e-commerce PMax campaigns, Google has added “URL contains” rules. If you’re using a product feed (Merchant Center) in PMax, you can now set rules to include only URLs containing certain strings. For instance, if you only want to advertise a specific category of products, you could set a rule to only include URLs that contain “/shoes” or a specific brand name. This effectively gives you a way to narrow the campaign’s focus by product category without creating a separate campaign. It’s a useful control for retailers to ensure PMax doesn’t roam into product areas you don’t want promoted together.
Leverage Audience Signals (Smartly)
Even though PMax will find users beyond your initial audience targets, providing a strong Audience Signal can help jump-start the campaign in the right direction. Be granular with your asset groups and signals: for example, create separate asset groups for distinct customer segments or product lines, each with an audience signal tailored to that segment (e.g., past purchasers vs. new prospects, or different interest categories). The key is to give the algorithm some “hints” about where to look first, without overlapping signals too much. If you lump everything into one group with one broad signal, you lose that precision. Instead, structure multiple asset groups with mutually exclusive audiences and tailored creatives – this way you retain a bit of control on messaging and targeting focus.
Now that Google shows Audience Signal contribution (conversions by audience segment in the Insights tab), keep an eye on those stats. If one signal isn’t pulling its weight, consider refining it or swapping it out. Conversely, if you see, say, your Customer Match list driving lots of conversions, you might increase your Customer Match upload frequency or use similar audiences to expand on that success.
Embrace Automation – But Verify the Results
Performance Max is heavily automated, but it’s not set-and-forget. Use the new reporting tools to continually monitor and guide the automation. Check the Channel report regularly: is one channel overspending for little return? Check Search terms: are there new keywords worth adding to Search campaigns, or negatives to add to PMax? Review asset performance: could you refresh creatives that have high spend but low conversions?
Also, take advantage of conversion value rules or the new New Customer Acquisition (NCA) goal if they align with your strategy. PMax allows you to tell Google to value new customers more (or simply target a volume of new customers). In 2025, Google introduced a “High Value New Customer” mode for the NCA goal. If you can identify who your high-value customers are (perhaps via Customer Match lists or by indicating a higher conversion value for first-time buyers), PMax’s bidding can prioritize finding more of those, even at a higher CPA, because it knows they’re worth more to you in the long run. If customer acquisition is a priority for your business, consider using this feature – just ensure you’re feeding accurate data about who counts as high value.
Finally, experiment when possible. Google has started rolling out tools to test different assets in PMax (e.g., running experiments on final URL expansion on vs off, or comparing asset group variants). If you get access to PMax experiments or drafts, use them to validate changes before fully applying them. And keep an eye on Google Marketing Live and Ads product updates – PMax is evolving continuously, and staying up-to-date on new features is key to maintaining your edge.
FAQs
Q. How to add negatives to Performance Max Campaigns?
You can’t (officially). Unofficially, you can contact Google Support or your sales rep and they will add them to your account. Also, account level negatives are coming (for brand safety reasons) and similar to excluding placements on the account level, we will be able to do the same with keywords. This has officially been announced and will roll out soon.
Update Aug 2023: They then added a Brand Exclusions feature specifically for PMax, allowing you to exclude your own brand terms or even certain competitor brand terms from being targeted.
Update Early 2025: Google is now rolling out campaign-level negative keywords for Performance Max to all advertisers. This means you can directly input negative keywords at the campaign level (typically via the campaign settings under a “Negatives” section). Use these tools to prevent PMax from showing on queries you know are unwanted – for example, your trademarked terms (if you want Search campaigns handling those) or irrelevant meanings of your keywords. In short, yes, you can now add negatives to PMax: use account-level lists for broad application and campaign-level negatives for more specific control.
Q: Is Performance Max any good? Does it actually perform?
A: In our experience, yes – Performance Max can work very well, often uncovering new areas of efficiency. We’ve seen it “pick up the slack” in very competitive niches where Search CPCs are high, delivering additional conversions at a cheaper average CPA. In one client report, we compared performance across Search, Performance Max, Native, and Social campaigns for a specific service;
PMax held its own and even pushed us to rethink budget allocation because it was driving strong results. That said, results vary. PMax doesn’t replace well-optimized Search campaigns but can complement them by finding incremental conversions.
It’s also improving over time. Google claims that in 2024 alone, they launched 90+ quality improvements to PMax that increased conversions and conversion value by over 10% on average for advertisers. As more advertisers use it (over one million advertisers are now on PMax), Google is actively tuning the algorithms. If you set it up thoughtfully – with good conversion tracking, strong assets, and the new controls (negatives, etc.) in place – PMax is definitely worth testing. Just monitor it closely, especially at the start, and don’t be afraid to guide it using the tools we now have.
Q: Does Performance Max replace Search campaigns?
A: No – think of PMax as a complement to Search, not a replacement. Nothing beats the control and specificity of intent-targeted Search ads for many situations. In fact, Google’s own advice is to run Performance Max alongside your Search campaigns. Use Search campaigns for the queries you know are valuable (especially exact matches on your core keywords and brand terms), and let PMax cast a wider net to find additional conversions across all channels. PMax can fill in gaps and reach users that pure Search campaigns might miss (for example, through YouTube or Display touchpoints), but it works best in tandem. Many advertisers are now adopting a strategy of running both: Search for precision, PMax for scale and discovery. If anything, PMax has more overlap with Smart Shopping or Dynamic remarketing (since it effectively replaced those with a multi-channel approach). But for pure search query targeting, you’ll usually still want a well-run Search campaign in the mix. In short, use PMax to augment your marketing, not as an either/or with Search.
Final thoughts
In my opinion, Performance Max is a great tool to complement mature accounts and squeeze out that extra bit of performance. Digital marketing is getting ever more automated – there’s no turning back from that – but there’s still a lot for marketers to do, even with a fully automated campaign type. The recent updates show that Google is listening to feedback: they’re giving us more control and transparency, piece by piece, which makes PMax easier to trust and optimize. As always, there will be a need for experienced marketers to deploy the best tools for each unique case and guide the machines toward the right strategy.
Performance Max has come a long way from the early days of being a “black box.” It’s more flexible and transparent now, but the fundamentals remain: feed it good data, watch it closely, and use your expertise to shape it. If you do that, PMax can truly shine as a conversion driver across Google’s entire ecosystem.
Have any questions, updates, comments or just want to talk shop? Find me on LinkedIn.
Also feel free to request a free Google Ads Audit.
Yannis Giovanos (AdGurus)
