What is Performance Max (PMax)?
How does Performance Max work?
You choose the conversion actions you care about, optionally with a target ROAS or CPA, and give the campaign assets such as images, text, video and a data feed1. Google then decides where to show ads and what to bid. In a channel-specific campaign, you pick the channel. Here, Google picks across all of them.
The goal is the part you control. The campaign chases the conversions and values you report to it. So the conversion data you give it shapes what it finds. Bad values in, bad orders out.
What can you control?
Google lists controls such as brand exclusions, negative keywords and search themes1. A negative keyword is a search term you ask Google not to show ads for. A search theme is a hint about the searches you want.
How much you can see is debated. A 2022 post by Smarter Ecommerce, a vendor of Google Shopping software, called PMax a black box with limited reporting2. Google's help page now lists reporting options that include channel performance and placement reports1. Whether that is enough to judge the spend is the open question. Read Performance Max black box for what it decides and how to read the result.
Why does the budget need a second look?
Google says the campaign funnels budget towards the best-performing inventory1. Best-performing by the platform's count can mean the cheapest sales to win. That may include people who would have bought anyway, or searches for your own brand. That is cannibalisation: paid activity taking credit for sales that would have arrived by another route.
For ZFD: We look at where a PMax campaign's credited sales came from. Its credit is a platform report, not proof. See paid media strategy for ecommerce for how we weigh channels by margin.
Easily confused with
Performance Max vs Demand Gen
A Google campaign type for image and video ads across YouTube, Discover, Gmail and more. PMax is the all-inventory, goal-based one.
Performance Max vs Advantage+ sales campaigns
Meta's automated sales campaign type. Similar idea, different platform.
Performance Max vs A bid strategy
The rules for setting bids. PMax uses them inside a whole campaign type.
Performance Max vs Impression share
The share of eligible impressions your ads received. A measure, not a campaign type.
FAQ
Is Performance Max the same as Shopping?
No. PMax is its own campaign type, and it reaches many Google surfaces, Search included, from one campaign1.
Can I see where PMax spends?
Is PMax right for every shop?
It depends on your tracking, margin and feed. A campaign is only as good as the values it is given.
Sources
Let’s find what’s actually working.
Next step. Check what your credited ROAS looks like on explicit assumptions. Use the Is your ROAS real? calculator.