Strategy - 5 min read - Updated
Performance Max: when it fits, and how to set it up
One campaign across all of Google's ad inventory: you give it goals, a budget, assets and audience signals, and Google decides the rest. It can work well. It can also buy what you would have had anyway.
One campaign, every Google channel.
Performance Max reaches all of Google Ads' inventory from a single campaign: YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps. You choose the conversion actions it works for, with an optional target ROAS or target CPA; you set the budget; you supply text, images and videos; you share audience signals. Google decides the rest.
Google presents it as a complement to keyword-based Search campaigns. When a search matches an exact match keyword in a Search campaign, that Search campaign is prioritized over Performance Max. Search themes have the same priority as phrase and broad match keywords.
When it fits, and when it does not yet.
It fits when
- Your conversion tracking counts real sales, once each: those are the actions it works for.
- You can supply good assets: text, images and videos that say what you sell.
- Your brand is excluded, so it does not take the searches for your own name.
- Someone reads its reports, its search terms included.
Not yet when
- Tracking is broken, or counts the same sale twice: it works for the wrong thing, at scale.
The free audit checks this: C-12 Does the account count sales at all?, C-16 Counting the same sale twice.
- Your sales close on the phone or in your CRM, and the account does not count them.
- Nobody will read what it buys.
Where it overlaps your own name.
Performance Max can show on searches for your own name. Those clicks convert easily, which flatters its results, but many of them would probably have come anyway, through your brand campaign or a plain search result.
To see what it really adds, compare with a period when it was paused, and watch your brand campaign and your unpaid results over the same days.
What the free audit checks
- C-05 Paying twice for your own name Performance Max overlapping your own brand searches - clicks you would probably have won anyway, with the detected brand terms shown.
The setup checklist.
Each control below is Google's own, read in its help pages.
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Exclude your brand
Build a brand list and apply it to the campaign as a brand exclusion. For Performance Max, brand exclusions apply to Search, Shopping and YouTube search inventory.
Where: Campaigns, then the campaign's Settings, then Additional settings, then Brand exclusions.
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Block the searches you never want
Add negative keywords to the campaign, or to the whole account: account-level negative keywords apply to all Search and Shopping inventory, Performance Max included. In Performance Max, negative keywords apply to Search and Shopping inventory only.
Where: Campaigns, then Keywords, then the Negative keywords tab.
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Give it your own assets
Supply your own text, images and videos, and your brand guidelines: they are what it builds your ads from.
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Give it audience signals
Add your customer lists and your site's visitor lists as audience signals, in each asset group. They are suggestions, not limits: it may show ads to people outside them.
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Choose what it works for
Conversion actions that are real sales, with an optional target ROAS or target CPA. For a target ROAS, start from your break-even.
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Read its search terms
Performance Max has a search terms report: the searches that triggered your ads.
Where: Campaigns, then Insights and reports, then Search terms, then Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max.
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Test what it adds
Compare a period with it and a period without it, for the same products or services, before you give it more budget.
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In their words.
4.6/5 on Trustpilot Read all 18 reviews
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"Attilio has been great in managing our Google ads. He is knowledgeable and always answers any questions about our account. He also has this great tool, DigiWise, that helps with report building."
Kimberly, US - Trustpilot verified -
"Attilio and DigiWise are fantastic! The personalized help and accurate reporting has been very helpful. Highly recommended."
Kate, US - Trustpilot verified -
"Very easy to use. Customization works perfect and automatic reporting saves so much time. Highly recommend!"
Sara Bianchi, PT - Trustpilot verified
Two more guides.
Is Performance Max buying your own name?
The free audit runs all 22 checks on your account, its overlap with your brand searches among them, and lists what it finds, most urgent first.
4.6/5 18 reviews (opens in a new tab) Rather have it run for you? Book the call. Managed by our team: $997 a month per account, for ad spend up to $10,000 a month (a quote above), no commitment.