Performance Max Campaign Management for Google Ads

What Performance Max automates, and what it still needs from us

We give the campaign a conversion goal, a budget, asset groups and audience signals. Google decides on its own which ad combination to show to which user on which channel. In 2022, Smart Shopping and Local campaigns were folded into this structure; today, campaigns with store visit goals also run through Performance Max.

What automation cannot know is what the business considers valuable. When a low-basket product and a high-margin product count as the same conversion, the campaign piles into the cheap product that sells easily. We set conversion values, the branded searches to exclude and which products to push forward.

Common Performance Max mistakes we find in audits

For a long time, Performance Max reporting was a black box. Today there is channel-level performance, search term insights and asset reporting. Even so, we see many accounts managed without ever opening these reports, and the problems usually show up in the same places. When we audit a setup, these are the first five points we check:

• Branded searches stay inside the campaign, and Performance Max's success actually comes from brand traffic that would have arrived anyway.
• A single asset group carries every product and every message; audience signals and creative do not match.
• Form submissions and page views are both selected as primary conversions with equal weight.
• No video asset is added, so Google generates automatic videos and off-brand ads run on YouTube.
• The budget is too low to bring in even 2-3 conversions a day, so the campaign never leaves the learning period.

How we structure asset groups and audience signals

We prefer to split asset groups by customer need rather than product category. For a furniture brand, for example, 'small-space solutions' and 'garden and balcony' call for different audience signals, visuals and headlines. We aim to have at least one horizontal, one square and one vertical video in each group; if there is no video, we first recommend producing a simple product video.

As audience signals, customer lists and website visitors give the strongest start. A signal is not a targeting limit; it only tells Google where to begin. Over time the campaign moves beyond this audience, and it should. So we do not spend effort narrowing the signal; instead, we track separately in conversion reports whether the campaign brings new or existing customers.

Performance Max, Search and Demand Gen: avoiding overlap

If a Search campaign targets the same keyword as Performance Max, the Search campaign takes priority when the search query exactly matches the keyword. That is why we keep branded and most profitable keywords in Search and use Performance Max for new demand. We also add a campaign-level brand exclusion list so branded queries do not shift into Performance Max.

For YouTube and Discover work where we want more control over creative and audiences, we run Demand Gen separately. We read what each campaign really adds to sales together with GA4 and data-driven attribution; Google Ads' own report is not enough on its own.

Performance Max: when do we recommend it?

How we manage Performance Max

1. Conversion auditWe separate primary and secondary conversions and check value rules and double counting.
2. Brand and channel limitsWe set brand exclusions, negative keywords and, where needed, URL expansion limits.
3. Asset groups and signalsWe build groups by need and give each one matching images, video, headlines and audience signals.
4. Learning periodWe avoid changing the bid target frequently in the first two to three weeks and only fix clear errors.
5. Channel and asset reportingWe replace weak assets using channel performance, search term insights and the asset report.
6. ScalingOnce target ROAS or CPA is met, we raise the budget gradually, by around 20% a week at most.

Performance Max: metrics and requirements

The Brand Move Google Ads Team

To learn more about Performance Max or other Google Ads ad formats, contact The Brand Move Google Ads team today.

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