What Is Performance Max?
Also written as PMax, P-Max, Performance Max campaign.
Definition
Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that can show your products on Shopping, Search, YouTube, Display, Discover and more from one budget. For an ecommerce store, this is usually how product ads run today. The campaign bids from your product feed and conversion data, not from keywords you type.
Written by Christopher Krassnig, Founder & CEO of ZenoX Media. Written by the ZenoX team from the accounts we run. Definitions are general; the numbers in examples are maths, not client results.
Performance Max, Explained
Performance Max (PMax) puts one campaign in charge of many Google places. You do not pick keywords. You give Google a product feed, a conversion goal, and a budget. Google then matches products to searches and other placements from that feed.
The common mistake is dumping every product into one pool. People add no labels. They set a target ROAS (return on ad spend) they guessed. The bidding then spends on cheap easy products and starves the ones that make money.
Start with a clean feed instead. Split products with custom labels so winners and losers do not share one target. Read break-even ROAS from your margin before you set any bid target. If your margin is 40 percent, break-even ROAS is 1 divided by 0.40, which is 2.5. A target far above that can stall spend. Watch search terms too. PMax can still buy junk clicks. Keep brand search in its own campaign so PMax does not buy your own name at a high price.
How We Use It at ZenoX
We run feed-only Performance Max as the starting campaign on 200+ ecom accounts. We split the feed into champions, potentials, sleepers and wasters before we add extra asset groups. We read break-even ROAS from margin before we set any bid target. Assets come later, and only when feed-only needs help.
Questions People Ask About Performance Max
What Is Performance Max in Google Ads?
Performance Max is a campaign type that can show your products on Shopping, Search, YouTube, Display, Discover and more from one budget. You do not pick keywords. Google matches products from your Merchant Center feed to searches and other placements. For most ecommerce stores, this is the main campaign that runs Shopping ads today.
Does Performance Max Replace Standard Shopping?
For most stores, Performance Max is now the main way Shopping ads run. A Standard Shopping campaign still has a job. It lets you bid on product groups you can see, which is useful for weak products. Many stores run both. PMax covers the bulk of the catalog. Standard Shopping holds the products you want to hold back.
Related terms
- Feed-Only Performance MaxFeed-only Performance Max is a Performance Max campaign built from your product feed, with no extra headlines or videos from you.
- Asset GroupAn asset group is the building block inside a Performance Max campaign.
- Product FeedA product feed is the data file that tells Google Merchant Center what you sell, item by item.
- Smart BiddingSmart Bidding is Google's automatic bidding.
Go deeper
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We work with brands serious about scale. If that is you, let's talk.
