Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 87 - PMax Pros and Cons

Is Performance Max the best or worst campaign type in Google Ads?

That's what we're going to determine today because look, I got these two comments recently, one on TikTok and one from YouTube, and I added them to my spreadsheet of questions to answer like I always do. And then when I went to pick a topic for this episode, I laughed out loud when I read these comments next to each other because… okay, here they are:

Previlarino on TikTok says, not a fan of PMax, costly, obscure, inefficient. You know, but likely can't say. Google keeps pushing inefficiencies in order to drive their own revenue up. I hope this product dies out.

This user thinks there's some kind of conspiracy going on, but there's no conspiracy. It's transparent. PMax absolutely was designed to drive cross-channel performance and as part of that, put more ads on inventory that many Google Ads users may not have been using like Display or Search Partners or Gmail.

But here's what Dcaz342 on YouTube had to say. I have been running ads on Google since 2016. We do well with just PMax and nothing else. Have you seen this also? Just PMax doing all the work? It seems to work for us. 

Look at that, a PMax fan. And yes, I have seen this for a lot of businesses. Just running PMax, nothing else, great results.

So how come some people hate PMax, think it's a scam, and refuse to use it, while others have shifted all their budget into PMax and they're seeing great success? That's what I'm going to answer for you right now so you can make the best decision for your own Google Ads budget.

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you.

This is Inside Google Ads: Episode 87, PMax Pros and Cons.

First, let's have a quick minute or two to answer: what is Performance Max? And before you fast forward, even if you think you know, the PMax of today bears little resemblance to the PMax of 2021 and 2022 when this campaign first launched.

So here's my definition of Performance Max. PMax is a conversion-focused campaign type in Google Ads that places your ads across all of Google's inventory including Search, Shopping, Display, Discovery, Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Search Partners, and Video Partners. You choose one of four smart bidding strategies to guide your campaign, provide a plethora of text, image, and video assets and an optional product feed, and then Google's AI determines the best targeting and creative combinations to achieve your goal.

The key things to remember about PMax are that:

• you don't get to pick your targeting, keywords, audiences or placements

• you must have conversion tracking and use a conversion-based bid strategy

• and the thing that's really changed is that PMax is no longer a black box

You get a full Search Terms Report in PMax, just like in Search and Shopping, and you can add negative keywords.

You can get a Placements Report via report editor and add account level content exclusions.

We have the Channel Performance Report, which shows you impressions, clicks, et cetera, by channel like search, display, YouTube, so although you can't opt into or out of channels, you can see what PMax is doing under the hood.

You get full asset level reporting.

And you also get audience insights reporting via the Insights page.

Although you can't tell PMax directly exactly what you want it to do - that would kind of defeat the purpose of maximizing performance across Google's platform - you tell it the outcome you're looking for via your conversion tracking and your bid strategy, and then you can see after the fact exactly what PMax did with your money to try to achieve your outcome.

Whew, okay! 

Now that we know what Performance Max is, is this the right campaign type for you? Is it the best thing to ever happen to Google Ads or the worst thing to ever happen to Google Ads? 

I'm going to share with you my 3-step decision tree for whether or not you should run Performance Max.

1. Have you run Google Ads before or are you brand new to Google Ads?

If you have an existing Google Ads account and you're running campaigns like Search, Shopping or Demand Gen and seeing good results, then Performance Max could be a logical next step for you. By bringing all of that inventory under one campaign with one joint bid strategy, you could potentially see even better performance and have an easier time scaling.

If you're brand new to Google Ads, when you set up a new account, Google will try to get you to set up a Performance Max campaign as your first campaign. Don't do it! I recommend starting with Search for lead generation businesses and starting with Shopping for ecommerce businesses. Those are your core building blocks for advertising on Google. And if you see good results there, then consider testing PMax next.

2. Are you happy with your Google Ads results? Are you hitting your efficiency goals, like your desired Target CPA or Target ROAS? Or are you hitting your reach goals, like your desired conversion volume or total revenue or total profit?

If you're happy, then, well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! But PMax could be a way to scale those results if you feel like you're maxed out on the current opportunity.

For Search or Shopping campaigns, look at your Search Impression Share to see if you're maxed out or not.

If you've never run any image or video-based advertising before, I do generally recommend launching a Demand Gen campaign first rather than going straight to PMax. Because if your assets suck, PMax will crumble, so test those assets out in Demand Gen first, where at least you can control your targeting.

Now, if you're not happy with your Google Ads results, I will usually advise you to try to solve your current problems before exposing yourself to a whole new plate of PMax problems.

Maybe your conversion tracking is broken, or you're only optimizing for leads and not qualified leads, so you're getting a lot of spam. PMax will make that worse, not better.

Maybe your Shopping feed titles and descriptions are really poor, so you're serving on a lot of irrelevant queries. PMax will make that worse, not better.

Get your foundation working first before piling PMax on top.

3. You're running Google Ads, you're happy with your results, and your foundation is in place - so here are 3 bare minimum things you need before launching a PMax campaign.

First, you need full funnel conversion tracking, either purchases on the ecommerce side, qualified leads or even better, sales on the lead gen side. Do not just track “form fills,” “phone calls” or “meetings booked” or you will end up with a ton of spam in PMax. That will be your fault, not PMax's fault.

Second, you've got to spend at least $50 a day per PMax campaign, potentially higher. PMax covers a lot more ground than Search, Shopping or even Demand Gen, and it needs budget and leeway to make that work. So if you can't spend at least $50 a day for at least three months and potentially see no return on that investment, don't try PMax, stick with what's currently working.

And the third thing you need is high quality creative assets. High quality doesn't have to mean high production value, but it does mean you need a few different images that you know resonate with your target audience. Since you don't choose your targeting with PMax, your creative is actually what guides your targeting. You want your imagery to appeal to your target audience and just as importantly, not appeal to your not target audience. 

If you've tested Demand Gen, or advertised on Meta or TikTok, then you have tried and true creative you can use. If not, proceed at your own risk with PMax. Try Demand Gen first, targeting a high intent in-market audience or perhaps even a remarketing list, rather than PMax, where your poor creative could end up putting your ads in front of the completely wrong audience.

Those are the three steps to determine whether or not you should run PMax. Now, if you are running PMax, here are the 3 most common questions I get asked about your brand, feed only, and Search and PMax together.

And by the way, if you'd like help conceptualizing how to take the information from this episode and personalize it for your Google Ads account, you can book a Google Ads coaching call with me. Learn more at jyll.ca, that's J-Y-L-L dot C-A, or follow the link in the episode description.

1. Should you exclude your brand name from PMax?
It depends. If you're a well-known brand with a lot of brand demand, then yes, I would exclude your brand from PMax and run a separate brand campaign.

But if you're a smaller business, a local business, and there's maybe a hundred brand searches a month or so, or even less than that, I would just keep it all in PMax. There's no point in trying to split that into different campaign types.

2. Should you run a feed only PMax? 

That's where you don't provide any assets, you just give PMax your shopping feed. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I actually don't recommend this. You're better off running a Shopping campaign instead of a feed-only PMax, in my opinion, because that way you're not wasting money on Display. You can opt out of Search Partners. You can target specific audiences. Even with PMax's improved transparency, you still get much more granular control in Shopping.

And then if you want to add some remarketing to your account, fine, launch a display remarketing campaign or better yet, launch a Demand Gen campaign with your product feed and then target that to existing customers or previous website visitors.

3. Should you run Search and PMax together?

My answer on this is in Episode 41 of this podcast, I emphasize that if you are going to run them together, ensure you have sufficient budget to properly fund both and to keep keyword prioritization rules in mind. So check Episode 41 for more about that, the link is in the episode description.

In Episode 74 we revisited Search versus PMax again, and I emphasized the pros and cons of choosing your keywords versus keywordless targeting. I'll also put the link to Episode 74 in the episode description. 

Here's the new information for today. Now that AI Max has rolled out, which brings keywordless targeting to traditional Search campaigns, I see less of a use case to run Search and PMax together. It was a good sales narrative for Google to get everyone to try PMax, saying it's an add-on rather than a substitute. But now I say either go all in on PMax or stick with your separate Search campaigns along with Demand Gen or Video. 

Put another way, if you're running PMax and you see that most of the spend is on Search, I'd probably run AI Max instead. If you're running PMax and you see that most of the spend is on Display, turn that crap off! But if you're running PMax and you see from your channel reporting that most of the spend is on YouTube or Gmail, you'd probably be better off with a Demand Gen campaign instead.

I think of PMax as a way to find new opportunities, to get you out of a rut, to test things you wouldn't have considered testing on your own. It can be great for that, and that's why it's so powerful. And if you're doing that and PMax is achieving your goals and you're happy, then consolidate your account into just PMax. That's what all the big advertisers are doing, by the way, they have a few PMax campaigns and boom, that's their Google Ads strategy now.

If PMax is not achieving your goals, remember it's not actually PMax's fault. It's yours, since PMax is only as good as the budget, assets and data you provide it. But since you're not in a position to get PMax working, go back to the foundations to fix the core problem, whether it's your feed, your assets, your conversion tracking, or even your offer or your landing page. 

To sum up, PMax is the worst thing to ever happen to Google Ads because it's positioned as the all-in-one easy solution when in fact it's extraordinarily complex and difficult to get working well. 

But PMax is also the best thing to ever happen to Google Ads because when you understand that complexity and when you set it up correctly, PMax offers the opportunity to truly get the best possible results at scale by putting the full might of Google's inventory and AI to work for your business.

Today's Insider Challenge is this. In a recent issue of my newsletter, The Insider, I shared the story of one of my Google Ads coaching clients whose PMax campaign looks like it's performing terribly, like a 0.14 ROAS. But in real life, she has seen a huge increase in sales from the products this campaign is advertising. And that increase can't be attributed to anything other than PMax. What would you do in this scenario? Keep investing in PMax or shut it off? 

I'll include the link to that issue in the episode description so you can check out the full story. It's called, Your PMax numbers might not add up. 

The beauty of the Insider Challenge is there's no right or wrong answer, just an opportunity to stretch your brain on real life Google Ads problem solving. 

And if you want to get a real Google Ads case study in your inbox every other week, you can sign up for my free bi-weekly Google Ads newsletter, The Insider.

Last Episode's Challenge, Episode 86, was this. Do you suggest not using Manual bidding at all? Do you have a use case for Manual bidding that I haven't discussed here?  

As I shared, I do not recommend Manual bidding. There's practically no use case for it in 2025. But I'm open to having my mind changed or open to potentially changing your mind. So if you do have a story about where Manual bidding is still the right choice for a Google Ads campaign, please share it with me. I'd love to hear from you. 

I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.