Performance Max: what PMax campaigns are, how they work and when to use them

Performance Max campaigns are the Google Ads campaign type in which Google’s artificial intelligence places ads across every available channel (Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Discover and Maps), starting from a conversion goal. In this guide we look at what they are, how they work, when they’re worth using and how to measure their results. If instead you’re looking for someone to set them up and manage them for you, you’ll find our approach on the page dedicated to Performance Max campaign management.

If you manage an advertising budget on Google, you’ll certainly have heard about Performance Max campaigns over the past few years. Perhaps you’ve already used them, perhaps you’re considering them, perhaps you’ve read that Google is making them ever more central to its advertising ecosystem. Either way, understanding what they are and how they work is no longer optional: Performance Max campaigns have become the format around which much of Google Ads strategy revolves, part of what Google itself calls the “Power Pack”, together with AI Max and Demand Gen.

What Performance Max campaigns are

Performance Max campaigns, often shortened to PMax, are a Google Ads campaign type that gives you access to all of Google’s advertising inventory from a single interface. With just one campaign, your ads can appear on the Search Network, the Display Network, YouTube, Gmail, Discover and Google Maps.

The underlying logic is goal-driven automation: you tell Google’s AI what you want to achieve (more sales, more leads, more store visits) and it decides by itself where, when and to whom to show the ads, optimising in real time across all available channels. You don’t choose keywords as in Search campaigns, and you don’t select placements as in Display campaigns. You supply the creative tools, set the goal and let the algorithm find the most effective combination.

Performance Max campaigns launched as a global format in 2021 and have since gradually replaced Smart Shopping campaigns and Local campaigns. For an e-commerce business, this means products enter the campaign through the Google Merchant Center feed, which needs attention even before the assets do. In 2024 and 2025 Google introduced significant updates that made them far more transparent and controllable than the early versions, in response to feedback from advertisers asking for more visibility into how their budget was being spent. Today they’re the format recommended by Google for anyone with clear conversion goals who wants to maximise results across all channels with a single budget.

How Performance Max campaigns work

Assets: the heart of every campaign

The engine of Performance Max campaigns is the assets, meaning all the creative material we supply to the campaign: headlines, descriptions, images, videos, logos and the business name. Google combines them dynamically to generate responsive ads for every channel and every available format, constantly looking for the combination most likely to lead to a conversion.

The variety and quality of the assets are the factor that most influences results. The more high-quality assets we supply, the more combinations the algorithm can test and the faster it finds the winning ones. A thin set of assets, with generic copy or poor-quality images, severely limits performance even with a large budget.

One of the most interesting new features introduced in 2025 is brand-consistent AI creative tools: you can now upload your logo, fonts and colour palette in the brand guidelines, and Google can generate image variants that respect the company’s visual identity. This reduces the risk of the campaign producing creative that’s off-tone or out of step with the brand’s positioning.

Audience signals

Audience signals are hints we give the AI to help it understand who our best customers are. We can provide interests, demographic data, remarketing lists and Customer Match data.

It’s important to clear up a point that often causes confusion: audience signals in Performance Max campaigns aren’t rigid targeting as in traditional campaigns. We’re not telling the AI “show the ads only to these people”. We’re saying “these are the people who have historically converted best for us, take note and start from here”. The algorithm can, and will, go beyond these signals if it finds conversion opportunities elsewhere.

Providing accurate audience signals, especially in the early stages, speeds up the campaign’s learning and reduces wasted budget. A campaign without signals starts completely blind and takes much longer to find its rhythm.

The learning phase

Every Performance Max campaign goes through an initial learning phase, during which the AI gathers data and calibrates its optimisations. It usually lasts between one and two weeks, but in some cases it can take up to six weeks, especially with low budgets or rare conversion goals.

During this phase it’s normal to see fluctuations in performance and variations in spend. The most important rule is not to make significant changes to the budget, bidding strategy or targeting while the campaign is still learning. Every major change restarts the learning process, undoing the work the algorithm has already done and lengthening the time before you see stable results.

Smart Bidding and conversion goals

Performance Max campaigns rely on Google’s automated bidding strategies, known as Smart Bidding. There are three options: Maximise conversions, Target CPA (target cost per acquisition) and Target ROAS (target return on ad spend).

The choice of strategy depends on the goal and the campaign’s history. Maximise conversions is the right choice for those starting from scratch who want to gather data. Target CPA and Target ROAS are used when you already have enough conversion history and want to optimise towards a specific financial result.

The absolute prerequisite for any Performance Max campaign is correctly configured conversion tracking, ideally through Google Tag Manager integrated with GA4. Without reliable conversion data, the AI has nothing to work from and the campaign can’t optimise effectively.

Features recently added to Performance Max campaigns

2025 brought important updates that made Performance Max campaigns much easier to manage than before. They’re worth knowing about, because they significantly change the way you work with this format.

Campaign-level negative keywords were the feature advertisers asked for most, and this year they’ve become available to everyone. They let you exclude irrelevant queries directly within the campaign, without having to manage lists at account level. This reduces waste and gives much more control over where ads appear.

Channel reporting is another key addition. At last you can see how the campaign performs on each channel: how many conversions YouTube generates compared with Search, how much budget Display absorbs. Without this information it was impossible to tell whether the budget was being allocated sensibly. Now you can.

Brand exclusions let you stop ads from being shown on unwanted branded searches, with the option of managing exclusions separately for Search text ads and Shopping ads. Very useful for anyone managing both their own brands and brands they resell.

High-value new customer acquisition mode is now available to all advertisers. With this feature, the AI uses Customer Match data to identify the new users most likely to become high-value customers in the long term, and optimises bids accordingly. The campaign-level report also shows how many new high-value customers have been acquired.

Finally, the brand guidelines introduced in spring 2025 let you set the name, logos and visual identity at campaign level, ensuring consistency across all the ads the AI generates automatically.

When Performance Max campaigns are worth using (and when they aren’t)

Performance Max campaigns aren’t the right choice in every situation. Understanding when to use them, and when a different approach makes more sense, is essential if you don’t want to waste budget.

They’re worth using when you have clear, measurable conversion goals, such as sales, leads or store visits. When you have a set of high-quality creative assets across copy, images and video. When conversion tracking is already in place and reliable. When you want to maximise reach across all Google channels with a single budget. When you already have historical data the AI can draw on to speed up learning.

It’s better to wait or proceed with caution when you’re just starting out and don’t have conversion data yet: in that case it’s better to start with Search or Display campaigns to gather data, then move on to Performance Max campaigns with a solid foundation. When you need very granular control over where ads are placed. When the daily budget is too low for the AI to gather enough data in a reasonable time. When you don’t have good-quality creative assets: in that case automation amplifies the problem instead of solving it.

The most common mistakes in Performance Max campaigns

In the years we’ve been running Performance Max campaigns for our clients, we’ve seen the same mistakes come up again and again. We’re sharing them because avoiding them from the outset makes a huge difference to results.

The first and most serious is missing or incorrectly configured conversion tracking. Without reliable conversion data, the AI can’t optimise: it’s the first thing to check before anything else. It isn’t enough to have Google Ads linked to the website: conversion actions must be correctly defined, verified and tested.

The second mistake is supplying low-quality assets or too few of them. Generic copy, blurry or irrelevant images, no video: automation doesn’t make up for weak creative, it amplifies it. The more high-quality assets we supply, the better the combinations the algorithm can test.

The third mistake is changing the campaign too often, especially in the early stages. Every significant change to budget, bidding strategy or targeting restarts learning. Patience in the first few weeks is an investment, not a waste of time.

The fourth is not providing audience signals when the campaign launches. Without initial signals the AI starts blind and takes much longer to find the most profitable segments.

The fifth, made visible by the 2025 updates, is not monitoring the channel report. It’s common to find campaigns where 70–80% of the budget ends up on an underperforming channel without anyone noticing. The channel report is the tool that prevents this.

How to measure the results of Performance Max campaigns

Performance Max campaigns come with specific reports that, if read correctly, give a very clear picture of where the budget and conversions are going.

The main metrics to monitor are conversions and conversion value, which measure the overall effectiveness of the campaign; conversion rate (CVR), which shows the quality of the traffic generated; ROAS, which measures the financial return relative to ad spend; and CPA, which tells you the average cost of each conversion.

The channel report, introduced in 2025, is the one we use to understand where the budget works best. If we notice that most conversions come from Search and Display, but YouTube is absorbing 40% of spend without generating results, that’s a sign something isn’t working with the video assets.

The asset report shows which creative engages users most and which performs poorly. It’s the tool we use to decide which assets to replace and in which direction to take new creative.

Finally, integration with GA4 is essential for a complete view of the user journey before conversion. Performance Max campaigns work across several channels and often contribute to conversion at different stages of the funnel: without GA4 you risk underestimating their real contribution.

Our view

Performance Max campaigns aren’t a shortcut. They’re a powerful tool that works if you know how to set it up, feed it and monitor it. Those who set them up badly, without correct tracking, without good assets and without audience signals, get mediocre results and often conclude that the tool doesn’t work. Those who set them up well see results that traditional campaigns on their own would struggle to deliver.

Google’s AI does the heavy lifting, but it needs guidance. Clear goals, high-quality assets, reliable data and the patience to get through the learning phase without constantly interrupting the process: these are the ingredients that make the difference.

If you want to know whether Performance Max campaigns are the right choice for your business and how to set them up effectively for your specific situation, find out how we work on Performance Max campaigns and on Google Ads more generally, or book a call. We’ll tell you exactly what to do, without beating about the bush.

FAQ: the most common questions about Performance Max campaigns

What’s the difference between Performance Max campaigns and traditional Search campaigns? With a Search campaign you choose the keywords you want to appear for and manage targeting in a granular way. Performance Max campaigns leave it to the AI to decide where and when to show ads across all Google channels, with the aim of maximising conversions automatically. The two types complement each other: Search to capture very specific search intent, PMax to broaden reach and find new opportunities.

How much budget do you need to launch a Performance Max campaign? There’s no technical minimum, but to let the AI gather enough data and optimise effectively we recommend at least €30–50 a day. With lower budgets the learning phase takes considerably longer and results are slow to arrive.

Can I control which channels my ads are shown on? Not directly: Performance Max campaigns manage distribution automatically. Since 2025, however, the channel report lets you see where the budget goes and where conversions are generated, giving you the information you need to optimise assets in a targeted way.

How long does the learning phase of Performance Max campaigns last? Usually between one and two weeks, but in some cases it can take up to six weeks. During this period it’s essential not to make significant changes to the campaign: every major change restarts the learning process.

Will Performance Max campaigns replace all other Google Ads campaigns? Not entirely. Search campaigns remain essential for reaching users with very specific search intent. Performance Max campaigns are designed to sit alongside them and broaden reach, not to replace them altogether. In most cases the most effective strategy is to use them together, so that each complements the other.