Performance Max has been one of the most talked about subjects in the world of Google Ads for the last few years. Whether you’re an amateur doing PPC in-house or a Google Ads agency like us, you would have heard about it and may even be running PMAX campaigns yourself.

In this blog, we’ll explore exactly what Performance Max is and whether PMAX is right for your business.

What is Google Performance Max?

Google Performance Max – often shortened to PMAX – is a type of Google Ad campaign that is all-encompassing. It allows you to reach users who are looking for your products and services beyond just Google search, as your ads can be shown on YouTube, Gmail, Maps and the millions of websites on the Google Display Network, from a singular campaign.

Performance Max launched in late 2021, and then in 2022, it became a complete replacement for Smart Shopping and Local campaigns.

Google’s intentions behind Performance Max are ease of setting up and managing campaigns, as it primarily uses automation and AI to serve your ads. You simply provide the URL for your website, your goals (conversions or website videos), assets including ad copy, images and videos, your budget, and Google does the rest.

Whilst on the face of it, this sounds like a great idea, especially if you’re not quite a PPC professional, but it’s not entirely suitable for all types of businesses.

What is and isn’t Google PMAX suitable for?

Shopping campaigns: Where PMAX excels

Performance Max works particularly well for most eCommerce businesses where you want to advertise everywhere and are more likely to convert passive users (i.e. those who may not be actively looking for your product).

You can connect your Google Merchant Centre product feed, and either run shopping-only ads with no additional assets to make your products the star of the show. Alternatively, you can add additional assets to provide more in-depth information and photography.

Performance Max is ideal for eCommerce as you don’t need quite the granular level of control over keywords and placement that you need for the service industry, along with the fact that it’s great at automatically optimising your campaigns to focus on maximising conversion value.

Lead generation campaigns: You may want to reconsider

Whilst we’d never say that Performance Max can’t work for lead generation, we’ll always approach it with a bit of caution because of its broad reach.

The lack of granular control we have with a Performance Max campaign can make it extremely difficult to manage.

As we are unable to bid on specific search terms, but rather broader search “themes”, it can lead to your website getting a lot of traffic, but from users who are only searching for something somewhat similar to what you offer. You could potentially end up with thousands of “close match” keywords that are wasting your budget.

In addition, unlike with eCommerce where the user journey is fairly linear, a lead generation campaign for your service business is likely to have more conversion types, including phone calls, lead forms and email link clicks. This means you need to be able to optimise the bid strategy and allocate budget depending on what is and isn’t working.

With a search campaign, it’s also a lot easier to diagnose performance issues and make tweaks to improve your campaign.

Is PMAX right for your business?

At the end of the day, the question of whether Performance Max is right for your business doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer as it really depends on your goals.

If you’re looking for online sales or just a high volume of traffic to your website, it may be right for you, but if the service you’re offering needs more user consideration, you may want to go a different route.

At The PPC People, we’re experts at Google Ads and through our years of experience we’re able to help build a Google Ads strategy that works for you. Ready to get started? Book a call today.