Performance Max: how Google’s PMax campaigns work and how to run them

Last checked against Google’s documentation on 29 September 2026.

What is Performance Max?

Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that runs one budget and one bid strategy across all of Google’s ad inventory. Google’s About Performance Max campaigns page describes it as a goal-based campaign that reaches YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps from a single campaign. You give it a conversion goal, a budget, creative assets and some hints about your customers. Google’s AI decides where to show ads, which assets to combine, and how much to bid.

A Google PMax campaign works best when conversion tracking is reliable and the goal is a clear outcome such as sales or leads. It gives you less direct control than a Search campaign, but far more than it did at launch: negative keywords, search terms, channel reporting, brand exclusions and device and age targeting are all available now. This guide covers what PMax is for, how to set it up, how to read its reports, and a routine for improving it.

Where Performance Max ads show: placements and channels

One Performance Max campaign can serve on:

• Google Search and Search partners, as text ads and, with a product feed, Shopping ads.
• YouTube.
• The Google Display Network: sites and apps.
• Discover, Gmail and Maps.

Google also lists Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns as eligible for ads in AI Overviews, with no opt-out. You don’t choose channels. Performance Max shifts spend toward whichever channel it predicts will deliver the goal at that moment. Where it actually spent is shown in the channel performance report, covered below, and in detail in our guide to the PMax channel performance report.

When to use a PMax campaign vs Search or Shopping

Google recommends Performance Max when you have specific conversion goals, want to reach customers across every channel from one campaign, and want to find conversions beyond what your keywords cover. It is not a replacement for Search. Google’s page on how Performance Max interacts with other campaigns says a Search campaign keyword that exactly matches the search, or is spell-corrected to it, is preferred over Performance Max. Otherwise, the campaign with the higher Ad Rank serves.

Performance Max learns from conversions. If the account records only a handful a month, or counts actions that aren’t real outcomes, the campaign will optimize toward whatever it is told. Check your conversion counting before launching it.

How to set up a Performance Max campaign

Google’s Create a Performance Max campaign page lists the prerequisites: working conversion tracking, remarketing lists with more than 100 active users in the last 30 days if you plan to use them, and a varied set of text, image and video assets. The parts that matter most:

Asset groups

An asset group is a set of headlines, descriptions, images, logos and videos around one theme, with its own final URL, audience signal and search themes. Google’s optimization tips recommend at least 20 text assets (15 headlines and 5 descriptions), at least 7 images (3 landscape, 3 square, 1 portrait) and at least one video. If you don’t upload a video, Google can generate one, and Google notes that uploading your own helps you avoid that. Split asset groups by product line, service or audience, so each one has assets and a landing page that match.

Audience signals

Google’s audience signals page is explicit that signals are hints, not targeting: Performance Max may show ads to people outside them if they are likely to convert. Your own data (customer lists, website visitors) is the strongest signal, then custom segments built from searches or URLs your customers use. Add them under Audiences in each asset group.

Search themes

Search themes tell Performance Max which searches matter to you. You can add up to 50 per asset group, each up to 80 characters. Google says they have the same priority as phrase and broad match keywords in Search campaigns. They add reach; they don’t restrict it. Use them for searches you know convert that Performance Max isn’t finding, not as a copy of your Search keyword list.

Final URL expansion

Final URL expansion is on by default. It lets Google send a click to a more relevant page on your site than the final URL you set, and write a headline to match. Keep it if most of your site is pages you’d want people to land on. If not, add URL exclusions for pages like careers, support or blog posts. Google notes that URL exclusions only work while final URL expansion is on, and that the campaign’s own final URL can’t be excluded.

Brand exclusions

If you run a brand Search campaign, add a brand exclusion to Performance Max under Settings > Additional settings > Brand exclusions. Whether you should, and how to measure the overlap first, is in Performance Max cannibalizing brand search.

Performance Max examples: three common structures

These are illustrations of how accounts commonly organise PMax ads, not templates Google prescribes. Adjust them to your own conversion volume.

• An online store with a product feed. One Performance Max campaign linked to Merchant Center, with asset groups split by product category. Each asset group has category-specific images, headlines and search themes, and a listing group limited to that category. Brand searches go to a separate Search campaign.
• A lead-gen account. A Search campaign for known high-intent keywords, plus one Performance Max campaign optimising for a qualified-lead conversion (ideally imported from a CRM), with one asset group per service and customer lists as audience signals.
• A small account. One Performance Max campaign with one or two asset groups. Splitting a small budget into several campaigns leaves each with too few conversions to learn from.

Bidding and budgets for Performance Max

Performance Max uses Smart Bidding only: Maximize conversions, with an optional target CPA, or Maximize conversion value, with an optional target ROAS. Pick value-based bidding only if conversion values reflect what each conversion is actually worth to the business. The general rules for choosing and setting targets are in our Smart Bidding guide.

• Start without a target, or with a realistic one. A target far tighter than recent results restricts serving. Since 17 August 2026, budget-limited Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns, including Performance Max, aim at the target you set rather than beating it; see the August 2026 Target CPA and ROAS change.
• Budget for learning. Google’s tips say to run a new campaign for at least six weeks and avoid frequent budget, bid strategy or status changes, and to allow one to two weeks (or one full conversion cycle) after a significant change.
• Use campaign total budgets for fixed promotions. Google’s bidding and budgeting post says campaign total budgets were launched for all Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, letting a budget run for a set number of days.

Performance Max reporting: what you can see now

Search terms

The Performance Max search terms report shows the searches your ads served on, with landing pages and ad formats. Go to Campaigns > Insights and reports > Search terms and switch the view to Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max. This is where negative keywords come from; the method is in Performance Max negative keywords.

Channel performance report

Under Campaigns > Insights and reports > Channel performance, the channel performance report splits impressions, clicks, conversions, value and cost by Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps and Search partners, with a status column that flags channels limited by missing assets or other issues.

Asset and asset group reporting

Asset reporting lists each asset with its performance, and Google’s 2025 highlights say asset-level impressions, clicks and cost are now shown alongside conversions. At Campaigns > Asset groups, switch to the table view to compare asset groups, and open the Combinations report to see which assets serve together.

Placements

Performance Max placements (sites, apps and videos) are in the placement report: go to Campaigns > Insights and reports > Report editor and open Performance Max campaigns placement. It shows impressions, not conversions, and Google says to use it for brand safety. Exclude unwanted placements at the account level.

Controls added in 2025 and 2026

If you set up Performance Max a while ago, these controls may be new to you:

• Negative keywords. Up to 10,000 per campaign, applying to Search and Shopping inventory, per Google’s Performance Max update.
• Announced 7 August 2025, launched. Google’s visibility and control update added campaign-level negative keyword lists, 50 search themes per asset group (up from 25), search terms reporting for all campaigns, device targeting and age targeting (gender targeting in beta), and reporting for final URL expansion assets.
• Announced for 2026, no date given. Google’s 2026 steering and reporting article lists first-party audience exclusions (excluding your own customer lists), a budget report that projects end-of-month spend, and fuller audience reporting as coming in 2026, and network segmentation in the placement report as rolling out. Check your account before relying on them.
• Announced 30 April 2026, rolling out. Google’s AI Max anniversary post says AI Brief, which lets you write guidelines for messaging, matching and audiences, is rolling out for AI Max for Search first, with Performance Max to follow.

Common Performance Max mistakes

• Optimizing for the wrong conversion. If page views or micro-actions are primary goals, Performance Max will find cheap versions of them.
• Letting PMax live on brand searches. Brand conversions make the campaign look better than its prospecting work.
• One asset group for everything. Mixed products or services behind one landing page and one set of assets weaken relevance on every channel.
• No video. Without your own video, Google may generate one for YouTube.
• Judging too early or changing too often. Frequent edits to budget, target or status during learning make results hard to read.
• Treating audience signals as targeting. They are hints. To keep ads away from existing customers, use exclusions where available, not signals.
• Ignoring the channel split. A campaign on target overall can still spend heavily on a channel that returns little.

To check for these one by one, use our Performance Max audit: ten checks in order, from conversion goals to placements.

Performance Max best practices: a weekly routine

1. Check the goal. Compare actual CPA or ROAS with the target over the last 14–30 days, and check conversion tracking recorded normally.
2. Read the search terms. Sort by cost, look for spend with no conversions and for brand searches, and add negatives or a brand exclusion.
3. Read the channel split. Compare each channel’s share of cost with its share of conversion value, and look at the status column.
4. Check landing pages. In the search terms report, look at which pages final URL expansion chose and exclude any that shouldn’t get paid traffic.
5. Review assets. Replace the weakest assets in each asset group, and keep ad strength at Good or Excellent.
6. Check placements monthly. Exclude sites or apps that are wrong for your brand.
7. Change one thing at a time, note the date, and compare after one to two weeks.

Boxoo’s performance and structure agent runs most of this routine on your account every day: how Performance Max overlaps with Search, where spend goes by channel, and settings that changed. The search terms and keywords agent reads Performance Max search terms. Each finding is filed as a case with the numbers behind it. Where the fix is something Boxoo can apply, such as a negative keyword, a budget change or a new Target CPA or ROAS, it is prepared for you to apply, usually with an undo. Changes Boxoo doesn’t apply, like adding a brand exclusion or uploading a video, come as exact steps.

Run a free Google Ads audit to see the first cases on your own Performance Max campaigns.