Performance Max Campaign Improvements

I just completed my second audit for God Tier Ads clients. These accounts are managed in-house, spending €50,000+ monthly. It's interesting seeing in-house management at this level since I typically only see such accounts when budgets are much higher. Here are 4 critical issues I found with these PMax-focused accounts: 💰 1) Unnecessarily Limited by Budget Both accounts had campaigns hitting above ROAS targets but were unnecessarily limited by budget. While PMax can sometimes overspend, these teams were being overly cautious rather than strategically managing budgets. Pro Tip: Schedule weekly budget and target reviews. This doesn't mean changing them weekly, but evaluating performance regularly so you can make informed adjustments. 🔄 2) Products Eligible Across Multiple Campaigns The same products were eligible to appear in both PMax and Standard Shopping campaigns (largely due to budget limitations). Since these campaign types don't share data, this splits your performance metrics and reduces Smart Bidding efficiency. 🏷️ 3) Brand Terms Not Excluded from PMax Brand terms weren't excluded in either account. About 80% of spend in these smaller campaigns went to branded search at inflated CPCs. The campaigns looked profitable on the surface, but the Channel Report revealed they were simply capturing brand searches inefficiently. Pro Tip: When you reach $20k/month in ad spend, always split out your brand terms. I personally do this from day one, but it becomes absolutely essential at higher budgets. 🧩 4) Lack of strategy Neither account had a coherent campaign organization strategy. One attempted category-based splits while another tried margin-level segmentation, but both lacked consistency. Products appeared in multiple campaigns, and categorization was inconsistent. It’s the classic pasta on the wall Google Ads strategy: Throw all your products into Google Ads, give it a target and hope you get what you need. — The underlying issue? Nobody was looking deeply enough. These weren't sophisticated observations - I spotted brand terms in PMax because I actually took the time to look at the data.

Google Performance Max Just Got a Major Upgrade for Advertisers If you have been frustrated by limited visibility and control in Performance Max, this one is for you. Google just rolled out a series of updates that give advertisers more levers to pull without the guesswork. Here is what matters for brands running serious ad budgets: 1. More Audience and Placement Control - Campaign-level negative keyword lists → Exclude unwanted searches (e.g., “cheap,” “bargain”) across multiple campaigns at once. - Increased Search Theme limits → From 25 to 50 per asset group for expanded reach. - More demographic targeting → Device, age, and (beta) gender targeting for precise audience segmentation. 2. Better New Customer Acquisition Reporting - Clearer breakdown of new vs. returning customers with no more “Unknown” labels. - Improved bidding accuracy for high-value new customer growth. - New diagnostics to fix broken tags, goals, or conversion actions quickly. 3. Creative Visibility and Actionable Insights - Reporting on final URL expansion assets so you can see them, measure them, and remove them if needed. - AI-powered creative recommendations to improve image quality instantly with Google’s built-in editor. For brands spending millions in Google Ads, these changes mean you can: A. Protect your brand from irrelevant traffic B. Target exactly who you want, on the right devices C. Confidently measure new customer growth D. Act faster on creative and performance insights If you are already running Performance Max, these updates are not optional. They are a competitive advantage.

Is your PMAX campaign a black box of wasted spend? Here's how to take back control and start seeing real results. The days of "set it and forget it" with Performance Max are over. Most advertisers blindly follow Google's advice with PMAX, throwing in all products with zero strategy. Your initial focus should be consolidation—creating one tightly structured campaign that generates enough data for machine learning to work. The true optimization magic happens when you transform that initial campaign into a "best sellers" powerhouse, strategically carving out underperforming products. This campaign sculpting approach has consistently outperformed the standard Google playbook by 20-40% in my client accounts. Look at what Mike Rhodes' PMAX script reveals about your placements - if display and video are eating your budget with poor returns, it's time to reassess. The insights tab contains gold that most advertisers never mine. Use search term insights to understand which categories convert best, then build targeted search campaigns around them. Don't neglect your low-performing assets - replace anything tagged "low" with fresh creative regularly. Your product feed quality will make or break your shopping performance (the most valuable PMAX placement). Make sure your location targeting is set to "presence" only - not "presence or interest" which can waste budget. Turn off "optimize asset performance" if you don't want Google creating potentially problematic ad copy. Add brand exclusions to prevent your own brand terms from inflating performance metrics. The real magic happens when you sculpt your consolidated campaign by moving underperforming product categories to standard shopping. This laser-focuses your PMAX campaign on your best sellers while giving other products their own optimization paths. Comment 'OPTIMIZE' below to get my detailed Performance Max Optimization Checklist with a step-by-step guide to campaign sculpting. (Note: Please send a connection request first so I can share the checklist with you directly - otherwise it may take longer for me to reach you) #GoogleAds #eCommerce #PPC #SEA #SEM #PMAX #PerformanceMax

Yesterday, Mike Ryan and Smarter Ecommerce (smec) shared a much needed update to their PMax data studies. There were some surprises as well as expected outcomes. Many of the findings corroborate Optmyzr data from last year as well as our initial data pulls that will be released this summer. You should absolutely read the entire report (in the comments) and take on board the brilliant perspectives including Caterina Mariani, Greg Finn, Kirk Williams, and many more! Here are my top takeaways from the data and analysis: 1. Stop trying to make PMax handle everything in one campaign. The data is clear - there is a correlation between performance gains and segmenting PMax campaigns into at least 3-7 per account seems to have real benefits. Optmyzr data backs this up - we found there was at least a 36% improvement in ROAS when adopting the multiple campaign/single asset group structure. 2. Humans love conversions. Google needs conversion values. This was a surprise finding given that SMEC is focused on ecommerce: Max Conversions saw an increase in adoption. Despite worse performance on everything but conversion volume and CPC, advertisers willingly chose to take on significantly lower value customers. My best guess is that advertisers are feeling nervous about the economy and they'd rather get as many customers as possible included in their marketing systems while interest is still there. 3. PMax actually does a good job (not a surprise, but it's nice to have more data backing this up). PMax consistently meets or beats targets (with a few outliers). This is useful to see across the three years because it's easy to hate on the campaign type. It's also important to note that the sample size is in the extremely capable hands of SMEC (so just like I have to preface Optmyzr customers are smart so might see better results, this might be a unicorn group). I appreciated Mike repulling he conversion volume threshold data and it's interesting to see that ecommerce can get away with 30 conversions now (we're still seeing the need for 50-60+ in a 30 day period). Bonus takeaway from Ginny Marvin post the report coming out: Pmax and Standard shopping DO NOT escalate each other's bids. We're still waiting to hear the mechanics on that, but it's useful to have an official Google answer there. What are some of your favorite takeaways from this report? Have you warmed up to PMax?

The 3 most overlooked PMAX campaign optimization strategies (...that WILL improve performance) Struggling to get consistent performance from your PMAX campaigns? You're not alone. As Google slowly reveals PMAX data, it's easy to get lost in possible ways to optimize. I've been there too. But hidden in your PMAX campaigns are 3 powerful yet overlooked places that offer BIG optimization opportunities: ✔️ Review Asset Group Performance - Use the Mike Rhodes PMAX script (I linked it in the comments) to analyze Google ads channel metrics. See which channel drives the most conversions and revenue. Then make tweaks to see ads in top-performing ad placements e.i. Search, Shopping, Display, & YouTube. ✔️ Utilize the Insights Tab for Search Terms Insights - Check the Insights tab for search terms and keywords people are using to find your products/service. Look for top converters and add these keywords into new custom intent audiences & search themes. This allows you to target more quality users. ✔️ Use the Insights Tab for Audience Insights - The Insights tab also shows you NEW audiences interacting with your ads. Spot potential custom affinity and in-market audiences here by paying attention to the categories people fall into. Expand your reach by including these new discovered audiences. Optimizing these 3 overlooked areas takes some manual effort but pays off tremendously. You can uncover optimization gems that remain untouched by most advertisers. Implement these 3 optimizations monthly, and you will notice positive trends in your campaigns. Give it a shot and let me know your results! Here's a visual of exactly how I leverage the Insights Tab in my client accounts:

It's OK to Be Negative... in Performance Max! 🚨 5 tips for negative keywords to stop wasting Google Ads budget. Google Ads listened! The 100 negative keyword limit in PMax campaigns was hindering performance. Now expanded to 10,000 negatives per campaign, matching Search capabilities. This update transforms how you can control your PMax campaigns. 🔴 5 Proven Tips (I use these and actually work): 1️⃣ Use Account-Level Negatives - Apply consistent exclusions across all campaigns for brand protection and budget efficiency. 2️⃣ Build Negatives Proactively - Don't wait for wasted spend. Brainstorm terms you don’t want to trigger your ads before launching a campaign. 3️⃣ Go Beyond Exact Match Negatives - Instead of blocking one term at a time, use broad match negatives to exclude multiple variations at once. 4️⃣ Audit Search Terms Regularly - Monitor queries that are triggering your ads and update your negatives frequently to eliminate wasted spend. 5️⃣ Be Strategic - Negative keywords should refine, not restrict your reach. Only block terms that hurt performance. This update is rolling out over the next couple of weeks. If you run PMax campaigns, now is the time to review your negatives and make sure they’re working for you. ❓ What’s your tip for managing negative keywords?