Performance Max.

With classic campaigns, the advertiser decides where to advertise: a Search campaign appears in search, a Display campaign on websites. Performance Max turns this around. You supply so-called asset groups — headlines, descriptions, images, logos, videos — plus audience signals and a conversion goal. Google assembles the ads itself and distributes the budget across the channels that, in its assessment, bring the most conversions.

Its strength lies in reach and computing power: PMax can combine signals across all Google services and so finds users that a single Search campaign would never reach. For online shops with a well-maintained product feed in Google Merchant Center, PMax is therefore often the default. Its weakness is limited transparency. Google has expanded reporting by channel and search term since 2025, but control remains coarser than with a well-structured Search campaign.

What matters is what PMax optimises for. The automation maximises exactly the event defined as a conversion. If the account counts every click on 'Contact' as a success, PMax delivers lots of those clicks — happily also from low-quality Display placements. Without clean conversion tracking, ideally with values or at least a clear separation between real enquiries and secondary actions, Performance Max is more of a risk than a shortcut.

A second point concerns your own brand. PMax also takes searches for the company name, which would have led to a visit anyway, and credits itself with those conversions. If you exclude the brand name and look at brand searches separately, you see more honestly what the campaign adds. For service providers with few enquiries a month, a lean Search campaign is often the better first choice; PMax follows once there is enough data.