Performance Max best practices without losing control

7 min read

Performance Max best practices without losing control

7 min read

Performance Max can find sales across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one campaign. The risk is that it also finds the sales you were going to make anyway: people searching your brand name, who would have clicked your brand ad or your organic listing. The Performance Max best practices that matter most to a marketing director are the ones that stop that from happening.

When brand demand is left in, the campaign reports a strong return that is partly borrowed, and that number often decides where the next quarter's budget goes.

This article covers the controls we use: brand exclusions, negative keywords, feed titles rewritten from search term data, and a Search campaign kept alongside for the terms that need tighter control. It should help you judge whether Performance Max is adding new sales or taking credit for brand demand, and what to change if it is the second.

Why it matters to the business

In most accounts we manage, brand searches are the cheapest conversions available. When Performance Max serves on them, its blended return on ad spend rises, and money moves into a campaign whose headline figure is flattered by sales the business already owned.

The cost is not only wasted spend. It is a misread of which activity creates demand. If Performance Max is credited for brand sales, the case for prospecting, non-brand Shopping or SEO looks weaker than it should, and the plan for next year is built on the wrong evidence.

Run with the right controls, Performance Max does useful work. It reaches shoppers on placements a Search campaign cannot, and its product ads draw on your Google Merchant Center feed to match a large catalogue to searches no keyword list would cover.

How we run it

The order matters. Controls go on before budgets scale, because a campaign that learns on brand traffic first is harder to steer later.

Fix the conversion inputs first. Performance Max optimises towards the conversion goals the campaign uses, so we make sure the primary goal is purchases or qualified leads, with real values, before anything else. Where acquisition matters, we switch on the new customer acquisition goal so the campaign bids more for people who have not bought before.
Exclude the brand. We build a brand list at account level and apply it to Performance Max as a brand exclusion. For Performance Max, exclusions apply to Search, Shopping and YouTube search inventory, and brand lists cover misspellings and variants without each one being typed in. Google also offers an option to let Shopping ads keep appearing on excluded brand searches, which we decide per account based on whether the brand Search campaign can show those shoppers the right products.
Keep a funded brand Search campaign alongside. Google's guidance is that Performance Max may filter out brand queries so a dedicated brand Search campaign handles them, and that the brand campaign needs enough budget and good ads to do so. Google also notes that when a Search campaign is limited by budget, Performance Max may occasionally serve on its exact-match terms. The exclusion and the brand campaign work as a pair.
Add negative keywords where they belong. Performance Max supports campaign-level negative keywords and shared negative keyword lists, alongside account-level negatives. They apply to Search and Shopping inventory only; for Display and Video, Google points to excluded content keywords in the content suitability settings. We use negatives for themes that should never convert, such as jobs, free or products you do not sell, and Google lets you estimate the impact before adding them.
Read the search terms report every week. The search terms and landing pages report for Performance Max shows which searches triggered ads, which landing page served and whether a Shopping or text ad appeared. Search terms insights groups searches into intent categories. Together they show where brand is still leaking through, which themes need a negative, and which converting terms deserve their own exact keyword in Search.
Steer with search themes and asset groups. Search themes tell Performance Max which searches matter, with the same priority as phrase and broad match keywords, and Google allows up to 50 per asset group. We take themes from converting non-brand terms in Search, never from brand terms, and build asset groups around product groups with different margins, so the reporting shows which groups pay their way.
Rewrite feed titles from search term data. The words shoppers use in converting searches go into Merchant Center product titles, most important first. Google allows 150 characters but shoppers typically see the first 70 or so, and its title guidance rules out promotional text, prices and capitals for emphasis. We also use custom labels for margin bands, so product filters can separate high-margin products into their own asset groups.
Keep Search for the terms that need control. Where wording is regulated, where a term needs a specific landing page, or where a few terms carry most of the revenue, we keep them as exact keywords in a Search campaign. A Search keyword that exactly matches the query, or is a spell-corrected match, is preferred over Performance Max. If AI Max is switched on in that Search campaign, its broad keywords lose that priority, so we keep exact copies.
Check where the money goes. The channel performance report breaks results down by Google Search, the Display Network, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail and Search partners. A campaign whose conversions sit almost entirely on Search may be doing a job that a Search campaign could do with more control.

How to measure it

Judge Performance Max on what it adds to the account total, not on its own ROAS. Its reported conversions include sales that other campaigns and organic search might have won, so the useful questions are what changed in total and where the change came from.

Total account revenue and new customers before and after brand exclusions, not only Performance Max conversions. If its conversions fall and total sales hold, the exclusion removed credit, not sales.
Share of Performance Max spend and conversions on brand terms, from the search terms report. With exclusions in place this should be close to nothing on Search inventory.
New customer share of Performance Max conversions, from the customer acquisition reporting.
Channel mix from the channel performance report, checked monthly.
Brand Search impression share and share lost to budget, so the brand campaign is never the reason Performance Max picks up brand traffic.

Testing and reporting upwards

For a firmer answer, split the test by region or time period and compare total sales, an approach we cover under incrementality testing. Where paid and organic search are run together through integrated search, the same test design can also answer whether brand bidding itself is worth the money.

Report total revenue and new customers from paid search, Performance Max's share of each, and the brand share of its spend. That stops one campaign's ROAS being read as proof of growth.

When it does not fit, and the mistakes we see most

Thin conversion data. Performance Max bids on the likelihood of conversion, and an account with few conversions gives it little to learn from. Search with exact keywords is easier to control at low volume.
Lead generation on form fills. Without CRM feedback, Performance Max can fill the pipeline with cheap, low-quality leads.
Copy that needs approval line by line. Where every headline needs legal sign-off, Search gives tighter control over what appears.
Excluding brand while starving brand Search. The two controls only work together.
Feeds left with manufacturer titles. Titles that start with internal codes or model numbers match fewer searches than titles written in the words shoppers use.
Judging Performance Max on its own ROAS. A high figure with brand still included says little about new sales.

Questions to ask your team or agency

Our PPC team runs Performance Max this way as standard, with brand exclusions, negatives and feed work in place before budgets scale. Whoever runs yours, these questions will show whether it is adding new sales.

Are brand exclusions applied to our Performance Max campaigns, and what share of their spend is on brand terms?
What does the channel performance report show, and how much of our Performance Max spend sits on Search?
Which converting terms from Performance Max have we moved into exact match Search?
When were our feed titles last rewritten, and from what data?
How do we know Performance Max is adding sales rather than reclaiming brand demand?

For online retailers, these controls are part of how we run e-commerce PPC across Shopping and Performance Max.

Frequently asked questions

Should you exclude your brand from Performance Max?

In most accounts, yes. Without brand exclusions, Performance Max can serve on searches for your own name and claim sales your brand Search campaign or organic listing would have won. Brand exclusions in Performance Max cover Search, Shopping and YouTube search inventory. Pair them with a brand Search campaign that has enough budget, then compare total account sales before and after.

Performance Max vs Search: which serves when both could show an ad?

Google prefers a Search campaign when it has a keyword that exactly matches the search, or is a spell-corrected match to it. Otherwise, the campaign with the higher Ad Rank serves. If the Search campaign is limited by budget, Performance Max may occasionally serve on its exact-match terms, so the Search campaigns you rely on for control need enough budget.

Can you add negative keywords to Performance Max?

Yes. Performance Max supports campaign-level negative keywords and shared negative keyword lists, and account-level negative keywords apply to it automatically. They only affect Search and Shopping inventory. To keep ads away from unsuitable content on Display and Video, Google points advertisers to excluded content keywords in the content suitability settings instead.