Google has said that Smart campaigns are being “upgraded” to Performance Max (PMax) campaigns in Google Ads. While I understand Google’s use of the word “upgrade,” this change raises an important question: Are PMax campaigns really suitable for beginners, small business owners, and new accounts? Based on our experiences, we would argue that they’re not.
Performance Max campaigns require a set of specific inputs to succeed. Without these, the campaign is likely to fail or fall flat – especially for those who have little experience with Google Ads. The four key inputs you’d need are:
Realistically, small business owners, Google Ads beginners, and new accounts don’t have these inputs available. In fact, that’s why many of them have opted for Smart campaigns in the first place – they were simple, straightforward, and required very minimal inputs.
PMax on the other hand is a more complex ad set up and it requires a significant amount of fine-tuning to succeed.
Another issue with the PMax set up or general idea of a PMax is that it doesn’t provide the same level of transparency or control as traditional Search campaigns. Smart campaigns were also limited in this same area, however, the users had very little expectation to control things such as targeting, optimization, and more due to the simplistic nature of the ads.
With PMax, you can adjust various settings – but doing so is convoluted and complex. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re likely to feel overwhelmed, which makes it a poor choice for beginners.
For example:
Exclusions: In Performance Max, you can add brand exclusions (to avoid serving ads on your brand or competitors) and brand restrictions (to only serve ads on your brand or competitors). But adding negative keywords? That’s a different story. While it’s possible, you’ll have to ask a Google Rep for help, as you can't do it directly in the interface.
Oh, and if you’re looking to do some research on your search terms report, good luck. You’ll only get a “search themes” report, which is not the same thing.
Targeting: In PMax, you can provide an audience signal—but it’s not the same as audience targeting. Why? Because AI will ultimately decide who sees your ads. While you can provide search themes, it’s not the same as using keywords. Search themes are treated like broad match and phrase match keywords, but they don’t carry the same weight as exact match keywords.
Asset Groups: One of the more confusing aspects of PMax is the concept of asset groups. Unlike ad groups in other Google Ads campaigns, PMax asset groups let you upload multiple assets, including up to:
If you don’t upload a video, Google will create one for you which is silly. This might sound like it’s a great idea, however, you have no control over what the video looks like and thus no control of how the video performs.
Small business owners or those who are new to Google ads are having, or going to have, a hard time getting PMax campaigns to work for them without the inputs Google requires. The complexity of things such as exclusions, targeting, and asset groups make it a bad choice for anyone without advanced Google Ads experience.
The move from Smart campaigns to PMax allows marketers to stay busy as more businesses will need help to navigate the upgrade. So, if you’re just starting out, be aware that PMax is not some sort of plug-and-play solution. It’s powerful, but only in the hands of those who know how to handle its complexity.