Performance Max campaigns: How they fit into a scalable Shopping automation system

Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that automates where your products appear and how much you bid across Google's entire network, including Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discovery, Gmail, and Maps.

In this chapter, we break down what Performance Max does, how it compares to other Shopping campaigns, and how to run it within a controlled, scalable system.

You'll learn when Performance Max makes sense for your account, how to structure campaigns for control, and what needs to be in place before you turn it on.

Key Takeaways

• Performance Max automates placement and bidding across Google's network like Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discovery, Gmail, and Maps.
• Launch Performance Max only when your feed quality, conversion tracking, and bidding strategies are stable
• Performance Max and Standard Shopping don't compete against each other. Google enters only the campaign with the highest Ad Rank into each auction.
• Separate campaigns by product performance tier to control which products get budget and which ROAS targets they use.

What are Performance Max campaigns?

Performance Max campaigns combine your product data, creative assets, and conversion goals into a single campaign structure that operates across Google's full advertising network. This includes Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Discovery, Gmail, and Maps.

Instead of building separate campaigns for each placement, you provide the raw materials like headlines, descriptions, images, videos, audience signals, and Google's machine learning assembles ads dynamically and decides where to serve them based on predicted conversion likelihood.

*Source: Google

How Performance Max distributes spend across Google inventory

Budget allocation happens automatically based on real-time auction performance across all available placements.

For example, if you launch a Performance Max campaign for your furniture store with a $200 daily budget, Google might allocate:

• 40% to Shopping and Search placements on Monday
• Then shift to 25% YouTube and 35% Display by Thursday as the algorithm identifies which channels drive conversions for specific product categories.

A campaign selling kitchen tables might spend heavily on Search during weekday mornings when people research products, then redirect the budget to YouTube during evenings when engagement peaks.

You can view where spend went using the channel performance report after the fact, but you can’t set budget caps, minimums, or exclusions for individual channels upfront.

*Source: Google

Why Performance Max prioritizes automation over manual control

Google removes manual controls like keyword selection, placement targeting, and bid adjustments because the system processes too many variables for human optimization at scale.

The algorithm evaluates millions of combinations, creative variations, audience segments, placement options, time of day, and device type, and adjusts bids in real-time across all of them simultaneously. You set the strategic inputs (conversion goals, Target ROAS, audience signals) while Google handles tactical execution.

3 Scenarios when Performance Max campaigns make sense in Google Shopping

Performance Max amplifies the quality of your existing search campaign and smart bidding logic. The campaigns work best in specific situations where your foundation is stable, and automation adds value.

1. Your feed quality and structure are already stable

Performance Max relies entirely on product data to determine which placements and audiences to target.

If your feed has missing GTINs, vague product titles like "Running Shoes Men," or incorrect Google Product Categories, the algorithm won't know who to display your products to.

A furniture retailer with clean titles like "Oak Dining Table – 6 Seater – Scandinavian Design" and accurate attributes (material, size, style) will see Performance Max serve ads to high-intent users searching for those specific features.

2. Bidding strategies and conversion tracking are reliable

Performance Max optimizes toward the conversion goals you've configured in Google Ads, so if your tracking is broken or your conversion values are inaccurate, the system learns from bad data.

You need at least 30 conversions in the past 30 days for Target ROAS strategies to function reliably, and conversion values must reflect actual business outcomes.

An outdoor apparel brand using Max Conversion Value should assign higher values to high-margin jackets than low-margin accessories, so the algorithm prioritizes profitable products. If conversion tracking only measures clicks or page views, Performance Max will optimize for traffic volume rather than revenue.

3. Automation is required to manage scale

A retailer with 40,000 SKUs across multiple brands can't feasibly create granular product groups and custom bids for every item in Standard Shopping.

Performance Max handles that scale by automatically allocating budget to products generating conversions and pulling back spend on underperformers. If you're running a small catalog with a few hundred products where you can manually adjust bids and monitor performance daily, Standard Shopping gives you better control without needing automation.

Performance Max campaign limitations you need to be aware of

Performance Max automates placement decisions and budget allocation across Google's network, which means you lose access to data you'd normally see in Standard Shopping campaigns.

Loss of visibility into placement and query-level data

You can now add negative keywords to Performance Max campaigns to block unwanted search queries on Search and Shopping inventory.

Negative keywords work at the campaign level or across your entire account. If you sell premium furniture, you can add terms like "cheap," "free," and "clearance" to prevent your ads from showing for those queries.

The channel performance report shows how much budget went to Search, Display, YouTube, and other channels after your ads run, helping you understand where Google allocated spend.

However, the system determines channel distribution automatically based on predicted ROI, so you can't set minimum or maximum budgets per channel.

Budget concentration on top-performing products

Google's AI adjusts bids dynamically and automatically distributes budget across channels based on where it predicts the highest return.

The system increases bids when a search is more likely to convert, and shifts spend toward placements generating the best results for your ROAS or CPA targets. If certain channels aren't receiving much budget, it's because other channels are providing a higher ROI at that moment.

Performance Max prioritizes overall campaign performance rather than balanced spending across all channels. This means products with conversion history will naturally receive more budget than new or untested inventory.

💡Not sure if Performance Max is right for your account? We break down when it works (and when it doesn't) in our guide to Performance Max pros and cons.

How to use Performance Max alongside other Shopping campaign types

Most eCommerce accounts use Performance Max alongside Standard Shopping and Search campaigns to balance automation with control. Understanding how these campaigns interact in the same account helps you structure them correctly and avoid accidentally limiting Performance Max's reach.

Performance Max doesn't compete with other campaigns to drive bids higher

When you run Performance Max alongside Standard Shopping or Search campaigns, both might be eligible to show ads for the same product or search query.

But Google doesn't enter both campaigns into the auction at once. That would mean you're bidding against yourself and driving up your own costs. Instead, Google selects whichever campaign has the highest Ad Rank and enters only that one into the auction.

For example, if someone searches "men's running shoes" and you have a Standard Shopping campaign targeting that product plus a Performance Max campaign with the same inventory, Google calculates which campaign would perform better for that specific auction.

If your Standard Shopping campaign has a higher Ad Rank, because of bid amount, quality score, or expected click-through rate, that's the campaign that competes against other advertisers. Performance Max sits out, so you pay one bid, not two.

Search campaigns with exact match keywords take priority over Performance Max

When someone searches for a term that exactly matches a keyword in one of your Search campaigns, that Search campaign takes priority over Performance Max.

Google gives preference to Search campaigns with exact or phrase match keywords because those campaigns are specifically built around that query, while Performance Max targets broadly across all placements.

In simple words, here's how it works:

• You're running a Search campaign with the exact match keyword [running shoes]
• You're also running a Performance Max campaign that includes running shoes in your product feed
• Someone searches "running shoes"
• Google serves your Search campaign ad, not Performance Max​

This happens even if Performance Max has a higher Ad Rank or better expected performance.

Search campaigns with matching keywords always get first priority because you've explicitly chosen to target that query. Performance Max only enters the auction if you don't have a Search campaign with a keyword that matches the search term.

Performance Max and Standard Shopping interact based on Ad Rank

Performance Max and Standard Shopping follow normal auction rules. Google calculates the Ad Rank for both campaign types and serves whichever one scores higher.

Ad Rank depends on your bid amount, expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.

If your Standard Shopping campaign has a $2 bid with strong historical performance for a specific product, but your Performance Max campaign has a $1.50 bid with weaker signals, Standard Shopping wins that auction.

Neither campaign type gets automatic preference. You can run both in the same account without manually excluding products from one or the other, and Google will dynamically choose which campaign serves based on which is most likely to perform well for that specific auction.

Make Performance Max work on your terms with Channable

Performance Max amplifies whatever you feed into it, which means your product feed quality directly determines campaign results. Channable helps you structure, enrich, and segment your product data before it reaches Google.

With Channable, you can create custom labels that separate high performers from new arrivals, apply rules to fix missing GTINs or incomplete titles, and automatically update product data as your catalog changes. When your feed is structured correctly, Performance Max spends budget on products with conversion potential rather than spreading thin across your entire catalog.

Channable's PPC tool connects your Google Ads performance data with product-level insights, so you can see which items drive results and adjust your feed structure without manually exporting reports. For Google Ads specifically, Channable automates campaign creation, bid management, and product segmentation directly from your feed.

Up next: Performance Max product bucketing: How to segment products for control and scale

Performance Max campaigns perform best when products are grouped by performance tier, margin, or business priority rather than lumped into a single campaign. In the next chapter, we look at how to bucket your catalog so high performers receive aggressive budgets strategically, new products get testing space, and low-margin items don't drain spend from your bestsellers.