The truth about Google Performance Max: The ultimate automation power play , or next gen budget drain?

If you’re new to Google’s Performance Max campaigns (also referred to as PMax), then the first thing you need to know is that they promise to be the holy grail of advertising - we’re talking full-funnel reach, cross-channel domination and machine-learning wizardry that puts your automation skills to shame.

But, is that the reality? 🤔

Is it all gain with no pain? Well, not quite ⚠️

Like all things in marketing, PMax comes with a few caveats and catches (or five). In this article, we break down the good, the bad and the algorithmically ugly - from skyrocketing reach to potential budget leaks and click fraud chaos.

Stick with us, and let’s get into it 👇

So what is PMax, really?

Some say PMax is Google’s answer to campaign automation overload (and they might be right). It runs across every single one of Google’s ad types - Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail etc, all with one campaign. You heard it…one! 😲

Sounds ideal for those busy marketers out there, right?

You hand over your creative assets (images, videos, headlines, copy etc), tell it your goals, and Google does the rest. This includes all bidding, targeting, placements and (in theory) it should optimize for the best results possible.

Sounds good so far. So what’s the catch? 🤔

The good: Why PMax is a marketer’s dream (sometimes)

Let’s give some credit where it’s due, because PMax does come with its tick list of benefits and pros:

• Massive reach: One campaign to rule them all (we’re talking channels, not rings). With huge reach comes some big brand building opportunities which (hopefully), means conversions too ✅
• Hands free automation: Let’s face it, whether you’re a fan of it or not, automation is proven to reduce workload when handled correctly. You can set your goals, throw your assets at it and let Google’s algorithm do its work 🤖
• A great option for new marketers: If you’re sitting there overwhelmed by the sheer volume of advertising opportunities, then PMax could be your hero. With no need to have deep keyword or audience knowledge, Google can get you started in no time and be the (kind of) unpaid marketing team you never knew you needed 🦸
• Built-in bidding: Google has all the knowledge on everything bidding related, thats it's job after all. You can leverage Google’s AI for conversions, ROAS or CPA goals and (kind of) have it your own way 💸
• Creative learning: If you’re not a fan of testing your own combinations to try and find the winning recipe, Google can do this for you, testing placements to find what performs best 🧪

The bad: What Google probably doesn’t want you to ask

The downside? When you go full automation, you give up control.

Here’s some sacrifices you’ll have to accept with PMax:

• Lack of keyword data: If you’re used to deep diving into all things keywords, don’t expect to find them in PMax. You won’t see exact search terms unless you get creative with some custom reporting (which is pretty limited) 🔍
• Placements that feel a little meh: The lack of control means your ads could end up showing on some poor-performing sites or within irrelevant YouTube videos, and you may end up never knowing 🤷
• Minimal targeting controls: You can steer a little with audience signals, but you can’t steer much - Google remains in control of the steering wheel 🛞
• Limited reporting: If knowing which creative asset delivered success is important to your business, maybe sit this one out. Google kind of shrugs when you ask which headline or specific image resonated best and drove the conversion 📉

Ultimately, there’s a black box set up that you’re going to have to accept, and if your campaigns are crushing it then perhaps it's a worthy sacrifice if it leads you to success. But when performance dips? You’re stuck guessing.

The ugly: Click fraud shaped budget holes & PMax gone rogue

Let’s talk about what a lot of advertisers don’t realize about PMax.

• Click fraud & invalid traffic: Because PMax runs on Display, Search & YouTube (which are all pretty notorious for click fraud), bad traffic can sneak in, fast ⛔
  
  Click farms, bots, and even accidental clicks on your paid ads can quickly eat up your budget, all whilst Google happily reports “conversions” as a false positive. Without click fraud detection in place, your ROAS take a hit, and you might not even find out until it's too late.
  
  If you’re not clued up about what click fraud looks like in 2025, you should take a read of our recent article here 👈
• Unoptimized goals: If you end up setting the wrong goal (such as max conversions without a cap), Google will spend aggressively to try and achieve your goal. And don’t forget, aggressively doesn’t always mean intelligently 🧠
  
  PMax is always a hungry machine, and without the right targeting, it may chase poor quality clicks, just to hit its quota.
  

Why it’s popular, even with the noise

Despite the risks, PMax has exploded in popularity, and even though it’s not possible to give a figure on exactly how popular it’s become, with a reported 90% worldwide reach (which equates to approximately 4.77 billion users), even a small piece of the Google Ads pie translates into some potential large scale success 🥧

Here’s why:

• It saves time: What’s not to love about having one set up that works across multiple channels.‍
• Backed by Google’s AI: The more data you feed it, the better things get (in theory). Google’s AI is smart enough to take lessons learned from millions of similar accounts and apply some logic that should improve your placements and performance.‍
• It’s very much “set-and-forget”: Which is great…until it fails. If you’re running in a small or lean team, it could be gold, but at what cost.

Let’s be real, Google pushes PMax hard. If you’re not running PMax, you’ve likely received a nudge email to give it a try at some point 📥

How to make PMax work for you

PMax has some serious firepower, but only if you set it up with the right strategy. For beginners, the key is understanding that you’re handing over control to Google’s automation, so your job is to guide it as clearly as possible 🫵

Here’s our suggestions on how to get started:

Set clear goals (and make sure that Google can track them)

Before you start going crazy with setup, stop for a minute and ask yourself.

What do I want people to actually do?

Buy a product? Book a call in with your sales team? Fill out a form? 🤔

Once you know the desired outcome, you need to make sure that Google knows how to track that action properly. It’s not about page views or button clicks (although they are great), it’s about clean tracking to understand what counts as a conversion, otherwise, your campaign will optimize for the wrong thing.

✅ Our tip: Use real conversion events like purchase confirmations, form submission completions and sign-ups, not soft goals like time on site or page views.

Use audience signals to point Google’s AI in the right direction

You can’t target people directly with PMax, but it does give you hints about who your best customers are (also called audience signals) 🧩

Think of it like being able to say to Google:

Hey, these types of people bought from me previously, maybe start there!

You can build audience signals by using existing customer lists, looking at your website visitors, reviewing people interested in specific topics or market categories or even YouTube viewers or app users.

Google still sits in the driving seat, choosing who sees your ads, but at least you’re giving it a solid head start.

✅ Our tip: Pick audience signals that match your actual buyers, not just broad interest categories like “marketing” or “fitness”.

Feed it more than just text

PMax doesn’t just run Search ads. It runs everywhere across Google’s entire network. That means YouTube, Gmail and Display placements…and these all rely heavily on visuals rather than text.

If you’re only uploading headlines and a few images, Google isn’t going to be able to fully activate your campaign, so you’re limiting your own reach.

Think about adding short videos, product or lifestyle images or even animated graphics or simple slideshows to really elevate your PMax usage 📹

✅ Our tip: If you’ve not got a pro videographer on standby (and let’s face it, how many of us really do), leverage tools like Canva or even Google’s built-in video creation tool to make quick, snappy ad videos.

Check your location settings

By default, Google shows your ads to people who they think are either in your target location or that might be interested in what you’re selling. The latter…it’s risky 🌎

“Interested in” could include anyone and anything from tourists to bots - not necessarily people there to buy.

✅ Our tip: In your Campaign settings, change your location preference to: Presence: People in or regularly in your target locations. Doing this small tweak can easily protect your budget from wasted clicks that will never convert.

Take advantage of customer acquisition rules

If you’re trying to grow your customer base and you’re solely focused on new buyers (not the existing customer bases repeat buyers), Google lets you tell PMax to focus on new customers only 🎯

To do this, you’ll need a list of your existing customers and some robust conversion tracking that can decipher who’s new vs who’s returning.

✅ Our tip: Combine acquisition rules with a strong first purchase offer to boost new customer ROAS.

Keep checking the Insights tab

It might not be perfect, and you definitely won’t get full transparency with PMax anyway, but the Insights tab can still help 👀

You’ll be able to see search themes that are driving conversions, your top audience segments and which creative assets look to be working best.

✅ Our tip: Keep tweaking your headlines, swap out images and refine your audience signals over time, based on the insights you’re tracking in Google as well as the tracking in place with tools like Hitprobe. A side-by-side comparison of performance can really cut through the smoke and mirrors.

Turn off URL expansion

A hidden setting that can quietly destroy your funnel? Final URL expansion.

It allows Google to send users to any page on your site (not just the landing page you chose) based on what it thinks is likely to convert - we’re back in dangerous territory where you’re hoping AI will do its thing correctly ⚠️

Ultimately, that’s risky unless your entire site is fine tuned for conversions. If there’s the chance that it can lead people to weak pages, poor-performing products, or even irrelevant blog posts, then you should carefully consider your options with this one.

✅ Our tip: Go into your campaign settings and disable URL expansion. Lock down your landing pages and stay in control of your user journey.

Protect yourself from fake or invalid clicks

You already know there’s a high chance that your ads could be being exposed to more non-human clicks, bot traffic, and accidental clicks than you’d probably want 🛡️

Sure, Google does try to filter invalid clicks, but it’s far from perfect and their primary focus is getting clicks on your ads to make their revenue. If you’re not monitoring your traffic quality, your budget is going to end up being served to worthless visits that will never convert.

✅ Our tip: Use fraud detection tools like Hitprobe to block fake clicks in real-time, flag invalid traffic, and track the real user behaviour beyond what Google thinks (and then shows you).

Our final verdict: Master the machine, don’t let it blindly run you

Performance Max isn’t magic, but it is Google’s most automated campaign type yet.

Automation without strategy is a fast track to wasted spend.

Sure, PMax can work incredibly well, unlocking placements you’d never touch manually, scaling your reach and yes, it can even surprise you with some unexpected wins across its vast network.

But.

Here’s our verdict. If you don’t feed it clean data, guide it with smart audience signals you know work and keep it on a tight leash (yes, we’re looking at you URL expansion), it’s likely to burn through your budget with very little to show for it.

Use it with intention, set real and realistic goals, track real conversions outside of Google, control the user journey and whilst you’re at it, protect yourself from invalid traffic and maybe, you’ll have some success. (Success not guaranteed).

This isn’t us saying it won’t work for your business, so weigh up the risks vs the potential rewards, stop and think if you really need your ads to feature across the wilder west channels like YouTube and Gmail, and ask yourself if this level of AI automation is really needed - if it is, you need the reach and time is precious, maybe you’ll find some success with the PMax machine.