Performance Max is one of Google’s most controversial advertising features. On one hand, Google claims that:

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“Advertisers who use Performance Max experience an average of 18% more conversions at a similar cost per action.”

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…and touts benefits for using “P-Max” as:

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• Find more converting customers with just a single, consolidated campaign;
• Get the best results with less work; and

• Enjoy the benefits of AI to show the most compelling ads to customers;

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Sounds great, right? But not every brand owner seems to be in agreement. Then again we recently helped a luxury streetwear designer grow by 250% year-on-year and P-Max campaigns played a big part in that.

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So who do you believe? Is P-Max a scam? Or is it a hidden gem that can help you take your brand’s growth to new heights? Well, here’s what the Public Nectar team and I think:

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Performance Max campaigns can be an incredible tool to help you drive sales – but they suffer from one key problem. To understand the nature of that problem, let’s first cover how P-Max campaigns work.

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P-Max campaigns allows advertisers to access all of their Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. In doing so, Google claims that it becomes easier to “help you find more converting customers across all of Google’s channels like YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps.”

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In short: P-Max campaigns are designed to help you achieve the lowest Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) as possible across the board. That’s great in theory. But in practice?

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It can often result in Google chasing after the lowest hanging fruit to achieve that goal i.e. your warm traffic.

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As a result, many advertisers find that their P-Max campaigns start to cannibalise their brand traffic, directing a disproportionate amount of their budget towards converting existing warm traffic, rather than putting that budget into acquiring new customers.

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That’s a problem, because any business also needs to acquire new customers if it wants to break past growth plateaus – not just convert existing ones. But does that mean that you should abandon P-Max campaigns entirely?

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We don’t think so. You just need to know how to use them. Often, that can be as simple as putting parameters in place that guide P-Max campaigns towards the goals you want them to.

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The way we did that for the client I mentioned above was by using P-Max for feed-only asset groups, rather than including those P-Max campaigns in Search and Display assets too.

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And what was the final result of leveraging P-Max campaigns for our client? In 2023, the client generated £312,000 in revenue by themselves. but just months into 2024 with Public Nectar’s help, they'd already hit nearly £1.1 million. And still growing!

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At the end of the day, P-Max campaigns can be summed up in one sentence: P-Max campaigns are designed to find you the shortest path to purchase possible. Nothing more, nothing less.

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And unless you set strict parameters that give you greater control over how your P-Max campaigns perform, it will usually achieve that through the brand traffic you’ve already generated which is warm by nature. 

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So is P-Max a scam? We don’t think so. It’s just like any tool – you just need to know how to use it.