Anthony McGrath

Home › Services › Performance Max management

Performance Max

Performance Max that finds new customers

Performance Max can drive real growth, or quietly spend your budget on people who were going to buy anyway. It is set up with brand exclusions, strong asset groups, clean product feeds and profit-based targets, so it earns its share.

Get your PMax reviewedWhat's included
  • 22 years in digital marketing
  • Hands-on: you work with me, not a junior
  • UK, US, Dubai and Australia

By Anthony McGrath · Updated

What does Performance Max management involve?

Performance Max management covers set-up, brand control, feed, creative, bidding and reporting. Left alone, PMax often leans on your brand name and existing customers, which makes the numbers look great while adding little new business. Anthony McGrath does the work himself, with 22 years in digital marketing, for businesses in the UK, the US, Dubai and Australia.

Best for
Businesses spending, or ready to spend, on paid ads and wanting profit, not clicks
What you get
Set-up, Brand control, Feed, Creative, Bidding, Reporting
First step
Audit: your account, tracking and landing pages checked, with a plain-English list of what is wasting money.
Where
The UK, the US, Dubai and Australia, working remotely across time zones
Who does the work
Anthony McGrath, hands-on, with 22 years in digital marketing

The catch with Performance Max

Left alone, PMax often leans on your brand name and existing customers, which makes the numbers look great while adding little new business. It also hides a lot of detail by default.

The fix is control where Google allows it: brand exclusions, separate campaigns for product groups, new customer goals, strong creative and a feed that gives Google the right signals.

Before and after

An example of restructuring a Performance Max account that leaned on brand traffic.

  • Share of PMax spend on brand searches: 41% before, 7% after
  • New customer share of sales: 38% before, 61% after
  • Profit on ad spend: 1.3x before, 2.0x after

An example of the kind of change this work aims for, based on typical starting points. It is not a promise or a specific client result: every business starts somewhere different.

What's included

Set-up, management and the reporting PMax does not show you.

Set-up

  • Campaigns split by margin or category
  • Asset groups by theme
  • Audience signals from your data
  • New customer acquisition goals

Brand control

  • Brand exclusions
  • Brand search kept in Search campaigns
  • Placement exclusions
  • Account-level negatives

Feed

  • Titles and descriptions improved
  • Custom labels for margin and stock
  • Disapprovals fixed
  • Supplemental feeds

Creative

  • Images and video for every asset group
  • Headlines and descriptions
  • Asset performance reviewed
  • Regular refreshes

Bidding

  • Target ROAS based on profit
  • Budget pacing
  • Seasonal adjustments
  • Search term insights

Reporting

  • Channel and placement reports
  • Brand versus non-brand
  • New versus returning customers
  • Plain-English monthly summary

How it works

  1. AuditYour account, tracking and landing pages checked, with a plain-English list of what is wasting money.
  2. PlanCampaigns, budgets and targets agreed around profit, not vanity numbers.
  3. Build and launchCampaigns built or rebuilt cleanly, with conversion tracking tested first.
  4. Manage and reportHands-on weekly management and a clear monthly report on what your spend made.

Platforms and tools

  • Google Ads
  • Performance Max
  • Merchant Center
  • Feed management
  • GA4
  • Looker Studio
  • Google Ads scripts
  • Channable
  • DataFeedWatch

Latest performance Max management news

Short, plain-English updates on what is changing and what to do about it.

All marketing news

Questions

Is Performance Max worth it?

For most ecommerce stores and many lead generation businesses, yes, when it is controlled properly. Without brand exclusions and good feeds it often looks better than it is.

Can I stop PMax spending on my brand name?

Yes. Brand exclusions keep PMax off brand searches so those stay in a cheaper Search campaign you control.

Should PMax replace my Shopping campaigns?

Often they work together. Standard Shopping or Search campaigns can still be useful for control on key products and brand terms.

What do you report on?

Spend by channel, brand versus non-brand, new versus returning customers and profit, which together show what PMax is really adding.

Anthony McGrath

About Anthony McGrath

Tip of the day

Avoid tiny split audiences. Combine similar ad sets so Meta gets enough conversion data to exit learning phase.

A UK-based freelance digital marketer with 22 years across Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, conversion rate optimisation, funnels, Google, Meta and TikTok ads, SEO and tracking. He works directly with businesses in the UK, the US, Dubai and Australia, so the person who plans the work is the person who does it. More about Anthony or connect with him on LinkedIn.

See what your PMax is really doing

Send me read access. You get a breakdown of where your PMax budget goes and what to change.

Get your PMax reviewed