The Top 5 (+1) Mistakes to Avoid in a Performance Max Campaign

Poor conversion tracking configuration

This is the most critical mistake. PMax campaigns being primarily conversion-driven, it is essential to ensure your tracking is flawless before any launch.

Three additional points are often overlooked: reporting conversion value (essential for e-commerce), activating enhanced conversions and, where relevant, importing offline conversions.

Creative quality too often overlooked

By creatives, we mean all the elements that make up an ad: text, images and videos. This is a lever often underestimated, yet it directly determines the ad strength score and therefore the chances of a user clicking.

All of this strengthens the ad strength score in Google Ads and improves the chances of a user clicking. Creative quality is one of the few levers over which the advertiser retains full control.

App inventory not excluded despite often poor quality

By default, the App inventory is enabled across all Google Ads accounts. Yet this inventory is often of little relevance for a large proportion of PMax campaigns.

A large proportion of clicks from these apps are accidental. Given their placement, these ads rely on interruption: the user is in the middle of a mobile game, trying to close an intrusive pop-up, or inadvertently clicking on an area too close to an interaction button.

💡 Concrete consequences

Audience signals often neglected

Even though PMax is capable of learning on its own which profiles are likely to convert, providing quality signals from the start considerably accelerates this learning.

It is important to clarify that audience signals do not limit campaign delivery. This is not targeting in the strict sense: it is guidance that points the algorithm in the right direction.

Recommended first-party data at launch

The higher the quality of these signals, the faster the campaign identifies the profiles most likely to convert, and the faster and more relevant the learning.

Using search themes that are too generic

Unlike a classic Search campaign, PMax does not rely on a keyword list. Instead, it is possible to provide search themes (50 maximum per asset group) to guide the algorithm towards the most relevant search intents.

The risk: using themes that are too generic and do not reflect a genuine purchase intent. Google may then position itself across a very broad volume of queries, a significant proportion of which will be poorly qualified and therefore unlikely to convert.

The goal is to provide Google with the most precise information possible so it understands what you are really trying to reach. Well-chosen search themes accelerate learning, particularly for recent campaigns with little history.

This point only applies to advertisers with a product feed, but it is crucial. Before launching a PMax campaign with a catalogue, several questions deserve consideration:

Thinking through these questions upfront allows you to create a campaign structure that reflects business realities and adapt audience signals, search themes and visuals accordingly.

PMax offers the widest delivery scope in the Google ecosystem, thanks to the multiplicity of its channels. Its automation and constant learning make it an effective tool for achieving objectives. But this automation should not overshadow the importance of strategy and preparation.

Defining precise objectives, providing quality creatives, thinking through search themes and audience signals, structuring the product catalogue and controlling the inventories on which the campaign will run: all points to address before launch. Automation does not replace a rigorous and thoughtful setup, it simply multiplies its impact.