Manage a Performance Max campaign with listing groups

Within your Performance Max campaign's asset group, you can specify which products you want to be served up in your Performance Max campaign ads. Listing groups are part of a campaign’s asset group. They are made up of listings, which are sets of products.

How listing groups work

Listing groups organize your listings by the attributes assigned to them in Merchant Center. You can use them to manage which listings are included in your campaigns. Listing groups are part of a campaign’s asset group.

Use listing groups for bidding and reporting

• Bidding: Bidding for Performance Max campaigns uses Google AI. Bids will be set based on the advertising objective you selected for your campaign.
• Reporting: For Performance Max campaigns, reporting metrics can be different for the “Listing groups” tab when compared to the “Campaign” tab. This is because the “Listing groups” tab can only report on product-level data.
  • For example, when an ad shows many products in an individual ad slot, each product collects an impression. However, the campaign, asset group, and ad recognize that only a single ad was showing and will count it as one impression.

Use Final URL expansion with listing groups

For Performance Max campaigns with a Merchant Center feed attached, ads may be served to a URL provided in the campaign (the Final URL) or to a product page included in a campaign’s listing groups from the attached Google Merchant Center.

• If Final URL Expansion is turned on: Ads may be served to additional URLs on the provided Final URL domain in addition to product URLs from the GMC that are included in listing groups for the Performance Max campaign.
• If Final URL Expansion is turned off: Ads will be served only to the Final URL in addition to product URLs from the GMC that are included in listing groups for the Performance Max campaign.

Note: You can turn on or off Final URL expansion at the campaign level only.

Attributes available for listing group subdivisions

Listing groups can be defined by these attributes provided in your product data in Merchant Center:

• Category: An attribute based on the Google product taxonomy. Example of a category string: Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Dresses. In your product data, the ">" characters define the hierarchical levels in the product category that you'll be able to use for subdividing listing groups. If you don't submit the category, we might assign one for you. There may be cases where Google refines the category further after it's been submitted. Though we do our best, some products may be miscategorized. You can only subdivide by category when you target these countries: the US, the UK, Australia, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Brazil, Norway, Sweden, and Turkey. Learn more about Google product category
• Brand: The name of the manufacturer of a product (Example: Google). The brand should be clearly visible on the front of the product packaging or label. Learn more about product’s brand name
• Item ID: Your identifier (id) for each product. Learn more about product identifier
• Condition: The state of a product (new, used, and refurbished). Learn more about product condition
• Product type: An attribute that is assigned based on categorization (Example of a product type string: Home & Garden > Kitchen & Dining > Kitchen Appliances > Refrigerators). In product data, the ">" character defines the hierarchical levels in the product type used for subdividing product groups. Product types can be subdivided up to 5 times. Learn more about product type
• Channel: Where your products are sold, either "Local" in a physical store or "Online" through an e-commerce store. Learn more about local inventory
• Custom labels: You can create up to 5 custom labels in your product data (Example of label values: seasonal, bestseller). Learn more about custom labels

Each asset group in a Performance Max campaign can have up to 1,000 listing groups.

Instructions

Create a listing group subdivision

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
3. Select the Performance Max campaign you want to edit.
4. Click Asset groups.
5. Click Listing groups in the page menu to reach the listing groups page.
6. Locate the listing group you want to subdivide and click the pencil icon next to “All products”.
7. Select the drop-down menu next to “Subdivide [name of listing group] by” and choose a product attribute to define your new listing group.
8. After you select the attribute to subdivide by, you'll see a list of possible subdivisions. Next to each possible subdivision, click the checkbox to add the subdivision to your listing group. As you select categories, they’ll appear in a list to the right which also shows the total number of listings in the selected categories.
   • For example, if you sell planters and select "Category", then you might see these subdivisions: "Inside", "Outside", and "Decorative".
9. Click Save to confirm your listing group subdivisions.

Tip: If you want to use more than one attribute to define a listing group, first create the current subdivision, then repeat the steps above.

Edit, remove, or exclude an existing listing group subdivision

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
3. Select the Performance Max campaign you want to edit.
4. Click Asset groups.
5. Click Listing groups in the page menu to reach the listing groups page.
6. Locate the listing group you want to make changes to.
   • To edit: Click the pencil icon , make your changes, then click Save.
   • To remove: Click the pencil icon , then click “X” on the right selected section to remove.
   • To exclude: Click the green circle next to the listing group or subdivision name and select Exclude.

Choose how to view your listing groups

You can change how you view your listing groups by switching between those that appear at the top of your ad group’s listing groups page.

The view shows the structure of your listing groups. You can use this view for adding and removing subdivisions within your ad group.

The view shows all of your listing groups in a list. This view is useful for sorting your listing groups by column or seeing an overview of how each of your listing groups are performing. You won't be able to make subdivisions from here.

If you select listing groups in one view and switch to another, the listing groups will remain selected in the new view.

Filter listing groups

Filter your listing groups to search for the data that interests you the most, like clicks, conversions, or the average cost-per-click (CPC). Once you've created a filter, you can save it for easy access in the future.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
3. Select the Performance Max campaign you want to edit.
4. Click Asset groups.
5. Click Listing groups in the page menu to reach the listing groups page.
6. From the top of the listing groups table, click the filter icon .
7. Choose the conditions for your filter. The table automatically updates to show you the data that matches your filter.
   • You can specify multiple conditions within a single filter. Click in the filter section after adding a condition to add another. To remove a condition, click the X next to it.
   • To save the filter you've created for later use, select the save filter button and enter a name for the filter. The saved filter will now be available when you select filter conditions.
8. To return to an unfiltered view of your table, click X in the filter section.

Related links

• About Performance Max campaigns
• Create a Performance Max campaign