Google Ads Performance Max campaigns allow you to promote your products or services across the Google Network by creating one easy-to-manage campaign.
Performance Max will show as a campaign type selection if your advertising objective is “Sales”, “Leads”, or “Website traffic“, or if you’re creating a campaign without a goal’s guidance. Learn more About Google Ads Performance Max campaigns.
The process for creating Performance Max campaigns depends on your goals:
For advertisers with online sales or lead generation goals
1. Create a new campaign
To create a new campaign, follow these steps:
- Sign in to your new Search Ads 360.
- Navigate to a manager, sub-manager, or client account.
- In the page menu on the left, click Campaigns.
- Click the plus button
, then select New campaign.
- In the “Choose your objective” section, select Sales or Leads.
- Select Performance Max as your campaign type.
- (Optional) Select the Google Merchant Center feed.
- Enter a campaign name.
- Click Continue.
2. Set your budget, bid strategy, and conversion goal
Budget
In the "Budget" section, enter the average amount you want to spend each day.
Your budget establishes a monthly charging limit for an individual campaign. The charging limit is the average daily budget that you set, multiplied by the average number of days in a month. While your spend may vary each day, you won’t pay more than your monthly charging limit. Learn more About spending limits.
For Performance Max, try an average daily budget of at least 3 times your CPA or cost/conv. for the conversion actions selected for your campaign. You can monitor your campaign’s performance regularly as desired. However, Google recommends waiting for 1 to 2 complete conversion cycles before fully assessing your campaign performance.
On days when your ads are likely to get you more traffic, you may spend up to 2 times your average daily budget. Those days are balanced by the days when your spend is below your average daily budget.
You set an average daily budget for your campaigns, with the flexibility to change it at any time.
Bid strategy
Search Ads 360 bid strategies and some bid-strategy related components such as data-sharing, will be available only after your account has been migrated to the new Search Ads 360. Learn more about how to upgrade your bid strategies to the new Search Ads 360.
Check the Experience hub to stay up to date on your available features, including bidding.
In the “Bidding” section, select a bid strategy.
- Conversions: If you select the checkbox for “Set a target cost per action”, the campaign will try to meet the Target CPA you enter. Learn more About Target CPA bidding.
- Conversion value: If you select the checkbox for “Set a target return on ad spend”, the campaign will try to meet the Target ROAS you enter. Learn more About Target ROAS bidding.
Based on your specified performance goal, the Google Ads bid strategy you select will help set the right bids for every auction and optimize the campaign to deliver against that performance goal.
If you’re tracking values with your conversions, Google recommends you to use the “Maximize conversion value” bid strategy. If you aren’t tracking values and care about all of your conversions equally, using the “Maximize conversions” bid strategy is recommended.
To enable Google Ads bid strategies to incorporate Search Ads 360 conversion data to set bids, you’re required to share Search Ads 360 conversions with Google Ads and report the conversions in the Google Ads conversions column for a campaign.
Learn how to Choose your bid and budget.
Conversion goal
Select the conversion goals you want to use for bid optimization. Learn more About conversion goals
- In the "Conversion goals" section, select one of the following:
- Search Ads 360. Choose an option:
- "Use account default goal settings" (recommended)
- Use campaign specific goals. Click Add goals to select the goals you want to apply to the campaign.
- Search Ads 360 and Google Ads (Google Ads campaigns only)
- Search Ads 360 will suggest goals. To add additional goals, click Edit goals.
- To select Google Ads goals, click Add goals.
- Google Ads (Google Ads search campaigns only). Choose an option:
- Use account default goal settings (recommended)
- Use campaign specific goals. Click Add goals to select the goals you want to apply to the campaign.
- Search Ads 360. Choose an option:
- Click Next.
3. Specify location and languages, ad scheduling, campaign start and end dates, and campaign URL options
- On the “Campaign settings” page, select the location to target under “Locations”.
- For more location targeting options, in the "Locations" section, click Enter another location and then click Advanced search. You can add locations in bulk, or enter a location and radius around that specific location that you'd like to target. Learn more About location targeting.
- Under “Languages”, select the language you want your ads to serve in.
- You can select multiple languages to show your ads to specific sets of customers.
- Under “Final URL Expansion”, select where you want to send your traffic.
- To turn on the Final URL expansion feature, select Send traffic to the most relevant URLs on your site. This will send traffic to a more relevant landing page from your final URL domain (with a relevant dynamic headline, based on the customer intent).
- Turning on the Final URL expansion feature can increase your campaign’s ability to serve.
- To turn off the Final URL expansion feature, select Only send traffic to the URLs you’ve provided.
- To turn on the Final URL expansion feature, select Send traffic to the most relevant URLs on your site. This will send traffic to a more relevant landing page from your final URL domain (with a relevant dynamic headline, based on the customer intent).
If you’re adding only store goals, such as store visits, contacts and direction clicks to a campaign, Final URL expansion won't be supported. Learn more about Final URL expansion with Google Ads Performance Max.
Next, set your ad scheduling, campaign start and end dates, and campaign URL options in the More settings section.
More settings
Ad schedule
Use ad scheduling to determine the number of days and hours your ad will show. For some goals, you may want your ad to only show during business hours or when you’re available to handle customer inquiries.
- Learn more About ad scheduling.
- Learn how to Create an ad schedule.
Start and end dates
Use this setting to choose the dates you want your ads to start and stop running. If you don’t specify an end date, your ads will continue to run.
Campaign URL options
The “tracking template” is where you put tracking information. You can use URL parameters within the template to customize your final URL. When an ad is clicked, the information is used to create your landing page URL.
The “Final URL suffix” is added to the end of your final URL and contains URL parameters that your site uses for tracking purposes. Parameters that determine the content of a page should be added to the Final URL, and parameters used by tracking services should be added to a tracking template. Note that Final URL suffix is applicable only to Google Ads. Learn more about Adding URL parameters to a Final URL suffix.
“Custom parameters” are a kind of URL parameter that you can define. They can be used in your final URL and tracking template. Learn more about Custom parameters.
Click Next to move on and build your asset group.
4. Build your asset group
Create an asset group with assets that are all related to a single theme or audience. Read more about the requirements by hovering over the question mark icon 
- On the "Asset group" page, enter a unique asset group name.
- Build your asset group by adding the following details. Once the “Asset group” section is completed, click Next.
| Asset | Recommended asset guidelines |
|---|---|
| Images | Add up to 15 images. |
| Logos | Add up to 5 logos. |
| Videos |
Add up to 5 videos. Note: If you don’t upload a video, it will be auto-generated from the other creative assets in your asset group. To opt out, you can upload your own video during campaign construction or after your campaign has launched. If you don’t have a video asset and don’t want to use the auto-created one, you can use the Google Ads video creation tool to create a video for use in your Performance Max campaign. To learn how to create videos in Google Ads, visit Create a video using Asset library. |
| Headlines | Add up to 5 headlines (maximum 30 characters). |
| Long headlines | Add up to 5 long headlines (maximum 90 characters). |
| Descriptions | Add one short description with maximum 60 characters and up to 4 descriptions with maximum 90 characters each. |
| Sitelinks | Add sitelinks to direct users to specific pages on your site. Learn more about Google Ads sitelink asset settings. |
| Call to action |
Choose from various layouts and enter the name of your business or brand. |
| Business name |
Add the name of your business or brand. In certain layouts, it may appear in the text of your ad. |
| Ad URL options |
Add the pathway for your display URL and choose a different final URL for mobile. |
You can create one asset group before launching your Performance Max campaign and additional asset groups after setup. Your assets will automatically be assembled into all applicable formats and show the most relevant ad creative.
Learn more about how to Build an asset group.
Listing groups (optional)
If you opted to use a feed from Google Merchant Center in Campaign Setup , you have the option to include "All products" or "Use a selection of products" from your feed.
Audience signals
Audience signals allow you to add audience suggestions that help Google Ads automation optimize for your selected goals. Although adding audience signals is optional, using audience signals can help you accelerate and guide the machine learning models on the ideal way to optimize your campaign.
To help you meet your performance goals, Performance Max may show ads to relevant audiences outside of your signals if they have a strong chance of converting.
- Learn more about Audience signals.
- Learn more about Audience builder.
Ad strength
Ad strength is an indication of the relevance and range of your ad creative combinations. Having more relevant and unique content can help you get the right ad in front of your customers and improve your ad’s performance.
5. Add ad assets
Ad assets expand your ads and give people more reasons to view your ads. These assets add useful business data below your ad—locations, additional links, prices, and more. For this reason, ad assets are recommended in Performance Max campaigns.
The “Asset group” page in Performance Max displays a recommendation of ad assets related to your set goals. To view these assets, click More asset types. Learn how to Select assets to use.
In Performance Max campaigns, ad assets are tied to specific marketing goals and will be featured more prominently based on the campaign’s goal.
- Ad assets can be information that gives the user an opportunity to learn more about your business.
- Ad assets can also be actions that invite the user to do more than visit the website. Some actions covered may be to call the business, submit a lead form, or view locations.
- Ad assets invite the user to gather more information about the business or extend interaction between the business and user.
You need at least 2 sitelinks (for desktop) and at least one sitelink (for mobile) for the sitelinks to appear in the ad. The number of sitelinks that can appear varies depending on where people are served the adL
- Desktop: Your ad can show up to 6 sitelinks. Sitelinks can appear on the same line or fill up to 2 lines of your ad.
- Mobile: Your ad can show up to 8 sitelinks. These sitelinks appear side-by-side on a single line in a carousel format. People can swipe left or right on the carousel to browse your sitelinks. If your ad appears in the very top position, your sitelinks are eligible to show in a prominent row, with only one sitelink on each line.
Once you’ve added your ad assets, click Next.
6. Publish your campaign
Before you finish setting up your campaign, you'll be taken to a review summary with the details of your new campaign. Click Publish Campaign to complete the process.
For advertisers with online sales goals using a Merchant Center feed
1. Create a new campaign
- Sign in to your new Search Ads 360.
- Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
- In the page menu on the left, select Campaigns.
- Click the plus button
- Select Salesas your campaign objective.
- Select Performance Max as your campaign type.
- Select a linked Merchant Center account that will provide the products to advertise.
- Note that each campaign can only have one linked account for products, and it can't be changed after you've finished creating the campaign.
- Enter a campaign name.
- Click Continue.
2. Set your budget, bid strategy, and conversion goal
Budget
In the "Budget" section, enter the average amount you want to spend each day.
Your budget establishes a monthly charging limit for an individual campaign. The charging limit is the average daily budget that you set, multiplied by the average number of days in a month. While your spend may vary each day, you won’t pay more than your monthly charging limit. Learn more About spending limits.
For Performance Max, try an average daily budget of at least 3 times your CPA or cost/conv. for the conversion actions selected for your campaign. You can monitor your campaign’s performance regularly as desired. However, Google recommends waiting for 1 to 2 complete conversion cycles before fully assessing your campaign performance.
On days when your ads are likely to get you more traffic, you may spend up to 2 times your average daily budget. Those days are balanced by the days when your spend is below your average daily budget.
You set an average daily budget for your campaigns, with the flexibility to change it at any time.
Bid strategy
Search Ads 360 bid strategies and some bid-strategy related components such as data-sharing, will be available only after your account has been migrated to the new Search Ads 360. Learn more about how to upgrade your bid strategies to the new Search Ads 360.
Check the Experience hub to stay up to date on your available features, including bidding.
In the “Bidding” section, select a bid strategy.
- Conversions: If you select the checkbox for “Set a target cost per action”, the campaign will try to meet the Target CPA you enter. Learn more About Target CPA bidding.
- Conversion value: If you select the checkbox for “Set a target return on ad spend”, the campaign will try to meet the Target ROAS you enter. Learn more About Target ROAS bidding.
Based on your specified performance goal, the Google Ads bid strategy you select will help set the right bids for every auction and optimize the campaign to deliver against that performance goal.
If you’re tracking values with your conversions, Google recommends you to use the “Maximize conversion value” bid strategy. If you aren’t tracking values and care about all of your conversions equally, using the “Maximize conversions” bid strategy is recommended.
To enable Google Ads bid strategies to incorporate Search Ads 360 conversion data to set bids, you’re required to share Search Ads 360 conversions with Google Ads and report the conversions in the Google Ads conversions column for a campaign.
Learn how to Choose your bid and budget.
Conversion goal
Select the conversion goals you want to use for bid optimization. Learn more About conversion goals
- In the "Conversion goals" section, select one of the following:
- Search Ads 360. Choose an option:
- "Use account default goal settings" (recommended)
- Use campaign specific goals. Click Add goals to select the goals you want to apply to the campaign.
- Search Ads 360 and Google Ads (Google Ads campaigns only)
- Search Ads 360 will suggest goals. To add additional goals, click Edit goals.
- To select Google Ads goals, click Add goals.
- Search Ads 360. Choose an option:
- Click Next.
3. Specify location and languages, ad scheduling, campaign start and end dates, and campaign URL options
- On the “Campaign settings” page, select the location to target under “Locations”.
- For more location targeting options, use the Advanced search link. You can add locations in bulk, or enter a location and radius around the specific location you'd like to target. Learn more About location targeting.
- Under “Languages”, select the language you want your ads to serve in.
- You can select multiple languages to show your ads to specific sets of customers.
- Under “Final URL Expansion”, select where you want to send your traffic.
- To send traffic to a more relevant landing page from your final URL domain (with a relevant dynamic headline, based on the customer intent), select Send traffic to the most relevant URLs on your site.
- By turning on the Final URL expansion feature, you can increase your campaign’s ability to serve.
- To turn off the Final URL expansion feature, select Only send traffic to the URLs you’ve provided.
- To send traffic to a more relevant landing page from your final URL domain (with a relevant dynamic headline, based on the customer intent), select Send traffic to the most relevant URLs on your site.
Next, set your ad scheduling, campaign start and end dates, and campaign URL options in the "More settings" section.
More settings
Ad schedule
Use ad scheduling to determine what days and hours your ad will show. For some goals, you may want your ad to only show during business hours or when you’re available to handle customer inquiries.
- Learn more about Ad scheduling.
- Learn how to Create an ad schedule.
Start and end dates
Use this setting to choose the dates you want your ads to start and stop running. If you don’t specify an end date, your ads will continue to run.
Campaign URL options
The “tracking template” is where you put tracking information. You can use URL parameters within the template to customize your final URL. When an ad is clicked, the information is used to create your landing page URL.
The “Final URL suffix” is added to the end of your final URL and contains URL parameters that your site uses for tracking purposes. Parameters that determine the content of a page should be added to the Final URL, and parameters used by tracking services should be added to a tracking template. Note that Final URL suffix is applicable only to Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising. Learn more about Adding URL parameters to a Final URL suffix.
“Custom parameters” are a kind of URL parameter that you can define. They can be used in your final URL and tracking template. Learn more about Custom parameters.
Click Next to move on and build your asset group.
4. Build your asset group
Create an asset group with assets that are all related to a single theme or audience. Read more about the requirements by hovering over the question mark icon
Providing creative is optional for retailers with a Google Merchant Center feed. Assets may be auto-generated on your behalf, though you can launch without providing any assets in the asset group. Adding these will allow your campaign to maximally serve across surfaces and achieve optimal performance (recommended). Listing groups are required and will default to all products in the specified Merchant Center account.
- On the "Asset group" page, enter a unique asset group name.
- Confirm Listing groups for the campaign. Listing groups allow you to select which products will show in your Performance Max campaigns's ads. The default will be all products in your attached Google Merchant Center account, but if you wish to only use a selection of products, follow the steps below:
- Click the pencil icon
next to "All products".
- Select Use a selection of products in your ads.
- You can select products by Category, Brand, Item ID, Condition, Product type, Channel or Custom labels from the dropdown. You can also choose values in bulk by manually entering product types separated by line breaks.
- Check products that you want to include in your Performance Max ads, and they'll appear in the column to the right. To remove products, click the
next to the product group.
- Click Save.
- Click the pencil icon
- Build your asset group by adding the following details.
next to "All products".| Asset | Recommended asset guidelines |
|---|---|
| Images | Add up to 15 images. |
| Logos | Add up to 5 logos. |
| Videos |
Add up to 5 videos. Note: If you don’t upload a video, it will be auto-generated from the other creative assets in your asset group. To opt out, you can upload your own video during campaign construction or after your campaign has launched. If you don’t have a video asset and don’t want to use the auto-created one, you can use the Google Ads video creation tool to create a video for use in your Performance Max campaign. To learn how to create videos in Google Ads, visit Create a video using Asset library. |
| Headlines | Add up to 5 headlines (maximum 30 characters). |
| Long headlines | Add up to 5 long headlines (maximum 90 characters). |
| Descriptions | Add one short description with maximum 60 characters and up to 4 descriptions with maximum 90 characters each. |
| Business name | Add the name of your business or brand. In certain layouts, it may appear in the text of your ad. |
| Sitelinks | Add sitelinks to direct users to specific pages on your site. Learn more About sitelink assets. |
| Call to action |
Choose from various layouts and enter the name of your business or brand. |
You can create one asset group before launching your Performance Max campaign and additional asset groups after setup. Your assets will automatically be assembled into all applicable formats and show the most relevant ad creative.
Learn how to Build an asset group.
Audience signals
Audience signals allow you to add audience suggestions that help Google Ads automation optimize for your selected goals. Although adding audience signals is optional, using audience signals can help you accelerate and guide the machine learning models on the ideal way to optimize your campaign.
To help you meet your performance goals, Performance Max may show ads to relevant audiences outside of your signals if they have a strong chance of converting.
Learn more about Audience signals.
Ad strength
Ad strength is an indication of the relevance and range of your ad creative combinations. Having more relevant and unique content can help you get the right ad in front of your customers and improve your ad’s performance.
5. Add ad assets
The "Asset group" page in Performance Max displays a recommendation of ad assets related to your set goals. To view these assets. click More assets types. Learn how to Select assets to use.
Ad assets expand your ads and give people more reasons to view your ads. They add useful business data below your ad—locations, additional links, prices, and more. For this reason, ad assets are recommended in Performance Max campaigns.
In Performance Max campaigns, ad assets are tied to specific marketing goals and will be featured more prominently based on the campaign’s goal.
- Ad assets can be information that gives the user an opportunity to learn more about your business.
- Ad assets can also be actions that invite the user to do more than visit the website. Some actions covered may be to call the business, submit a lead form, or view locations.
- Ad assets invite the user to gather more information about the business or extend interaction between the business and user.
You need at least 2 sitelinks (for desktop), and at least one sitelink (for mobile) for the sitelinks to appear in the ad. The number of sitelinks that can appear are different depending on where people are served the ad:
- Desktop: Your ad can show up to 6 sitelinks. Sitelinks may appear on the same line or fill up to 2 lines of your ad.
- Mobile: Your ad can show up to 8 sitelinks. These sitelinks appear side-by-side on a single line in a carousel format. People can swipe left or right on the carousel to browse your various sitelinks. If your ad appears in the very top position, your sitelinks are eligible to show in a prominent row, with only one sitelink on each line.
Once you’ve added your ad assets, click Next.
6. Publish your campaign
Before you finish setting up your campaign, you'll be taken to a review summary with the details of your new campaign. Click Publish Campaign to complete the process.
For advertisers with store goals using a custom dimensions feed to promote local products
1. Upload product information to custom dimensions
- Sign in to your new Search Ads 360.
- Click the tools and settings icon
, and under “Setup”, click Custom dimensions.
- Click the plus button
- Add a name and description to your dimension.
- Select an owner account.
- Enter a value for the category.
- Click Apply.
- In the “Data feeds” section, click the plus button
- Download the template for columns and instructions. Required and optional columns are listed in the table below.
- Provide a name for the feed and select a source for the feed. You can upload the source from your computer, Google Sheets, or a website.
- Preview the .csv upload. Resolve any errors, then click Apply.
If you're creating a custom dimension with several values, it's faster to use the bulk process, which uses a spreadsheet to upload values and apply them to campaigns. For example, a retailer wants to create a custom dimension named "Product line" and add several values, such as "Outdoor furnishings", "Living room", "Audio", and more. Each value will be applied to a few different campaigns. In this case, the bulk process is faster than adding values one at a time.
To apply different dimension values to different bunches of campaigns all at once:
- Sign in to your new Search Ads 360.
- Click the tools and settings icon
- Click the plus button
- Add a name and description for your custom dimension.
- If you are scoped to a sub-manager account, select an owner account.
- Click Save and continue.
- Download your campaigns.
- Use a spreadsheet application to enter a dimension value for each campaign in your account.
- Click Continue.
- To upload the edited file, click Choose file.
- Click Save
The required and optional columns for data feeds are as follows:
| Column | Description | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Rank |
|
Yes |
| Product Item ID |
|
Yes |
| Title |
|
Yes |
| Description |
|
Yes |
| Item URL |
|
No |
| Image URL |
|
Yes |
| Price |
|
Yes |
| Store code |
|
Yes |
| Sale price |
|
No |
2. Use this feed or any other you have previously uploaded to your Search Ads 360 account to promote your local products within your Performance Max for store goals campaign
Follow the post–campaign construction instructions:
- Go to the campaign you want to apply the feed to.
- From the page menu on the left, click Settings.
- Click Local product feed to expand the section.
- Select the checkbox next to "Use a product feed for this campaign".
- Select the name of the feed you want to use.
- Click Save.
Learn more about Promotion of local products.