• Google Ads · Google Ads

Performance Max: launch, limit and control

Setting up Performance Max isn't "create a campaign and fill in the budget." This includes conversions, resource groups for product lines, a feed from Merchant Center, audience signals and a decision about your own brand: to pay for those who already searched for you by name or not. Let's start where the algorithm has something to learn. An account with single conversions will not make PMax - it will spend the training time budget and learn nothing. Therefore, we first measure readiness, then launch.

See how it works
Price
after a free audit
Guarantee
30 days after project sign-off
Where do we start?
account readiness check, 3-4 working days, free of charge
Price
after a free audit
Guarantee
30
days after project sign-off
Where do we start?
account readiness check, 3-4 working days, free of charge
Setting period
7-20
working days from the issuance of accesses - depends on the feed and creatives
Google benchmark for conversions
several dozen per month per campaign, and evenly, not in bursts
Which gives visibility inside
report by search topics and breakdown by resource groups
Clicks and impressions
are paid from your Google account, are not included in our work
Stores measured for readiness
4
sites, external technical measurement 07/31/2026
Free audit

Free test: Are you ready for Performance Max?

Performance Max automatically allocates budget between search, product displays, display network, mail and video. Distributes by conversion data. No data - no work, only costs. The check shows where you stand and is done for any amount of money.

What we measure

  1. How many conversions does the account collect per month?Prime number. If there are units, the campaign will learn longer than the budget will last, and we will say this before launch, not two months later.
  2. What exactly is recorded in the conversionWe look at every active action: order, application, click on the phone, viewing the contact page. Anything that is not money is removed from the campaign goals.
  3. Product feed statusFor the store, the feed is half of the campaign. We check identifiers, prices, availability, and whether product addresses redirect to another position.
  4. What is creativeImages in the right proportions, logos, titles, descriptions, videos. What is missing — we write out a list with formats so that you can see the scope of the shooting or design.
  5. Intersection with existing campaignsWe calculate how much brand traffic risks going to PMax and how much you will pay for it instead of zero.
  6. Technical condition of landing pagesProduct address response codes, redirects, speed. A dead or replaced landing page makes a paid click a waste without options.

What you get

  • The answer to the main question: should you launch PMax now or get conversions with another type of campaign first?
  • List of what's missing for launch: creatives by format, feed fields, measurement events.
  • Risk assessment of brand traffic cannibalization in your account numbers.
  • List of found technical defects of landing pages with response codes.
  • A 30-minute conversation about the document with our specialist who wrote it.

Timeline: 3-4 working days

Why is it free

Because the most frequent answer after the inspection is "it's too early for you." We are not ready to take money for the right to hear "it's too early", and you can find this out only by looking into the account.

What's next

If the launch is appropriate, we give an estimate for the preparation of creatives, setup and management. If not, we name where to start instead and how long it will take.

Short form: your contact and site URL
Contract and paperwork

We work officially

Contract, act and invoice — for every project, not just large ones.

Trusted by6 brands

Trusted by: Kvant Energy, GYPSUN, Naturel Cosmetics, Pancer Protection, LUGI, BeeTech

Terms fixed in writing8 points

  • Contract, act and 30-day warranty

    Every project gets a written contract: scope, deadlines, amount, acceptance procedure. After delivery — act and invoice, then 30 calendar days of warranty.

  • Sole proprietor & bank transfer

    The contractor is a registered sole proprietor. Payment by invoice with closing documents.

  • Rights & access — yours

    Code, design and materials transfer to you after full payment. Domain, hosting, repository and analytics are registered to you.

  • Client portal instead of email chains

    During the project you get access to a portal: contracts, invoices, acts and project status in one place.

  • Sites in nine countries

    Our sites run in nine countries: besides Ukraine — Poland, Germany, Austria, England, Norway, Bulgaria, Moldova and Spain.

  • Verifiable numbers

    Every case in the portfolio comes with a link to a live site and a technical measurement.

  • Audit first, then pricing

    There is no price list on the site intentionally: the scope of the same work differs multiples between clients.

  • We say "no" when unsure

    If the task isn't ours or the deadline is unrealistic — we tell you upfront.

  • Contract, act and 30-day warranty

    Every project gets a written contract: scope, deadlines, amount, acceptance procedure. After delivery — act and invoice, then 30 calendar days of warranty.

  • Sole proprietor & bank transfer

    The contractor is a registered sole proprietor. Payment by invoice with closing documents.

  • Rights & access — yours

    Code, design and materials transfer to you after full payment. Domain, hosting, repository and analytics are registered to you.

  • Client portal instead of email chains

    During the project you get access to a portal: contracts, invoices, acts and project status in one place.

  • Sites in nine countries

    Our sites run in nine countries: besides Ukraine — Poland, Germany, Austria, England, Norway, Bulgaria, Moldova and Spain.

  • Verifiable numbers

    Every case in the portfolio comes with a link to a live site and a technical measurement.

  • Audit first, then pricing

    There is no price list on the site intentionally: the scope of the same work differs multiples between clients.

  • We say "no" when unsure

    If the task isn't ours or the deadline is unrealistic — we tell you upfront.

We sign NDAs on request. After completing the work, we delete our access to your services ourselves.

What affects the price

Why two seemingly identical tasks are priced differently

  • How many conversions are already in the accountAn account with hundreds of orders per month is launched almost immediately. An account with conversion units first goes through a separate cycle: search campaigns, configured measurement, and only then PMax.
  • Product feed statusA feed that is already moderated by Merchant Center is connected in a day. A feed with different identifiers and redirects on product addresses is a catalog work first, and it is not part of the campaign setup.
  • How many product lines are in the catalogOne group of resources — one collection of creatives and texts. Five directions — five such collections and five separate sections in the report. The volume specifies the number of directions, not the number of items in the catalog.
  • What is creativeReady-made images in three proportions, logos and a video — work comes down to texts. There is nothing but a photo of the goods - the design is added, and under the video is either a shooting or a conscious consent to an automatic video.
  • What is already running in the accountAn empty account is set up without looking back. An account with search and sales campaigns requires dilution: priorities, exclusions, agreement about whose request it is. This is the longest part of the weekly work in the first month and a half.
  • One-time setup or maintenanceSet up and deliver is a separate job with a fixed scope. Maintenance — a weekly breakdown of search topics and resource groups plus a monthly report; this is a subscription and is billed monthly.
Who it's for

Situations where this service delivers results

Scenario 1 of 4

A store with a product feed, where search campaigns already bring orders

Working situation for this type of campaign. There is something to learn from, there is something to show in the commodity block, there is something to compare the result with. PMax here becomes an extension on top of the existing structure, and not its replacement: the search remains on priority requests, PMax takes away what the hands did not reach.

We'll review your situation in a free audit
What's included

Complete list of work and what you get as a result

  • We go through the conversions and leave only orders and applications for the purposes of the campaign - the algorithm learns on money, not on clicks on the "show phone" button
  • We divide the catalog into groups of resources by product areas - you can see which direction brings the order, instead of one line "PMax" for the entire budget
  • We collect creatives for all formats: titles, descriptions, images in three proportions, logos - otherwise the system will edit the video itself from what it finds on the site
  • We connect the product feed and compare the product identifiers in it with those that come in the site events - in the event of a discrepancy, product remarketing will not take place
  • We generate audience signals from customer lists and CRM data — this is a tip of the algorithm at the start, and the system deliberately goes beyond the list
  • We make decisions by brand: we exclude brand requests or leave them, having agreed on how to read the report afterwards
  • We distinguish between PMax and existing search campaigns so that they do not buy the same query from each other
  • We remove irrelevant placements and categories of applications where the settings allow it
  • Every week we read the report on search topics and return the campaign to the limits - by hand, it does not stand automatically
  • Once a month we provide a report with a breakdown of costs by direction, brand share and comparison with search campaigns for the same period
When this service isn't right

What's not included — so there are no surprises at delivery

  • Advertising budget
  • Promises that PMax will give cheaper conversions than search campaigns
  • Filming of video clips for video formats - we can organize separately
  • Complete control over placements: In this type of campaign, it is fundamentally limited
  • Correcting the product catalog is a separate job
Process steps

Transparent stages with approval at every step

Total duration:7–20 days

  1. Account readiness check

    3-4 working days

    Conversions for the last 90 days, goal composition, feed status, intersection with existing campaigns, landing response codes. The output is a document that shows whether to start or collect data first. This part is free.

  2. Measurement: Conversions and Events

    2-3 working days

    We remove everything that is not an order or an application from the campaign goals, compare the GA4 events with what the Google Ads tag transmits, look at the coincidence of the product IDs in the events and in the feed.

  3. Feed and Merchant Center

    2-4 working days

    Only for stores: connecting the feed, checking mandatory fields, prices and availability, scanning product addresses for redirects. If the catalog needs to be edited, it is a separate job, and we name its scope here.

  4. Campaign compilation

    3-5 working days

    Resource groups by product lines, creatives by formats, audience signals, brand exclusions, geography and separation from existing campaigns. We fix the bidding strategy in writing along with the conversion cost limit.

  5. A period of supervised learning

    14–21 calendar days

    For the first two or three weeks, the campaign wanders - this is a normal state, not a failure. At this time, we do not touch the stake every day, because every edit restarts training; we look at search topics and remove clearly foreign ones.

  6. Management and reporting

    every week while the collaboration lasts

    Weekly — report on search topics and resource groups, edit exclusions. Once a month — cost breakdown by direction, brand share and comparison with search campaigns for the same period.

Did not find your case?

Describe how it works on your side — we will tell you whether “Performance Max campaigns” fits and what it means in your situation. No brief and no call: one question, one answer.

Cases

Tasks and results in numbers — all metrics measured by us

a shop of professional tools, a catalog of more than 6,000 items — our external technical dimension

Task
Look at the condition of the planting material from which the commodity feed is being built.
Solution
Traversing the site map with a count of records and unique addresses separately, checking the response codes of the root and language branches.
Result
GA4 and the Google Ads tag are connected - campaigns are already running in the account. At the same time, the root of the domain returns a 301 from HTTPS to HTTP: a click from the ad leads to an unsecured connection. The site map — 25,537 records for 6,857 unique addresses, each product is advertised 3.9 times on average, and 100% of the addresses in it are in Russian, with Ukrainian by default. Measured on 07/31/2026. What the method did not show: whether goods are actually rejected in the Merchant Center is visible only in the account.

underwear store, over 110,000 items — our external dimension

Task
Evaluate whether product addresses are suitable for landing for a paid click.
Solution
Selection of 150 random product addresses of the site map with verification of the answer code of each, analysis of the map marking.
Result
50 addresses out of 150 (33%) returned 301, and all 50 led to a different position - a different size or color: 70B to 70A, L to XL, white to black. On the scale of the catalog, this is about 37 thousand addresses: the ad shows one size, the buyer gets to another. And this is the same catalog where the remarketing module correctly returns product IDs. Measured on 07/31/2026.

professional cosmetics store, more than 5,000 items — our external dimension

Task
Calculate whether there is at least some data on which automation can learn.
Solution
Checking the HTML of the main page for counters, requesting a site map and product feed, calculating the catalog by standard search.
Result
5,561 products in the live catalog and zero counters on the main: no tag container, no gtag, no pixel - conversions are not measured at all. The sitemap and feed give HTTP 200 with a body of 0 bytes, there is no product data either. Our answer here is “measurement first”. Measured on 07/31/2026.

wholesale store of building materials, B2B is our external dimension

Task
The opposite case: there is a measurement, there is no product data.
Solution
Parsing counters in HTML, counting the directory by identifiers in events, checking the sitemap and robots.
Result
3,145 products, tag container, GA4 and Google Ads remarketing tag with list view events - item IDs are already passed. And the site map gives 200 with zero body and the feed is empty. Half of the work is done, the second has not begun. Measured on 07/31/2026.
Technologies & integrations

What we build on and what it connects to

Stack

  • Google Ads, a Performance Max campaign type, is the only place where feed, search, display and video live on the same budget. The price of this is the lack of level of individual requests in the reports.
  • Google Merchant Center is a source of product data. Its requirements for content and policy are stricter than those of Ads itself: an account can be rejected for the fact that it looks normal on the site.
  • GA4 + Google Tag Manager — so that site events and campaign goals are one and the same. GA4 shows a trend, not an accounting truth: blockers and consent mode cut some of the sessions.
  • The report by search topic is the most in-depth that this campaign type provides. These are topics, not queries: spot negative keywords don't work here like they do in a search campaign.
  • Audience signals from customer lists are a starting point, not targeting. The system will go outside the list, and this is by default, not a configuration error.

Integrations

  • Google Merchant Center
  • GA4
  • Google Tag Manager
  • customer data from CRM
  • YouTube
Performance Max vs. conventional search and shopping campaigns

How this option differs from the alternative

Search + standard trading campaignOur approach
What can be seen in the reportspecific searches with a price for eachsearch topics, resource groups, traffic type
Management of minus wordscomplete, down to a separate word format the campaign and topic level; point clipping is limited
How many conversions are needed at the startalso works on small volumes, just slowerseveral dozen per month, otherwise the training will not be completed
Covering the long tail of the catalogexactly what the specialist collected with his handsthe feed closes the items that the semantics did not reach
The risk of eating your own branddriven by the campaign structurehigh, a separate exclusion of branded requests is required
How much work each weekwork with requests and bids, familiar and predictableparsing topics and groups of resources until the structure is established
What we need from you

We can't start without this — best to prepare in advance

  1. Access to Google Ads and GA4 is view-level for review, edit-level for work.
  2. Access to Merchant Center if products are advertised and where the feed is sourced from.
  3. Logo, brand image and video, if applicable. No - the system will generate its own, and it is better to make this decision consciously.
  4. Customer lists for audience signals, if you are willing to pass them on and have the consent of the people to do so.
  5. Monthly budget and conversion cost limit above which the order is unprofitable for you.
  6. Decisions on brand requests: exclude or not. It changes the numbers in the report, so it is approved before the start, not after.
If something is missing — let us know, we'll help you gather it or do it as a separate task.
FAQ

Most frequently asked questions — with concrete answers

Will Performance Max replace all other campaigns?

No, and it is this idea that most often ruins accounts. PMax works as a layer on top of an existing structure when search campaigns are already converting and have something to learn from. Move everything to PMax — and you lose the level of individual queries in reports. It will become more difficult to understand what exactly brought the order, and you can return the visibility back only by rearranging the campaigns. Priority requests remain on search, PMax works on expansion.

We have a good conversion rate in PMax, but no more money. Why?

Most often, your own brand sits in the campaign. A person searched for you by name, saw your ad, clicked — and the conversion was recorded in PMax. In the report it looks like a cheap order, at checkout it's the same order you didn't pay for before. It is checked by comparison with the period before the launch: if the total revenue has not moved, but the costs have increased, you have paid for the redistribution, not the increase. Next, we either exclude the brand, or leave it deliberately and look at the growth, not at the number within the campaign.

How many conversions per month do you need to even start?

Google calls a guideline of several dozen per campaign per month. In practice, not only quantity is important, but also uniformity: thirty conversions in a steady flow and thirty in three days of sale are different conditions for learning. The exact answer is given by checking the account. If there are fewer conversions, a more honest sequence is this: first search campaigns for direct requests, in parallel configured measurement, and only when a stable flow is gained - PMax.

Can I control where my ads appear?

Part. You set creatives, audience signals, geography, language, brand query exclusions, and some placement exclusions. There is no complete control over which network the system will spend the budget on - this is laid in the campaign type itself, not in the settings. We'll say this up front: the expectation of full control is a major source of frustration in PMax, and it's better to give it up in the brief than in the second month.

Why so many creatives if we have a product feed?

The feed closes product displays. The rest of the formats — media, mail, video — are taken from the group of resources, and if you did not provide them, the system will collect them by itself from what it finds on the site, including the edited video. It usually looks worse than any of your banners, and is shown to the same people. Minimum set per resource group: image in three proportions, logo in two, several titles and descriptions. You can not make a video - but then the decision about the automatic video should be yours, not the result of forgetting about it.

How to understand what is actually happening inside the campaign?

Through the report by search topics, breakdown by resource groups and segmentation by traffic type. This is more granular than the search report in a regular campaign: you see the topic, not the wording. But this is enough to see a shift towards the brand or the appearance of topics from someone else's category. We report these slices on a monthly report along with spending by line — instead of one bottom line that's impossible to verify.

PMax started eating impressions of our shopping campaigns. Raise the rate?

It won't help. In product displays within one account, priority is not determined by the rate, but by the type of campaign: PMax with the same product interrupts standard trading. They should be bred at the level of the assortment - with feed filters and labels, so that the same product is not in both campaigns at the same time. Plus the exclusion of the brand in PMax and various targets. This is the part of the work that has to be done by hand every week for the first month.

We don't have analytics on our site at all. Can you still run it?

Technically, yes, a campaign can be created in half an hour. This makes no sense: an automatic campaign optimizes for conversions, and if there are no conversions, it optimizes for clicks, that is, it spends the budget as quickly as possible. In the cosmetics store from our measurement on 07/31/2026, with 5,561 products, there was no counter on the main one, and the feed gave a zero body - there we answered "measurement first". The order is as follows: events and conversions, then product data, then campaign.

How long to wait until the campaign starts to give results?

The first two or three weeks are the learning period, and this is when the numbers jump. This is not a failure and not a reason to adjust the rates every day: every significant change in the budget, goal or strategy restarts the training from scratch. During this period, we remove clearly foreign topics and do not touch the rest. It makes sense to judge the campaign for a full four weeks after the end of the training and necessarily in comparison with what the account gave before it.

And if we want PMax only under the brand?

Then it's the wrong tool. You already get branded traffic for free from organic distribution, and PMax will start buying it and record it as a result. Protecting the brand from competitors in paid publishing is done by a separate search campaign with branded queries and a controlled rate - every query and every price is visible there. It is cheaper and more transparent than giving the same task to automation.

Give viewing access to Google Ads and GA4 - let's see if there is data for PMax.

The response is a document with a "launch" or "still early" answer, a list of what's missing, and an assessment of the risk of brand cannibalization. If we start early, we will say so in the first email and we will not take the job.

From measured casesGA4 and the Google Ads tag are connected - campaigns are already running in the account

View cases
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  • We work under a contract

There is no price list on the site on purpose: the same work differs several times over between two clients, and a “from” figure explains nothing in that case. First a free audit — we count your pages, duplicates and speed — then we name the sum and the deadline and fix both in the contract.