An agency practitioner compares Performance Max and standard shopping campaigns, arguing neither is universally better. His agency has generated over $50 million in client revenue through PMax, but he recommends testing both and switching based on what actually works for your business.
If performance max is not working for you, I get this question a lot, then pivot. Try standard shopping. Try going back to a manual CPC if you have to. If you're feeling this pinch and you just a continued decline, then switch. Try going back to standard campaigns. If you're on standard campaigns and you haven't tried performance max, give it a shot. You have to keep testing. Best practices are just best practices, right? That doesn't mean it's going to be best for you. I have clients that pmax does not do anything for and we run standard shopping, we run standard search, we run DSA campaigns, we run standard remarketing. I have accounts where we tested pmax after running a very well optimized standard structure and pmax is doing better for us. So you have to test. There is no one size solution for everyone out there. The number one thing I talk to businesses about right now though is stop blaming the advertising. It's hard. It sucks. I get it sucks for me as an agency, but you can't just say, all right, Google Ads is down, we're down. Right? Start working on your business. And many business owners I talked to today still are not doing that. We have generated over $50 million in revenue for our clients using Performance Max campaigns. We decided we're going to download our knowledge of Performance Max campaigns into a free, easy, practical course and just give it away to the community. Go grab this free course and I'll see you inside.
Google Ads Negative Keywords: The RIGHT Way to Find and Add Negatives in 2026
