Why I Changed My Mind About Using PMax
Hi, I’m the former #1 PMax (Performance Max) hater in the world. Nice to meet you! At one point I made stickers saying “PMin” and ranted against the new campaign type week after week.
However, I’ve slowly but surely become a changed man. We now (carefully) use PMax in lead gen, alongside shopping campaigns, with page feeds as a dynamic search ad, and more.
I would now go as far as to say that I’m a PMax fan.
The reason? The PMax of today is not the same PMax we saw at launch. And from everything we’re seeing from the Google team, it won’t be the (improved) PMax of tomorrow.
In this blog, I’ll explain what I’ve seen from Google that’s helped change my mind.
Google Has Addressed The Biggest Issues: Negative Terms
I couldn’t give Google enough credit for addressing the biggest elephant in the room with PMax: Negative keywords.
On launch, PMax would over-leverage toward branded terms, cutting the scalability and incrementality of efforts. Google did attempt to address this with Account Negatives (a bad option if you run brand campaigns.) Then they rolled out Brand Exclusions, followed up with Negative Keywords – but only up to 100. And finally, they just upgraded Negative Keywords to 10,000 and teased the support of Negative Keyword Lists.
You no longer can make the excuse of “PMax spends too much on brand”.
Kudos to Ginny Marvin and the team at Google for listening to the community and addressing their flagship product’s biggest need.
Google is Continuing to Improve the Product (To Help Advertisers)
The improvements to PMax don’t just stop at negative keywords. A short list of positive efforts include:
- Better “keyword” search category insights are now available (though still far from perfect)
- Source info on what is driving a search category
- Improved asset reporting
- New customer value & customer retention modes
- Announcement of device targeting and demographic exclusions
- Testing of channel reporting
- Brand guidelines
- Better integration with Shopping Ads
- THE POWER PAIR, jk - this isn’t a real thing, but it did bring me joy (it just rolls right off the tongue)
- Better features to work alongside shopping placements
- High value customer mode
Kids, today’s PMax isn’t your parents’ PMax. It has evolved into a solid product that’s getting better and better every quarter.
PMax Works
As you can tell by now, I would not have recommended the initial version of PMax to advertisers.
But today, I truly believe that every performance advertiser should be using some flavor of PMax in their accounts. Yes, you’ll need more assets, but no, that isn’t an excuse. We live in an age where creative can be created cheaper than ever and is table stakes to be a good advertiser in today’s environment.
I pulled this chart from my fantastic colleague Christine “aka Shep” Zirnheld’s recent talk at SMX London:
This is from a pure lead gen campaign only reporting on SQLs. We’re seeing PMax work better and better on lead gen, assuming that the conversions are down-funnel conversions and not just ToFu offers.
Now is the time for you to test PMax if you haven’t already.
Shoutout to the community for making needs clear and concise and shoutout to the Google team for listening to the community.
Not sure how to incorporate PMax into your strategy? Contact us!
Meet the Author
Greg Finn
Greg is the Head of Performance and Innovation for Cypress North's digital marketing team and one of the founders of our agency. In 2010, he and Matt Mombrea started Cypress North in Buffalo. Greg oversaw the opening of our second office in 2022, located in his hometown of Rochester.
As Head of Performance and Innovation, Greg co-manages our digital marketing department and works closely with our team to ensure all our clients achieve the best possible results. He is always looking for ways to test new digital marketing techniques and technology, and oversees all teaching and training efforts to ensure our agency stays ahead of the curve.
Greg is also a co-host of our weekly Marketing O'Clock podcast, where he and the team provide updates, insights, and hot takes on the latest SEO, PPC, and social media marketing news. In addition to weekly news shows, Greg hosts our Marketing O'Torial digital marketing tutorials and often co-hosts bonus Marketing O'Talk episodes that bring together panels of digital marketing experts.
With nearly two decades of experience, Greg is a known and trusted voice in the digital marketing community. He’s a contributor for Search Engine Land, a member of the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) programming team, and has been a featured speaker at some of the largest search engine conferences, including SMX, eSummit, and Pubcon.
When he’s not working or staying updated on the latest trends, Greg enjoys watching his kids play sports and coaching their soccer team. He’s been named the runner-up “Greg of the Year” on Marketing O’Clock’s annual Clockscars Awards four years in a row. While the coveted award has evaded him for many years, Keanu Reeves has not. Greg once saw him at Gabriel's Gate tavern in Buffalo (and noted he was very tall.)
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