At our agency, we’ve had a complicated relationship with Google Ads’ Performance Max (PMAX) campaigns over the years. When PMAX was just released in 2021, we immediately jumped on it and tested it for multiple clients.
PMAX was exciting because it generated significantly cheaper leads than regular video ad campaigns, but we quickly learned that those “cheap” leads were essentially worthless because they were not converting into buyers (at least not in the short term).
We continued occasionally testing PMAX over the years, and it never quite did the job, at least not for free lead magnets (aka “free funnels”).
However, fast-forward to 2025, and we love PMAX and highly recommend it, but with a catch: only for low-ticket paid funnels.
Thanks to PMAX, we’ve been able to essentially double multiple clients’ ad spends without increasing their cost per lead (CPL). This is a big deal when your goal is to scale your business without decreasing the return on investment.
So, in this article, I will touch on Performance Max campaigns and how to run them correctly.
How We Run PMAX Campaigns At Our Agency
First, it’s important to note that Performance Max was made for rapid scaling. It’s meant to maximize your reach across various platforms to drive volume.
So, before launching your PMAX campaign, consider running regular video ad campaigns first. This allows you to refine your targeting, find your best-performing audience segments, and maximize your performance in the early stages of your marketing campaign.
In my YouTube Ads Pro course, I demonstrate in great detail how to launch, optimize, and scale YouTube video ad campaigns step-by-step.
For PMAX audience targeting, we generally combine the top-performing custom audience segments and the YouTube video viewer segments from regular video ad campaigns in the “signals” settings.
We also add relevant keywords to the “search themes” section (ideally, keywords from high-performing Search-based audience segments).
- Note: If you want to learn how to do market research and build custom audiences in Google Ads, check out modules 2 and 3 in YouTube Ads Pro. (Everything in this article will make a lot more sense if you complete the full course.)
Next, we ensure that the “asset group” contains plenty of unique headlines, descriptions, videos, and images relevant to the sales funnel and lead magnet that we promote.
Finally, we specify the conversion goal in the PMAX campaign settings (this is crucial) and set an appropriate daily budget compared to the Target CPA bid.
Once again, this should make perfect sense to anyone who studied and completed YouTube Ads Pro.
I also recommend watching my IPM Blueprint crash course to gain a thorough understanding of how strategic marketing and paid advertising work together to produce optimal results.
Why Does PMAX Work So Well?
PMAX works well for low-ticket paid funnels because paid funnels “force” PMAX’s algorithm to optimize for generating buyers rather than cheap leads.
The short conversion path (from ad click to immediate purchase) allows for consistent algorithm training and optimization. This isn’t unique to PMAX campaigns, but it’s a major contributing factor to why PMAX works well for paid funnels.
PMAX is highly scalable because it shows your ads across various platforms and finds optimal placements based on data. This allows you to spend more money without increasing bids as significantly as you would in regular video ad campaigns.
If you’re not using PMAX for your paid funnels yet in 2025, consider testing it.
However, keep in mind that the training period for paid funnels is often long and tedious, so be patient and take your time in training and optimizing your campaigns.
Advanced PMAX Success Tips
For those of you who are technical advertising wizards like our team here at Vavoza, here are a few more advanced tips to ensure maximum results with Performance Max (no pun intended):
- Bidding Strategies: Test conversion bidding strategies, such as Target CPA and Maximize Conversions, and conversion-value bidding strategies, such as Target ROAS and Maximize Conversion Value.
We use both conversion and conversion value bidding strategies in various PMAX campaigns.
However, I recommend using a single-pixel optimization goal (one post-purchase confirmation page pixel) for conversion bidding strategies and a multi-pixel optimization goal (multiple post-purchase confirmation page pixels) for conversion value bidding strategies.
Here’s why:
Conversion bidding focuses on conversion volume, while conversion value bidding focuses on maximizing customer value (and even customer lifetime value when the campaign runs long enough). - Audience Themes: Instead of combining various interest-based custom audiences into one combo audience, consider creating audience themes just as you would for regular video ad campaigns – one theme per PMAX campaign.
This gives you more control for analysis and optimization. Again, refer to modules 2 and 3 in YouTube Ads Pro for a deeper understanding of audience building and theming. - Leverage: You don’t necessarily want to run only PMAX campaigns – run them alongside your regular video ad campaigns. Leverage PMAX to offset your regular video ad campaigns’ CPL and vice versa.
For instance, if your regular video ad campaigns have a higher CPL than PMAX, focus on generating a lower CPL with PMAX.
However, if your PMAX campaigns are crushing it, slow down your regular campaigns by decreasing your Target CPA bids. This will reduce your campaigns’ spending but also decrease their CPL.
Doing so will give you more control over various metrics, which can more efficiently increase your overall lead volume and revenue.
As I said, these advanced tips are for ad techies, so if they confuse you, simply disregard them until you’re well-versed in paid advertising.
Closing Remarks
It goes without saying that these insights make much more sense when you have a fundamental understanding of how Google Ads works.
If you want to fully understand how to use Performance Max, I encourage you to complete YouTube Ads Pro. It will give you a solid understanding of the technical and strategic aspects of advertising on the Google Ads platform, which will make this guide actionable and easy to follow.
By the way, this guide was taken from an earlier article this year, 2024 Takeaways: VIP Insights For 2025 – check it out for more valuable insights.
I hope you enjoyed this PMAX guide. Stay tuned for more premium content in Vavoza Insider Plus.
– Vlad
