Performance Max Placements: View, Control & Optimize

In 2021, Google revolutionized advertising with the Performance Max campaign, offering unprecedented reach across its platforms. Advertisers can now promote products across Google Ads inventory to reach more potential customers and increase conversions.

The Performance Max campaign has made a huge difference compared to the previous campaigns in Google Ads. It enabled advertisers to run ads across all the Google channels, including Google Shopping, Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps, and Google Business profiles by creating just one campaign.

While Performance Max offers a competitive edge, many advertisers find it challenging due to its ‘black box’ nature.

Let’s explore the limitations of Performance Max campaign placements, their impact on campaigns, and how you, as an advertiser, can take control of your Performance Max placements.

What Are Performance Max Placements? 

Google’s AI automatically decides ad placements and optimizes them based on your goals for Performance Max campaigns. In addition to goals, it optimizes the placements by analyzing user intent, behavior, device, location, and more. As an advertiser, this means you get less control over the placements of your ads. However, by utilizing features like Pmax search themes, you can provide Google with specific keyword cues to better align your ads with relevant search queries, thereby enhancing placement relevance.

PMax placements cover a wide range, including Search Ads, Display Ads, and more.

Google AI uses asset groups to determine ad placements. Asset groups combine various elements like headlines and images to create optimized ads. Google AI smartly mixes these elements to create and optimize ads for different placements across the Google Network.

To get the best results, ensure your asset groups are well-structured. For detailed information, refer to this article on performance max ad examples.

IMPORTANT: If you’re looking to promote your physical store through performance max campaigns, there is a subtype in performance max campaign called performance max for store goals.

How do you access the Performance Max Placement Report?

Access the PMax placement report through Google Ads, where you can view all the placements where your ads were served and the impressions garnered across the Google network. 

NOTE: Keep in mind, this report is more about brand safety than performance.

Step-by-step approach to accessing the Performance Max Placement Report:

STEP 1: Log into Google Ads and navigate to Campaigns. Click the Insights &reports drop-down menu and click Report editor.

STEP 2: Click Performance Max campaigns placement on the right-hand side of the page.

STEP 3: Select the filter icon to add filters to your report.

NOTE: Create custom reports directly in Google Ads. To create a custom report,

• Click on the create button in the report editor. 
• Under Attributes, select Performance Max placement to add it as a row. 
• Under Performance, choose Impr. (impressions) to add as a column.

Interpreting the Data

As discussed earlier, the PMax placement report is not for campaign performance evaluation. Therefore, it does not include data such as clicks or conversions. Instead, you can check for the specific placements of your ad along with the impressions generated.

Data included in the report is as follows:

Performance Max placement: Indicates the specific site, app, or video where your ad appeared.

• Google Owned & Operated: is a category for sites owned by Google, like Gmail, Play, Discover, and YouTube. 
• Anonymous. google placement: Anonymous.google refers to all the ad placements publishers configure to avoid disclosing their site name to advertisers.
• Google Search impressions: Google search impressions aren’t considered a placement, and thus are excluded from reporting.
• Video no longer available: This category indicates that your ad was shown in or adjacent to a YouTube video that no longer exists. The YouTube channel owner could have deleted the video, made it private, etc., after the ad was placed.

NOTE: If you do not find sufficient data in your report, this is because ad placements are relevant to only certain Google Ads inventory and channels in Performance Max.

To get in-depth insights, Google advises using other campaign-level reporting tools.

Performance Max placement type: Categorizes the placement (e.g., Webpage, Mobile App, YouTube Video).

Impressions: Shows how many times your ad appeared on each placement.

Use Tools for in-depth Insights

• Semetis, Looker Studio, and Optmyzr are some tools that provide detailed analysis of Performance Max placements. 
• You can also integrate your chosen third-party verification tools into your Performance Max campaigns for brand safety analysis.

How to Exclude Placements in Performance Max?

Due to the Performance Max campaigns’ automated nature, controlling this type of campaign has limitations. However, you can exclude Performance Max placements in a few steps. They are:

STEP 1: Review your Placement Data

Using the Performance Max placement report, review placements such as websites and YouTube channels where your ad was served. Analyze the impressions that point towards the placements not aligning with your brand or campaign goals.

As mentioned, you can also use third-party tools to get in-depth insights.

Now that you have understood specific ad placements that do not add value to your campaigns, let’s remove them. 

STEP 2: Set Up Performance Max Placement Exclusion Lists

We will discuss three methods for setting up exclusion lists. The exclusion list is a list of ad placements you would like to remove from placing your Performance Max campaigns. 

METHOD 1: Placement Exclusion at Account-Level

STEP 1: Go to Tools >> Shared Library >> Exclusion Lists 

STEP 2: Click on the ‘+’ icon to create a new list.

STEP 3: Give a name to the list, select the placements you wish to exclude from your campaign, and save it.

We will be discussing the placement exclusion list in detail in the strategies section.

METHOD 2: Utilize the Performance Max Campaign Modification Request Form

• You can use Google’s Performance Max Campaign Modification Request Form to exclude up to 65,000 placements for individual Performance Max campaigns.
• Fill in the basic details and check the ‘placement exclusion’ box.
• Submit the completed form to Google for processing.​

NOTE: Requesting changes through a standard or administrator account can help speed up the implementation process. 

Why are my Performance Max Placements not Performing Well? 

Placements aren’t the sole reason for underperformance. Several factors contribute to underperformance, such as:

Insufficient Conversion Data

Performance Max targets new customers based on your goals. For that, the Performance Max campaign depends entirely on data. It looks for audiences, demographics, and user behavior patterns and creates a customer persona. From there, it starts to target similar audiences who are more likely to convert. That is why you need a good conversion data portfolio before running the Performance Max campaign.

Tip: Aim for at least 30 conversions a month to optimize your campaign, one conversion per day, before running a Performance Max campaign. Begin with a standard shopping campaign to build your data portfolio.

Irrelevant and Low-quality Placements

• Performance Max campaigns have unlimited reach; your ads are spread across Google’s extensive network. While this approach promises increased visibility and ad conversions, it leads to low engagement and wasted ad spend.
• A few PMax placements you can avoid are gaming sites, clickbait sites, children’s content, and mobile apps (applicable only when promoting an app).
• To overcome this problem, use a PMax placement report to review the specific placements your ads are serving and exclude unwanted placements at the account level, or submit the Performance Max modification form.

Poor-quality Creative Assets

• When you add insufficient or low-quality assets, the Performance Max campaign automatically generates a few images and videos. In most cases, auto-generated PMax assets often lack brand consistency, affecting the clickability of ads.
• Therefore, ensure you add all the videos, texts, and images. In addition, avoid low creative asset coverage to maintain good ad strength. Try adding options for each asset type, such as several images, videos, and texts.

Avoid Overlapping Audience Signals

• Although adding audience signals is optional in the Performance Max campaign, Google advises you to do so to improve campaign effectiveness. That being said, you must avoid broad or overlapping audience signals to show ads to relevant users.

Another reason the Performance Max campaign does not perform well is that it has limited performance data. Therefore, advertisers must consider using third-party reporting tools and Google Ads scripts to gain insights into placement performance. 

Impact of Performance Max Placements on Key Metrics

We were unable to gather statistics specifically related to PMax placements. However, we could collect some information on how Performance Max campaigns impact key metrics.

Click-through Rate:  According to a study by Lebesgue, the average CTR for Performance Max campaigns is close to 1.19%, slightly lower than the overall Google Ads average of 1.52%.

Conversion Rate: The same study indicates an average conversion rate of 1.83% for Performance Max campaigns, comparable to the overall Google Ads average of 1.96%.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Lebesgue study also states that Performance Max campaigns have an average ROAS of 125%, meaning advertisers earn $1.25 for every $1 spent.

Strategies to Optimize Performance Max Placements

We have put together a few practical strategies on how to optimize Performance Max placements. 

Enhancing Creative Assets to Suit Various Placement Types

• Provide a variety of high-quality and relevant images, videos, headlines, and descriptions to serve ads on different channels, such as YouTube and shopping ads.
• Add four or more unique images at the ad group level. Go through this official page on Google’s image assets.
• Use images with varying aspect ratios in your ads to convey your unique selling points.
• Curate creative assets to match the context of each Channel. For instance, use engaging videos for YouTube and compelling images for Display Network.​
• After launching the campaign, allow time for the campaign to gain traction and add additional asset groups. Organize asset groups like you do for ad groups by a common theme. You can also separate them by the products or services you offer.
• Experiment with assets by testing and refreshing them often.
• Review asset performance reports regularly to identify and replace underperforming creatives. To do so, go to campaigns >> select assets >> view performance data like conversions and conversion value.

Refining Audience Signals for Better Targeting

Although smart bidding algorithms optimize bidding for your campaign, adding relevant data to PMax audience signals is crucial to improve overall performance optimization.

How to refine audience signals?

• Avoid adding all the audience signals into one asset group. Instead, create different asset groups for distinct audience segments for precise targeting.
• Ensure the audience signals you provide align with your campaign objectives, products, and services.
• Regularly review and update audience signals based on campaign performance data to refine targeting and improve results.
• Use Google’s audience targeting capabilities, such as affinity and in-market audiences, to further improve your targeting.

What are Affinity and In-market segments? Affinity: Engage with users based on their interests and habits.In-Market: Connect with users actively researching or considering purchases in specific categories.

Implementing Negative keywords and Placement Exclusions in Performance Max

Add Negative Keywords to Performance Max Campaign

You can exclude specific terms that are not relevant to your products or services in your Google Ads account. You can apply this at the account level or by submitting a request through the Performance Max Campaign Modification Request Form.​

Here’s how to add negative keywords in performance max on the account level.

STEP 1: In your Google Ads account >> click on campaigns >> select Audiences, keywords, and content >> select keywords >> Click the ‘+’ icon to add negative keywords. 

STEP 2: Start adding negative keywords in the text area, and remember to save it.

Add Placement Exclusions in Performance Max

We have already discussed adding placement exclusions in PMax. In this strategy, we will be looking at how to add specific URLs to the exclusion list. To do so, you must spend some time reviewing where your ads are served. To do that:

STEP 1: Go to the performance max placement report page, thoroughly check for placements, and remove irrelevant ones. To check if a particular website is irrelevant, click on it and go through it. This could be a clickbait, meme, or gaming website irrelevant to your products.

Identify such sites and copy their URLs into a notepad on your computer.

STEP 2: The next step is to exclude these URLs, for that, go to Campaigns >> Click on Content >> Click ‘Edit Exclusions’ on the right-hand side page. 

STEP 3: Select ‘Enter’ and start pasting the URLs one after another.

Tip: A quick tip to exclude such URLs in bulk is to go back to the ‘edit exclusions’ page, find mobile app categories, select them, and check all the boxes. When you do that, you exclude ads from all the possible categories on mobile apps.

Monitoring and Adjusting Bids Based on Placement Performance

Advertisers cannot adjust bids to optimize PMax placements. But, they can follow the indirect methods that influence placements, such as:

• Organizing PMax campaigns and asset groups can influence budget allocation and ad frequency on different placements.
• Preventing ads from appearing on particular websites or channels at the account level using the exclusion methods.
• Providing high-quality and relevant ad assets.
• Providing strong audience signals to target specific user segments who may be more active on certain types of placements.

Best Practices for Managing Performance Max Placements

Try different asset combinations: As discussed earlier, provide a wide range of assets such as images, videos, and texts to allow AI to optimize combinations for various audiences and placements. You can also use the experiments feature within Google Ads to test different combinations.

Stay Updated with Google Ads Platform Changes: Google continuously makes changes to the Performance Max campaign, including placement control and reporting features. Stay informed about the changes to optimize your campaigns effectively.

For example:

• In March 2025, Google updated the limit of adding negative keywords to Performance Max campaigns from 100 to 10,000 per campaign.
• Google also improved its reporting feature. Advertisers can gain deeper insights into asset performance and customer acquisition metrics.
• Starting May 1, 2025, Google Ads will automatically enable brand guidelines for new Performance Max campaigns created in the Google Ads UI. However, advertisers must provide consistent brand assets (business name, logo, and landscape logo) across all asset groups within that campaign. 

Collaborating with Google Support: As the Performance Max campaign doesn’t allow you to exclude certain terms at the campaign level, you can create a negative keyword list and request Google support to apply it to your Performance Max campaigns. 

For advanced placement control or if you notice issues with irrelevant Performance Max placements, contact Google Ads support for guidance.

Monitor Placement Report: Monitor the Performance Max campaigns placement report in your Google Ads account. When you identify underperforming channels or unexpected placements that do not align with your brand or performance goals, exclude them.

Conclusion

Performance Max offers unique opportunities in Google Ads, enabling you to reach your ideal customers in the best possible way. Even though placements are automated, you can still control certain things like excluding placements, adding negative keywords, and more.

Use these strategies to take control of your Performance Max campaigns. Optimize your campaigns and watch your success grow! 

FAQs

What are placements in Google Performance Max campaigns?

PMax placements refer to the placements where ads appear across Google’s channels, such as Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Discover, and Maps.

How can I see where my Performance Max ads are showing?

You can view placements by navigating to Campaigns > Insights & Reports > Report Editor > Click on Performance Max campaigns placement. There, you will find a table with specific placements where your ad appears and impressions generated.

Can I control placements in Performance Max campaigns?

While direct control is limited, you can exclude Performance Max placements at the account level or request exclusions through the Performance Max Campaign Modification Request Form.

Why are my Performance Max placements not performing well?

A few reasons include low-quality placements, poor-quality creative assets, or insufficient data for audience targeting.

How do placements impact the results of a Performance Max campaign?

Performance Max placements impact metrics like CTR, conversion rate, and ROAS.

What strategies optimize PMax ad placements?

Enhancing creative assets, refining audience signals, implementing exclusions, and continuously monitoring performance are some of the key strategies to optimize placements.

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