My Performance Max Secrets for 2025

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Let’s talk Performance Max (PMax) for 2025.

I’m going to walk you through a step-by-step Performance Max setup tutorial, plus 7 essential strategies to make sure your PMax campaigns are set up for success.

Let’s get straight into it.

Step-by-Step Performance Max Setup

1. Campaign Objective: Choose either Sales (for ecommerce) or Leads (for lead generation). These objectives are optimised for website conversions.

2. Conversion Tracking: Ensure your conversion goal is set correctly:

• Ecommerce: Purchases.
• Lead Gen: Form submissions or other lead actions.

3. Campaign Type: Select Performance Max and, if you’re in ecommerce, make sure your Merchant Center account is linked. This ensures your campaign can serve Shopping Ads, which are the most valuable part of Performance Max for ecommerce stores.

4. Naming Structure: Use a logical naming structure. I like to go with something like the below although this really depends what kind of structure you have planned:

• PMax - High Performance
• PMax - Low Performance
• PMax - Low Volume

5. Bidding Strategy:

• Ecommerce: Select Maximise Conversion Value.
• Lead Gen: Select Maximise Conversions.
• DO NOT set a target CPA or ROAS yet! (I’ll explain why in a bit.)

6. Location & Language: Set your targeting correctly.

7. Asset Optimisation:

• If your account has lots of conversion history, you can leave Google’s text expansion on.
• If your account is new, turn text expansion off to stop Google from making bad decisions.

8. Asset Group Setup: Create structured asset groups based on product categories, brands, or services. If you’re in ecommerce, make sure to link the correct products from your Merchant Center feed.

9. Creative Assets:

• Upload 15 headlines (some keyword-rich, some featuring USPs, some call-to-action based).
• Upload 5 long headlines.
• Upload 5 descriptions.
• Upload 20 images in a mix of square, landscape, and portrait.
• Upload at least one video (if you don’t, Google will auto-generate a terrible one).

10. Additional Assets:

• Site Links: Add as many as possible (up to 20).
• Callouts: Use all 20 available slots.
• Structured Snippets: Add relevant ones (e.g., product types, services offered).
• Promotions & Prices: If applicable, add promo extensions and price listings.
• Call Extensions: Only use if you actually want phone calls from your ads.

11. Audience Signals:

• Your Data: Use retargeting audiences (previous site visitors, purchasers, etc).
• In-Market & Affinity Audiences: Add relevant categories.
• Custom Audiences: Create audiences based on purchase intent (e.g., people. searching for “best running shoes” if you sell footwear).

12. Budget: Set a conservative daily budget and scale up based on performance.

Now, let’s get into the 7 essential Performance Max strategies for 2025.

7 Performance Max Strategies You Need to Know

1. Use the Google Ads Website Conversion Tag

If you’re tracking conversions, don’t rely on Google Analytics imports — use Google Ads' Website Conversion Tag instead.

It tracks more conversions due to different attribution models, leading to better PMax performance.

2. Start Without a Target CPA or ROAS

When launching a new PMax campaign, do not set a target CPA or ROAS initially.

Let the campaign test widely first. You can influence ROAS and CPA by adjusting the budget:

• Want a better ROAS or CPA? Lower the budget.
• Want to scale up, even if ROAS/CPA worsens slightly? Increase the budget.

3. Add a Target ROAS or CPA After 50 Conversions

Once you hit 50 conversions, add a target ROAS or CPA.

Don’t set an unrealistic goal — keep it close to the last 30 days’ performance. Then, adjust the target gradually (by 25% max every two weeks) to improve profitability.

4. Use Audience Signals Wisely

Upload customer lists, use remarketing, and add in-market and affinity audiences to guide Google’s machine learning.

5. Be Careful with Search Themes

Search Themes can be powerful, but be strategic:

• If you have a Search campaign running, DO NOT add Search Themes in PMax (or it might steal traffic from your Search campaign)
• If you don’t have a Search campaign, add your 25 most important keywords

6. Avoid Constant ROAS or CPA Tweaks

PMax optimises for your target on a 30-day rolling average.

Do not change your target daily — it will harm performance.

Wait until at least 50 conversions before making any adjustments.

7. Regularly Check Asset Performance

Google will label your ad assets as Low, Good, or Best.

Replace any Low performers and double down on Best ones by creating similar variations.

Performance Max has evolved into a serious powerhouse for ecommerce advertisers. By following the correct setup and implementing these 7 strategies, you’ll avoid common mistakes and maximise your Google Ads profitability in 2025.

Until next time,

— Daryl

What's Big Flare again?

We create profit-focused advertising campaigns on Google, YouTube and Meta. Our best fit clients are 7+ figure Ecommerce businesses that have a great product but struggle with paid ads.

Interested in working together?

Book a strategy session with me, here: https://www.bigflare.com/get-a-free-ppc-strategy-session

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