Our agency wants us to switch to a Performance Max campaign, but does it make sense for our budget?

Your agency just wants to make their own lives easier simple as that. Managing classic search requires actual effort—adding negative keywords testing ad copy, etc. With Performance Max, they just upload a few images and headlines sit back and bill you every month. With a 1,500 EUR budget, the PMax algorithm will just burn through your cash showing banners on garbage clickbait sites.

We made the exact same mistake with our shoe store in Florence. We switched our 1,800 EUR monthly budget over to PMax. The first month our ROAS spiked to 4.2 and we celebrated, but when we dug into the data we realized 80% of those sales came from people who typed our brand name into Google anyway. The second we added brand keywords to the negative list, ROAS plummeted to 1.4 and we flushed 1,000 EUR down the drain.

If you're in e-commerce and decide to go with PMax, you should at least start it as 'feed-only'. Meaning, don't add any copy, images, or videos, and just run it like the old Standard Shopping campaigns. That way, Google won't blow your budget on banners in random mobile games or spam YouTube channels, and will only show your ads in shopping results.

Before making the switch, demand these three conditions from your agency: 1) Applying a Brand Exclusion list from day one. 2) Keeping your current profitable search campaign running on the main budget for at least two more months. 3) Allocating a separate test budget for PMax that doesn't exceed 15 EUR a day.

our agency did the exact same thing two weeks in we saw we were getting clicks from total garbage apps budget got burned zero orders. anyway whatever you do dont let them pause your working search campaign you can never get back that old performance afterwards.

So if we don't negative-match brand terms how do we know if the campaign is actually working? If conversion numbers look high in the dashboard, doesn't that prove those sales came from outside?

You don't touch a campaign running at 3.8 ROAS. Rule number one of digital marketing: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If they want to test something new, bump the budget from 1,500 to 1,800 and let them experiment with that extra 300 EUR. Don't let them gamble with your money.

Of course they'd suggest that. Saying "AI does everything on its own" is code for pocketing a retainer while spending thirty minutes a month glancing at a dashboard. Brilliant business model, kudos to the agency.

Thanks, this was very helpful.

I completely agree. When you try to change everything at once, nothing settles.

Just leaving this note, it might be useful.

Let me share my experience. The biggest time-waster for us was not knowing who had the final say.

When making decisions, write down the worst-case scenario too, not just the best. Good luck with that.

Exactly like that. If you get three different answers on a topic, the question was asked wrong.

Hope this helps.

Same here.

There's a part I don't understand. People defend habits, not processes. Resistance comes from there.

When you try to change everything at once, nothing settles. Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

I can't fully agree with this. Trying to do this alone is the most expensive way.

Proven by experience.

There is something to watch out for. Trying to do this alone is the most expensive way.

Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

I felt relieved reading this answer, so it's not just me. Don't trust anyone who gives guarantees; there are no guarantees in this business.

This is my opinion, I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

Thanks this was very helpful.