Performance Max Agency for Ecommerce

Performance Max is a black box for most advertisers, and most agencies leave it that way. They turn it on, let it run against the full catalog with no brand exclusions, and report whatever ROAS comes back as proof the algorithm is working. In reality, a large share of PMax conversions on most accounts we audit are branded queries that would have converted anyway, through organic search, direct traffic, or a Search campaign the account already runs.

That inflates reported ROAS while doing nothing to grow new customer acquisition. Worse, when a founder eventually questions why growth has stalled despite a strong-looking PMax number, most agencies have no way to answer, because they never decomposed PMax performance by channel in the first place.

We treat PMax as one channel among several, not a default

Before we touch bids, we decompose PMax performance by Search, Shopping, Display, Video, and Discovery to see which placements are actually generating conversions and which are coasting on brand demand. Brand terms are excluded so PMax can't quietly rebid on traffic your Search or Shopping campaigns already own. Audience signals are rebuilt around real customer data instead of Google's broad defaults, and asset groups are structured around distinct product categories instead of one catch-all group covering the whole catalog.

We run PMax in the configuration that fits the account: feed-only when the priority is Shopping performance without creative risk, full-build when there's strong video and image assets to feed it, cold-signal when the goal is genuinely new demand, or pure remarketing when the job is recapturing warm traffic. Every configuration is validated with geo holdout testing, so the incremental lift PMax creates is measured, not assumed from a rising blended ROAS.