Google Shopping (Performance Max)

What it actually means

Performance Max, PMax, is Google's primary shopping campaign format. It uses your Merchant Center product feed plus brand assets, logos, images, headlines, to dynamically generate ads across all Google surfaces. PMax needs conversion data to optimize; Google recommends enough conversion volume per asset group for the algorithm to learn. Best practice: separate brand bidding from generic into different campaigns because PMax can over-cannibalize branded search, exclude branded search terms, segment by margin tier, and use audience signals to seed the algorithm.