Create a Performance Max campaign

You can create a single, easy-to-manage Performance Max campaign to promote your products or services across the Google Network. This article provides information on the various ways to create your Performance Max campaign based on your campaign goals and data feeds, and links to resources that can help you optimize your Performance Max campaign. Learn more About Performance Max campaigns.

On this page

• What to expect when a campaign is created
• Get the most out of your campaign

Before you begin

Performance Max campaigns automate bidding, budget optimization, audiences, creatives, attribution, and more to help you get more conversions and value from your advertising. Performance Max is the recommended option to use when:

• You have specific advertising and conversion goals.
• You want to maximize campaign performance, and you aren't limited by advertising channels.
• You want easy access to all of Google’s advertising channels using a single campaign.
• You want additional reach and conversion value beyond keyword-based Search campaigns.

What to expect when a campaign is created

After you create your campaign, it can take time for your Google Ads to show impressions. This delay may be because:

• Learning phase: Campaigns that use automated bidding strategies need time to optimize, typically 1-2 weeks, but sometimes up to 6 weeks. During this learning phase, you may notice performance fluctuations or changes in spend while Google AI learns how to optimize for your set goals. It is important to avoid making frequent or large changes to the campaign’s budget, bidding strategy (for example, Target CPA, target ROAS), or targeting during this period. Allow the Smart Bidding strategy 1-2 conversion cycles to learn and optimize after any significant changes. For new campaigns, expect an initial 24-48 hours for data to populate.
• Ad review: It takes 1-2 days for newly created or edited ads to be reviewed to help ensure that they meet all policy requirements.
• Settings Adjustments: It takes Google AI some time to adjust serving if you make changes to your campaign settings. Gradual adjustments to targets like ROAS (if too high) or CPA (if too low) are recommended to avoid limiting campaign serving.

If your ad doesn't receive any impressions after 3 business days, review How to fix Google Ads Performance Max campaign not running or low traffic.

Go to Campaigns

Get the most out of your campaign

To run a successful campaign and maximize how your campaigns serve over time, ensure that both conversion tracking, remarketing lists, and asset quality are optimized. Review the following best practices before you create or edit a Performance Max campaign:

• Track your conversions: You should use conversion tracking with your Performance Max campaigns. Google AI maximizes not only conversion events like online purchases, signups, and purchases from phone calls, but also your conversion value to determine how to spend a daily budget. Ensure conversion tracking is set up correctly and relevant conversion actions are added as goals to your campaign. Allow 24-48 hours for the system to update after setting up conversion actions. You can create Performance Max campaigns without conversion tracking or without meeting conversion tracking requirements, but your campaign’s spend may be limited
• Use remarketing lists and audience signals: You should use your most updated remarketing lists and provide strong audience signals to guide the AI. To ensure the best coverage for your ads, maintain more than 100 active users in the last 30 days and at least one new user in the last 2 days for remarketing lists. Ensure audience signals are broad enough and not overly restrictive. You can run existing Performance Max campaigns without meeting remarketing requirements, but your campaign’s spend may be limited.
• Optimize Assets and Ad Strength: Provide a diverse set of high-quality assets (text, images, videos). Performance Max campaigns automatically create videos if none are uploaded or if the system deems it beneficial; however, uploading your own videos is prioritized and recommended. If your campaign is not serving, check your asset groups for ad strength and ensure all required assets are present. Adding relevant search themes to asset groups can also improve targeting and initiate performance. If you're using location assets, ensure your Google Business Profile is correctly linked and locations are approved.
• Budget and Bidding Strategy: Set an adequate daily budget and avoid overly restrictive Target CPA or Target ROAS settings, as these can limit campaign reach. If performance is low, consider gradually increasing the budget or adjusting bid strategy targets.