A Google campaign type that runs across Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Maps and Discover at once, with the targeting and placement decided by Google rather than by you.
Performance Max can work well once an account has enough conversion data to learn from. On a new account with a handful of conversions a month it has nothing to learn from, and tends to spend the budget where clicks are cheapest rather than where customers are.
The bigger issue for a small advertiser is visibility. The reporting does not show you which placements or search terms the money went to in the detail a standard search campaign does, so diagnosing a poor month is much harder.
This comes up most often in Google Ads Management. Search campaigns built around intent, with negative keywords, conversion tracking and landing pages that match the ad.
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