Since initially writing about performance makes there have been substantial changes to the product and delivery. Further to our two previous blocks on this topic here are some updates as of March 2026 which reflect the latest information about this campaign type.
Our previous communication was that this is really just a shiny black box where there is very little information available about the service being provided. Now we have new reports available which opens at black box and allows us to look inside about what it’s actually happening.
This has laid basic information about where your ads are serving and performance of these various networks, placements, such terms and other elements.
1 – Channel performance report: the channel performance report snuck into the Google ads interface without much fanfare. This is an incredibly useful report which shows various metrics per channel. For example you can see which channel brought in the most clicks or calls or revenue. Why is this important? While it is useful to understand which elements are leading to leads in which are not. Often the channels which are not resulting in Leeds have something holding them back for example there are insufficient videos in your YouTube channel or the Google shopping performance is lacking. It is important to ensure that all relevant columns are added in to understand cost per lead and also return on expand if you are a e-commerce advertiser.
Note if you are at e-commerce advertiser it shows the performance when product items are displayed and when product items are not displayed. For example in Google search when product items are not displayed that means your air are coming up in the search field. If product items are displayed then you are appearing on Google shopping. Same goes on YouTube and Google display network because they can dynamically serve products within those ads.
2 – Poor placements: we still have the placement report which shows where the ads are performing in particular in the display network. Where there is excessive spend on placements like words with friends, Sudoku, crosswords and even foreign language sites then we generally find that clicks and conversions from here are fat finger accidents and I’m not genuine.
3 – Search terms: there is now the option to view search term reports on performance campaigns. Previously this was unavailable and you really had very little idea on what queries your ads showed for from a Google perspective. This also shows your brand spend which is critical to understand if you are serving to new clients or just getting conversions from existing clients.
4 – Negative keywords: it is now possible to add negative keyboard to performance campaigns without the manual intervention of Google staff directly. Previously there was a laborious method to ask your Google account to manually add these in. These days they can be done by anyone.
Optimisation tips
Now that we have this information at hand the obvious letters there are two push to optimise performance max campaigns are as follows:
- Asset strength – always make sure that your asset strength is at excellent or as close to excellent as possible. This means adding in quality add headlines, business logo, site links, images, videos and of course a product feed if you’re running an e-commerce business
- Audience signals – ensure that you have the keyword seem targeting set up and also ensure that you have uploaded all audience starter such as remarketing list, client list etc. That means not only will you target people looking for your product or service but you will also get the benefit of enhance bidding on people who have previously interacted with you before.
- Search term report – ensure that you’re checking the search term report periodically and navigating anything which is wasteful
- Bid strategy – for service base businesses, once you have more than 25 conversions in a 30 day look back period you can switch from maximise clicks to maximise conversions. Similarly if you’re running an e-commerce business once you have 25 conversions in that 30 day look back then you need to be using maximise conversion value value.
- Channel optimisation – as per comment of periodically check the channel performance report in which ever channel has poor performance but should logically convert. Make sure that you have appropriate assets for that channel, for example YouTube should have a wide array of videos.
If you have any more questions about performance, Max don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our experts by calling our 1300 number or simply request a free audit order on your account.
