Performance Max Spending on the Wrong Products? Here Is the Fix

Performance Max can be one of the most profitable campaign types for an online store. It can also quietly spend most of its budget on a handful of products while the rest of your catalogue gets almost nothing. If your best-margin products are starved and low-margin products eat the budget, the campaign is not broken. It is doing exactly what it was told, with the information it was given.

Why Performance Max favours certain products

Performance Max puts budget where it expects the most conversion value soon. That usually means:

• Products with a sales history get more budget, so new or slow products never get a chance
• Cheaper products convert more often, so they win even when they make little profit
• Products with strong images and complete feed data are easier to show
• Branded searches are easy wins, which can inflate results

The fix is not to fight the algorithm. It is to give it better structure and better signals.

Segment products by margin and performance

The most useful change for most stores is splitting products into separate campaigns or asset groups based on what they are worth to you. Use custom labels in your product feed:

• custom_label_0: margin band (high, medium, low)
• custom_label_1: performance (best seller, steady, zero sales in 30 days)
• custom_label_2: price band
• custom_label_3: seasonality or promotion

Then build campaigns around them. High-margin products can run with a lower ROAS target and more budget. Low-margin products get a higher target or move to Standard Shopping for tighter control. Products with no recent sales can sit in a separate campaign with a small test budget, so they get impressions without draining your winners.

Asset groups, audience signals and exclusions

Inside each campaign, structure matters:

• One theme per asset group. Group products that share an audience and message, with images, headlines and video made for them.
• Audience signals from your data. Customer lists, site visitors and high-intent search themes help Performance Max start in the right place. They are hints, not limits.
• Brand exclusions. Exclude your brand name if you already run a brand Search campaign, so Performance Max is judged on new customers.
• Negative keywords. Account-level negative keywords now apply to Performance Max. Use them for irrelevant or low-value searches.
• New customer goal. If growth matters more than repeat orders, consider the new customer acquisition setting and value new buyers higher.

Reports that show where the budget actually goes

You cannot fix what you cannot see. Check these regularly:

1. Products report. Cost, conversions and conversion value per product. Look for products with spend and no sales.
2. Channel performance. How spend splits across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display and Maps.
3. Search terms insights. The themes driving conversions.
4. Asset performance. Which images, videos and headlines help and which hold you back.

Compare the conversion value Google reports with orders and revenue in your store. If they do not match, fix purchase tracking before changing anything else. Performance Max optimizes toward the value it sees, so wrong data sends budget in the wrong direction.

When to use Standard Shopping instead

Performance Max is not always the right tool. Standard Shopping gives more control over search terms and bids, which helps with low-margin products, small budgets and very competitive categories. Many stores get the best results running both: Performance Max for reach and growth, Standard Shopping for control.

If Performance Max is spending on the wrong products in your store, our e-commerce team can review your feed, campaign structure and tracking on a free strategy call.