Google Performance Max in 2025: What Is Actually Working for Indian Brands
Performance Max campaigns give Google almost full control over where and how your ads show. Most Indian brands are either ignoring it or running it wrong. Here is what the data from our accounts actually shows.
D Venkataramana
Founder, Digi Brand Booster
Why Performance Max is not just "Smart Shopping 2.0"
When Google launched Performance Max in 2022, most advertisers treated it as an upgraded Smart Shopping campaign. It is not. PMax runs across Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Discover simultaneously from a single campaign. The algorithm decides placements, bidding, and audience targeting based on the asset groups and conversion signals you provide. The quality of what you feed the campaign determines almost everything. Poor creative assets and weak conversion tracking produce poor results regardless of budget, which is why many Indian brands have written off PMax after one bad test.
The asset group structure that consistently outperforms
Most agencies create one asset group per PMax campaign and throw in everything they have. We structure asset groups by audience intent instead. One asset group for cold audiences (broad interest targeting with awareness-focused creative), one for warm audiences (remarketing signals with comparison or proof-based creative), and one for high-intent bottom-of-funnel (existing customer lists excluded, strong CTA creative). This separation gives the algorithm distinct signals for each funnel stage and prevents low-intent display clicks from burning budget that should be going to high-intent search placements.
Conversion signals: the input that most Indian advertisers get wrong
PMax is only as smart as the conversion data you feed it. If you are optimising for form fills that include tyre-kickers and spam leads, the algorithm will find more tyre-kickers. We always push higher-quality conversion events to Google: qualified leads marked after a sales team review, purchase events with revenue values, and free trial activations that historically convert to paid. For one SaaS client in Bangalore, switching the optimisation goal from "lead form submitted" to "trial activated" reduced cost per acquisition by 34 percent in six weeks while the total lead volume dropped by only 18 percent.
Brand vs non-brand: the bidding conflict no one talks about
Performance Max will bid on your branded keywords. If you are also running a separate brand campaign, PMax and your brand campaign compete in the same auction, which inflates CPCs for your own brand terms. The fix is to add your brand terms as campaign-level negative keywords in PMax so branded traffic is captured exclusively by your dedicated brand campaign at a lower bid. Google does not make this easy, and the interface for adding campaign-level negatives in PMax has changed multiple times. As of mid-2025, you need to request brand exclusions through your Google rep or via the campaign settings under "Brand exclusions".
Search Themes: the control lever most advertisers are not using
Google added Search Themes to PMax in 2023 as a way for advertisers to guide the algorithm toward specific search queries. Think of them as broad match keywords without bids. You can add up to 25 search themes per asset group. We use them to steer PMax toward high-intent, high-revenue query patterns we have validated in regular Search campaigns first. For example, if "SEO agency Bangalore for D2C brands" converts at a much lower CPA in Search than "digital marketing company India", we add the specific phrase as a search theme to bias PMax toward that intent. This alone improved conversion quality significantly for two of our Google Ads clients.
When to use PMax and when to use standard campaigns instead
PMax is not the right choice for every situation. It works best when you have significant conversion volume (at least 30 to 50 conversions per month), clean conversion tracking with revenue data, and sufficient creative assets across formats. For new accounts with limited data, standard Search campaigns build a cleaner conversion history first. For brand awareness goals, standard Display or YouTube campaigns give more placement control. For highly specific B2B queries with small audiences, exact match Search campaigns outperform PMax because the algorithm does not have enough signal to operate efficiently at low search volumes.
Want this done for your brand?
Book a free 48-hour audit. We will identify exactly what is holding back your performance and what to fix first.
Get My Free Audit