Skip to content
English
Contact us
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

Performance Max vs Demand Gen: which Google campaign type should you run?

PMax chases conversions across inventory, Demand Gen buys visual demand upstream.

Performance Max chases conversions across all of Google's inventory from one campaign. Demand Gen buys attention on Google's visual surfaces before people search. If you need leads this quarter, PMax is the closer. If your problem is that nobody knows you exist, Demand Gen is the right tool.

What each one is

Google's help documentation describes Performance Max as giving access to "all Google Ads inventory, including YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps, from a single campaign," driven by your conversion goals, assets and audience signals. It notes that search campaigns with exact match keywords are prioritized over PMax for matching queries, and that you can steer it with negative keywords, brand exclusions, search themes and Final URL expansion settings.

Demand Gen, per Google's documentation, serves on "YouTube (including Shorts), Discover, Gmail, Maps, and the Google Display Network," and is built to "generate demand and deliver business results on Google's most visual, entertaining surfaces." It accepts images, video, carousels of 2 to 10 cards and product feeds, and lets you choose which channel your ads run on.

What each one needs from you

  • Performance Max needs conversion volume and clean conversion data. It is an optimization engine, and it will optimize toward whatever you tell it a conversion is. Feed it unvalidated form fills and it will find you more of them.
  • Demand Gen needs real creative and a defined audience. Without good video and images it has nothing to work with, and its job is demand creation, so judging it on last click conversions will make it look worse than it is.

When a small account should run neither

If you are not yet converting reliably on search, adding an automated campaign type does not fix that, it spreads it. Get search working, get tracking trustworthy, then let automation scale it. We say this to prospects regularly, including ones who came to us specifically asking for Performance Max.

Related: Can you run Performance Max (PMAX) campaigns on Google?, How does LevelUp Digital approach paid media strategy?, How do you track leads and conversions?, and our PPC advertising page.