Shopping Ads vs. Performance Max: Which One Should You Choose?

What Are Shopping Campaigns?

Shopping campaigns promote individual products on Google Search and Google Shopping, using data from your product feed.
They focus heavily on your feed quality (title, description, image, price) rather than keyword targeting.

 

Key features:

• Manual control over bidding, structure, and negatives. tROAS is also available, but the key is that you can use manual bids.
• Ads shown primarily on Search and Shopping results
• Ability to segment products granularly
• Better transparency into what is working

 

 

What Are Performance Max Campaigns?

Performance Max (PMax) is a fully automated campaign type that runs ads across all Google networks — Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discover — using a combination of product feeds and creative assets.

 

Key features:

• Automated bidding, targeting, and placements
• Reach users across multiple Google properties
• Asset groups (text, image, video) + audience signals
• Optimizes towards your specified goals (conversions, conversion value)

 

 

 

Campaign Structures: Best Practices

 

Shopping Campaign Structures

Typical structures:

• Single campaign, many ad groups: Easy to manage but less control.
• Multiple campaigns by priority: For example, separating best-sellers vs. long-tail products.
• Brand vs. Non-Brand segmentation: Target brand searchers differently.
• Product-based campaigns: High-margin products in their own campaign to maximize ROAS.

💡Pro tip:
Use campaign priority settings (high, medium, low) smartly when you have multiple Shopping campaigns overlapping.

 

Performance Max Campaign Structures

Typical structures:

• Single PMax campaign for all products: Good for small catalogs.
• Multiple PMax campaigns segmented by:
• Product categories (e.g., Shoes vs. Accessories)
• Business goals (New Customer Acquisition vs. General Sales)
• Margins (High-margin vs. Low-margin products)
• Performance (Best-sellers in one PMax, new products in another)

💡Pro tip:
Use Listing Groups to control which products are promoted inside each campaign.

 

How Many Conversions Are Needed?

Machine learning needs sufficient data to optimize properly.

For Smart Bidding (used in both Shopping and PMax), Google recommends at least 30-50 conversions in the past 30 days per campaign.

PMax works best with 50+ conversions per month. Below that, it can behave unpredictably or not optimize properly.

 

If you have <30 conversions/month, consider:

• Grouping products together into fewer campaigns
• Using manual bidding or maximize clicks to gather more data initially
• Starting with Shopping campaigns before scaling into PMax

 

✅ 30+ conversions = “learning” is stable
✅ 50+ conversions = “optimization” begins properly
✅ 100+ conversions = “scaling” effectively

 

Segmentation Strategies: Best Practices

Segmentation helps structure your campaigns for better control, reporting, and optimization. Here’s how:

Shopping Campaign Segmentation

• By Product Type: Shoes, Accessories, Apparel
• By Price Point: Premium products vs. affordable ones
• By Margin: High-margin vs. low-margin items
• By Seasonality: Holiday-only products vs. year-round
• By Brand: Especially if you sell multiple brands
• Best Sellers vs. Long Tail: Push high-performing products separately

Example:

Create one Shopping campaign only for your top 20 best-selling products to give them extra budget.

 

Performance Max Segmentation

• By Product Category: Asset groups match different product lines
• By Customer Journey Stage: Asset groups for prospecting vs. remarketing
• By Conversion Value: Group products that have similar value targets
• New vs. Returning Customers: Use PMax goal settings for New Customer Acquisition (NCA)

Important:

Use different audience signals for different asset groups to guide PMax without restricting it.

 

💡Prio tip: PMax uses signals not targeting, so avoid having too detailed signals, there is no need for that, as algorithm can go beyond what you specified based on conversions.

 

When Should You Use Each?

Use Shopping Campaigns When:

• You have <100 products and need tight control.
• You have a smaller budget.
• You want manual control over bidding, negatives, placements.
• You are optimizing for specific products or collections.

 

Use Performance Max When:

• You have hundreds or thousands of products.
• You have a larger budget (minimum ~$50/day recommended).
• You want maximum reach across Search, YouTube, Display.
• You focus on scaling revenue or ROAS goals.
• You can wait through a longer learning phase.

 

PMax Feed-Only Campaigns vs. Full Asset PMax Campaigns

Not all Performance Max campaigns are built the same way.

Depending on your goal, you can either:

• Use Feed-Only PMax (no extra assets)
• Use Full PMax with Assets (creative assets + feed)

 

Here’s the difference:

Feed-Only PMax Campaigns

• Only product feed is uploaded (titles, descriptions, prices, images).
• No headlines, descriptions, videos, or images manually added.
• PMax behaves almost like a Smart Shopping 2.0 campaign.
• Ads appear mainly on Search and Shopping surfaces — less on Display or YouTube.
• Creative formats are generated automatically from the feed (with minimal brand feel).

 

When to use Feed-Only PMax:

• When you want to focus mainly on Shopping traffic.
• When you don’t have good creative assets (images, videos, etc.).
• When you want to mimic the old Smart Shopping campaigns.
• When your priority is product sales, not brand awareness.

 

Full PMax Campaigns with Assets

You provide asset groups: (headlines, long headlines, descriptions, images, logos, and videos)

Ads can show across all Google surfaces:

• Search
• Shopping
• Display
• YouTube
• Gmail
• Discover

Google dynamically assembles ads using your assets depending on user intent and channel.

 

When to use Full PMax with Assets:

• When you want to maximize reach across all Google properties.
• When you have strong creative assets (images, videos, copywriting).
• When you want to build brand awareness + drive direct sales at the same time.
• When you want better control over the branding and messaging of ads.

 

 

Optimization Techniques for Both

Optimizing Shopping Campaigns:

• Feed optimization: Better titles, images, prices. Use promotions in the Merchant center if possible.
• Campaign segmentation: Best-sellers, margins, brands
• Negative keywords: Essential to avoid waste. Use Keyword lists to make your life easier.
• Device/location adjustments: Manual fine-tuning
• Use Smart Bidding (optionally): tROAS

 

Optimizing Performance Max Campaigns:

• Feed quality: Accurate, updated product info. This is important for both.
• Asset groups: High-quality headlines, descriptions, images, and videos
• Strong audience signals: Custom segments, remarketing lists
• Exclude unwanted products: Refine listing groups
• Analyze Insights reports: Watch asset performance, top search terms
• Run experiments: Test campaign settings or segmentation variations

 

Both Shopping and Performance Max are essential tools in a modern e-commerce advertiser’s toolkit.
Shopping gives you control and transparency, while PMax gives you scale and automation.

Choosing the right structure — and knowing when you have enough data to optimize properly — is key to success.
In many cases, a mix of both can deliver the best results: use Shopping campaigns for control over key products and PMax for scaling across channels.

Master both, and you’ll build a future-proof, profitable Google Ads account.