Since its release, Performance Max (PMax) has been touted by Google as the future of ecommerce advertising. However, for many high-growth brands, the 'black box' nature of PMax leads to wasted spend and cannibalization of branded search. Standard Shopping, on the other hand, offers the granular control and data transparency that many sophisticated advertisers crave. So, which one should you choose for your brand? The answer isn't a simple binary choice—it's about understanding the technical trade-offs, attribution nuances, and how each platform leverages your product feed. In this guide, we break down the pros and cons of both campaign types, exploring how to use them together in a hybrid strategy that maximizes both automated power and human control.
Yes, but you need to manage your product feed carefully. If the same product is in both, PMax will typically take priority in the auction. We use 'Profit-Level' segmentation to ensure the campaigns aren't competing for the same search intent, using each for its unique strengths.
For new stores with limited data, we often recommend starting with Standard Shopping to gather 'Clean' search term data and understand what converts before scaling into the 'Black Box' of PMax. Once you have 30-50 conversions per month, PMax becomes a much more viable scaling engine.
Google has recently introduced 'Brand Exclusions' at the campaign level. For more granular control, we can also use negative keyword lists uploaded at the account level or via Google Ads Support. This is a critical step for accurately measuring PMax's incremental value.
