Google Ads has changed significantly over the past few years, and running campaigns the way you did back in 2020 is the fastest way to waste your budget. In 2026, artificial intelligence is no longer a nice extra — it's the engine that decides where and to whom your ads get shown. Understanding how to make the most of that technology is what separates profitable campaigns from ones that simply burn through spend with nothing to show for it.
Performance Max: the new foundation of Google Ads
Performance Max is now the central campaign type behind most successful Google Ads strategies. It's an AI-driven campaign type that automatically serves ads across every Google channel — Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Discover, and Maps — from a single campaign, without the advertiser needing to manage each channel separately. The premise is simple: instead of the advertiser manually deciding where an ad should appear, Google's algorithm continuously tests combinations of creative and channels to find the users most likely to convert.
This automation is powerful, but it also requires a shift in mindset: the campaign manager's job stops being "choose where to show up" and becomes "feed the algorithm the best possible assets and signals."
Asset group quality defines your results
In Performance Max, "asset groups" — the sets of headlines, descriptions, images, videos, and audience signals that make up each ad — are arguably the single most important factor in a campaign's success. The quality and variety of these assets directly determines the quality of the results the algorithm can deliver.
- Provide multiple variations of headlines and descriptions, not just a single version.
- Highlight different angles in each variation: competitive pricing, product quality, fast delivery, brand reputation.
- Include high-quality images and videos — the more formats and variations, the more combinations the algorithm can test.
It's also important to organise asset groups around customer intent, not just product category. For example, instead of one generic "Shoes" group, it may make more sense to create a dedicated group for "high-performance athletes" — with messaging about performance and technology — and a separate group for "casual users", with messaging about comfort and price. This kind of intent-based segmentation lets the algorithm show the right message to the right person, instead of one generic message for everyone.
Choosing the right bidding strategy
One of the most common mistakes advertisers make is switching to advanced bidding strategies too early. The recommendation is to always start with "Maximise Conversions", which gives the algorithm the freedom to learn from real user behaviour without cost restrictions. Only once the campaign has accumulated between 30 and 50 conversions per month does it make sense to consider switching to strategies like target CPA (cost per acquisition) or target ROAS (return on ad spend).
Switching to these more restrictive strategies too early, before the algorithm has enough data to learn from, is one of the most frequent — and most damaging — mistakes in Google Ads management. Without that minimum volume of conversions, the system doesn't have enough information to optimise accurately, and the campaign tends to become unstable or spend its budget inefficiently.
Audience signals and intent-based segmentation
Even though Performance Max is a highly automated campaign type, that doesn't mean the advertiser should leave everything entirely in the algorithm's hands with no guidance at all. Setting audience signals — such as existing customer data, custom intent audiences, and remarketing lists — gives the algorithm a solid starting point, speeding up the learning phase without limiting Google's ability to discover new audiences.
It's also worth remembering that Performance Max doesn't replace traditional Search campaigns — it should be used alongside them. Search campaigns remain essential for capturing brand searches and high commercial-intent queries, while Performance Max explores additional opportunities across Google's other channels.
Protecting your brand and evaluating results
One technical detail many advertisers aren't aware of: by default, Performance Max tends to bid on the advertiser's own brand name, generating "easy" conversions that would likely have happened anyway, even without paid advertising. To stop your budget being consumed by these conversions that don't represent new customers, you should always apply a brand exclusion list to non-branded campaigns, forcing the algorithm to focus on finding customers who don't yet know your business.
Finally, patience is essential when evaluating results. A new Performance Max campaign needs 1 to 2 weeks in its learning phase before it stabilises. After that, results should be assessed over a 4 to 5 week window, not shorter periods — because there's always a natural lag between the ad click and the recorded conversion, especially for businesses with longer decision cycles.
How Blank Studio can help
Running Google Ads campaigns effectively requires constant monitoring, ongoing testing, and real technical knowledge of how Google's algorithm actually works. At Blank Studio, we build and optimise campaigns — including Performance Max — with a clear strategy around asset groups, audience signals, and brand protection, so that every euro invested delivers measurable results for your business.
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