What to Check in a Performance Max Audit

A Performance Max audit answers one main question: is the campaign finding new customers, or is it taking credit for people who were already going to buy? To answer it, check what you are telling it to optimize for, whether your brand searches are excluded, where the budget is going across search, Shopping, YouTube and display, and whether total results moved when Performance Max spend went up.

1. Why does Performance Max need its own audit?

Performance Max runs across all of Google's inventory from one campaign, and for years it showed very little about where the money went. Google has added more reporting over time, but the campaign still makes most of the decisions. That makes it easy for it to pick up the cheapest conversions available, such as people searching your brand name or visiting your site again, and report them as wins.

2. Is it optimizing for the right conversion?

Performance Max learns from whatever you count as a conversion. If that includes page views, newsletter sign-ups or duplicate form fills, it will find more of those. Check which conversion goals the campaign uses, whether they carry values that reflect what each one is worth, and whether you are using the new customer acquisition setting if new customers are the point.

3. Is it eating your brand traffic?

People who search your company name are cheap to convert and would often find you anyway. If Performance Max is allowed to bid on those searches, its numbers will look great. Check whether brand exclusions are set up, and compare brand campaign results before and after Performance Max launched.

4. Where is the money going?

Use the channel, placement and search term reporting Google provides to see how spend splits between Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display and Gmail. Check the search terms it matched to, the placements it ran on, and whether final URL expansion is sending people to pages you did not choose. Look at asset groups and audience signals too. Weak assets and vague signals give the campaign less to work with.

5. Did total results change?

This is the test that matters. When Performance Max spend went up, did total leads or sales go up, or did other campaigns simply report fewer? If the total stayed flat while Performance Max claimed more, it is mostly moving credit around. A simple before-and-after comparison, or a holdout test in a few regions, tells you more than the campaign's own report.

6. How do I get help with this?

Every Google Ads audit I do includes a Performance Max assessment that shows whether it is helping or just claiming credit. Audits start at $3,500 as a flat fee. You can start with the free Google Ads Efficiency Scorecard, or book a free 30-minute call.