Should I Use Performance Max or Standard Search Campaigns?

Standard Search when you need control and visibility; Performance Max when you have enough conversion data for the automation to have something to learn from. Running Performance Max on a thin account usually means paying Google to guess.

Web to Spec starts most accounts on Search campaigns structured by commercial intent, then introduces automation once there is sufficient purchase history for it to optimise against.

How Web to Spec decides

• Conversion volume, which determines whether automation has enough signal.
• Whether the account needs visibility into which queries are converting.
• Brand traffic, which Performance Max will absorb and take credit for.
• Product feed quality, which largely determines Performance Max results in retail.

What Performance Max hides

The visibility issue is the real trade-off. Performance Max reports less about where spend went, which makes diagnosing a decline considerably harder.

Web to Spec reports search terms and campaign-level performance separately for exactly this reason, and holds Google Ads AI-Powered Performance certification covering the automated campaign types.