The Smart Way To Take Back Control Of Google’s Performance Max [A Step-By-Step Guide]

This post was sponsored by Channable. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

If you’ve ever watched your best-selling product devour your entire ad budget while dozens of promising SKUs sit in the dark, you’re not alone.

Google’s Performance Max (PMax) campaigns have transformed ecommerce advertising since launching in 2021.

For many advertisers, PMax introduced a significant challenge: a lack of transparency in budget allocation. Without clear insights into which placements, audiences, or assets are driving performance, it’s easy to feel like you’re flying blind.

The good news? You don’t have to stay there.

This guide walks you through a practical framework for reclaiming control over your Performance Max campaigns, allowing you to segment products by actual performance and make data-driven decisions rather than hope AI figures it out for you.

The Budget Black Hole: Where Your Performance Max Ad Spend Actually Goes

Most ecommerce brands start by organizing PMax campaigns around categories. Shoes in one campaign. Accessories in another. That seems logical and clean but can completely ignore how products actually perform.

Here’s what typically happens:

• Top sellers monopolize budget. Google’s algorithm prioritizes products with strong historical performance, which means your star items keep getting the spotlight while everything else struggles for visibility.
• New arrivals never get traction. Without performance history, fresh products can’t compete, so they never build the data they need to succeed.
• “Zombie” products stay invisible. Some items might perform well if given the chance, but static segmentation never gives them that opportunity.
• Manual adjustments eat your time. Every tweak requires you to dig through data, make changes, and hope for the best.

The result? Wasted potential, uneven budget distribution, and marketing teams stuck reacting instead of strategizing. You’re already doing the hard work; this framework helps that effort go further and helps you set and manage your PPC budget efficiently and effectively.

How To Fix It: Segment Campaigns By What’s Actually Working

Instead of organizing campaigns by category, segment by how products actually perform.

This approach creates dynamic groupings that automatically shift as performance data changes with no manual reshuffling.

Step 1: Classify Your Products into Three Groups

Start by categorizing your catalogue based on real performance metrics: ROAS, clicks, conversions, and visibility.

Star Products

These are your proven winners, with high ROAS, strong click-through rates, and consistent conversions. Your goal with stars is to maximize their potential while protecting margins.

• Set higher ROAS targets (3x–5x or above based on your margins).
• Allocate budget confidently.
• Monitor to ensure profitability stays intact.

Zombie Products

These are the “invisible” items that haven’t had enough exposure to prove themselves. They might be underperformers, or they might be hidden gems waiting for their moment.

• Set lower ROAS targets (0.5x–2x) to prioritize visibility.
• Give them a dedicated budget to gather performance data.
• Review regularly and promote graduates to the star category.

New Arrivals

Fresh products need their own ramp-up period before being judged against established items. Without historical data, they can’t compete fairly in a mixed campaign.

• Create a separate campaign specifically for new launches.
• Use dynamic date fields to automatically include recently added items.
• Set goals focused on awareness and data collection rather than immediate ROAS.

Step 2: Define Your Performance Thresholds

Decide what metrics determine which bucket a product falls into. For example:

• Stars: ROAS above 3x–5x, strong click volume, goal is maximizing profitability.
• Zombies: ROAS below 2x or insufficient data, low click volume, goal is testing and learning.
• New Arrivals: Date-based (for example, added within last 30 days), goal is building visibility.

Your thresholds will depend on your margins, industry, and historical benchmarks. The key is defining clear criteria so products can move between segments automatically as their performance changes.

Step 3: Shorten Your Analysis Window

Many advertisers’ default to 30-day lookback windows for performance analysis. For fast-moving catalogues, that’s too slow.

Consider shifting to a 14-day rolling window for better analysis. You’ll get:

• Faster reactions to performance shifts
• More accurate data for seasonal or trending items
• Less wasted spend on products that peaked two weeks ago

This is especially important for fashion, home goods, and any category where trends move quickly.

Step 4: Apply Segmentation Across All Channels

Your segmentation logic shouldn’t stop at Google. The same star/zombie/new arrival framework can (and should) apply to:

• Meta Ads
• Pinterest
• TikTok
• Criteo
• Amazon

Cross-channel consistency compounds your optimization efforts. A product that’s a “zombie” on Google might be a star on TikTok, or vice versa. Unified segmentation helps you connect products to the right audiences on the right channels and distribute budget accordingly.

Step 5: Build Rules That Move Products Automatically

Here’s where the real efficiency gains come in. Instead of manually reviewing every SKU, create rules that automatically shift products between campaigns based on performance.

For example:

• If ROAS exceeds 3x–5x over your analysis window – Move to Stars campaign
• If ROAS falls below 2x or clicks drop below your average (for example, 20 clicks in 14 days) – Move to Zombies campaign
• If product was added within a set time limit (for example, the last 30 days) -Include in New Arrivals campaign

This dynamic automation ensures your campaigns stay optimized without requiring constant manual intervention.

Get Smart: Let Intelligent Automation Do the Heavy Lifting

The steps above work—but implementing them manually across thousands of SKUs and multiple channels is time-consuming. Product-level performance data lives in different dashboards. Calculating ROAS at the SKU level requires combining data from multiple sources. And building automation rules from scratch takes technical resources most teams don’t have.

This is where the right use of feed management and the right use of PPC automation really helps. For example, it can merge product-level performance data into a single view and let you build rules that automatically segment products based on criteria you define.

To see what this looks like in practice, Canadian fashion retailer La Maison Simons offers a useful reference point. They faced the same challenges-category-based campaigns where top sellers consumed the budget while newer items never gained traction.

After shifting to performance-based segmentation, they saw measurable improvements without increasing ad spend:

• ROAS nearly doubled over a three-year period
• Cost-per-click decreased while click-through rates improved
• Average order value increased by 14%
• Their dedicated new arrivals campaigns consistently outperformed expectations
• Perhaps most notably, their previously “invisible” products became some of their strongest performers once they received dedicated visibility

The takeaway isn’t about any single tool, it’s that performance-driven segmentation works. When you stop letting one popular item take all the budget and start giving every product a fair shot based on data, the results tend to follow.

Learn more about the success story and the full details of their approach here.

Quick Principles to Keep in Mind

• Segment by performance, not category: Budget flows to what works, not what’s familiar
• Use 14-day windows for fast-moving catalogues: Capture fresher signals, reduce wasted spend
• Give new products their own campaign: Build data before judging against established items
• Automate product movement between segments: Save time and stay responsive without manual work
• Apply logic across all paid channels: Compounding optimization across Google, Meta, TikTok, and more

Your Next Step

Performance Max doesn’t have to feel like handing Google your wallet and hoping for the best. With the right segmentation strategy, you can restore control, surface overlooked opportunities and make smarter decisions about where your budget goes.

Curious whether your product data is ready for this kind of optimization? A free feed and segmentation audit can help you find gaps and opportunities, no commitment, just clarity.

Because better data leads to better decisions. And better decisions lead to results you can actually control.

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Channable Used with permission.

In-Post Images: Images by Channable. Used with permission.