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Performance Max Not Spending or Getting Few Impressions: How to Fix It

The usual reasons a Performance Max campaign for an online store spends little or nothing, in the order to check them, with Google's own guidance.

Curated byTerry Ecom (opens in a new tab)

Updated

The short answer

Give a new campaign a few days: Google says that if an ad gets no impressions after three business days, it's time to look for a cause. The usual causes for an online store are few approved products, a Target ROAS set higher than the campaign can reach, a budget too small for the cost per click, conversion tracking problems, or a campaign still learning.

Check in this order

  1. Campaign and ads: the campaign should be Eligible. New or edited ads take one to two days to be reviewed.
  2. Products: in Google Merchant Center, check that the products in the campaign are approved for Shopping ads. Disapproved products can't show, and the listing groups must include the products you expect.
  3. Target: a Target ROAS higher than the campaign achieves makes it skip auctions. Google suggests lowering the target gradually rather than all at once.
  4. Budget: Google's guideline is a daily budget of at least 10 times your expected cost per click.
  5. Conversion tracking: Google says spend may be limited without working conversion tracking. Check the conversion action's status under Goals, then Summary.
  6. Learning: automated bidding typically needs one to two weeks, sometimes up to six, after a campaign starts or changes a lot. Avoid frequent or large changes in that time.
  7. Assets: fill each asset group with varied text, images and, ideally, a video, so ads can show in more places.

Other campaigns can take the traffic

If a Standard Shopping campaign includes the same products, Google says the campaign with the higher Ad Rank serves. A Search keyword that exactly matches the search is preferred over Performance Max. A quiet Performance Max campaign can simply be losing to your own campaigns.

What not to do

  • Don't delete and recreate the campaign every few days. Each new campaign starts learning again.
  • Don't swing the target by large amounts. Move it in small steps and wait.
  • Don't split a small catalog into many tiny campaigns. Each needs enough clicks to learn.

How UltraROAS.ai does this for you

UltraROAS.ai checks every day that campaigns can serve: products approved in Google Merchant Center, purchase tracking working and budgets able to spend. It holds back sales-based changes while tracking looks broken, moves targets and budgets in small steps, and tells you only when something needs a person, such as broken purchase tracking.

Try it freeFree plan, no card: see everything Optimize would change before you pay.

Questions

How long does Performance Max take to start spending?
New ads usually take one to two days to be reviewed. Google suggests looking for a cause if there are still no impressions after three business days.
Does Performance Max need conversion tracking?
It can run without it, but Google says spend may be limited. For an online store, track purchases with their value.
Why is my Performance Max campaign Limited?
Hover over the status in Google Ads to see the reason. A target set too high and a budget too low are the most common for stores.

Google's own help pages

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