So I Decided to Try Performance Max...WTF?

★★★ signal-strong r/ppc · ↑ 76 · 💬 86 · 2025-07-22 · kw: cross platform inventory · open on reddit ↗

Tool

Google Ads, Performance Max

Issue

Performance Max campaign generated 56 clicks with 6 conversions (10% CR) but all conversions were fraudulent WhatsApp widget clicks with zero actual leads; experienced PPC manager unable to reconcile inflated metrics (14% CTR vs 5% normal) with zero real business outcomes.

Cost

Daily budget exhausted in 1 hour; unstated total spend but implicit revenue loss from wasted budget on bot traffic

Recommendation

Use form submissions or phone calls as conversion events instead of widget clicks; set up channel performance reporting; exclude brand traffic; bid to new customers only; implement proper negative keyword lists and placement exclusions (disputed: some commenters report $500K/mo success with Performance Max when properly configured)

extracted with

anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5 · 2026-05-08

Body

I have a lot of experience with manual CPC campaigns. I use adwords to market my own businesses and am very attentive to everything. I easily have 20k hours on the platform. With that mode of operation manual CPC has always been amazing for me. Over the many years I have been using Ads one thing has been consistently true for me: Never let Google decide what's best. Now, I get that as tech gets better this may become less of a truism. And it is with this in mind that I decided to test out Performance max. Not as a replacement for what I have been doing (which has been very successful) but as a supplement. Like, maybe there is some good traffic I am missing out on. So I made a campaign. Set up some limiting parameters (location, language) and let her rip. Within one hour I had used my daily budget (which was admittedly low). edit: All traffic was "cross platform" My CTR was 14% whereas my normal CTR on the search network is 5% I got 56 clicks and 6 conversions for a conversion rate of about 10%. My normal conversion rate is 5%. Sounds great right? Except that one of my conversion goals (lead gen) is clicking a Whatsapp widget (just the click counts. No way to tell if they actually start a convo). All 6 conversions were the WA click. I asked my office if we had any leads come through WA during that period. ZERO So WTH? It looks like crap traffic with a bot that clicks the chat widget. It seems like at minimum the network experiences aggressive fraud. I guess I have one question: Am I missing something?? There are people here praising PM but I just don't see how this can work for me.

Top comments (5)

[score=35] QuantumWolf99

That WhatsApp widget situation is PMAX junk traffic... the algorithm optimizes for whatever conversion action is easiest to trigger, which is why click-based conversions are dangerous in automated campaigns. You need form submissions or actual phone calls as conversion events, not just widget clicks. 14% CTR and inflated metrics are red flags for low-quality inventory... PMAX loves YouTube and Display placements where accidental clicks are common. I typically see this pattern when campaigns don't have proper negative keyword lists or placement exclusions from day one. For experienced manual CPC users, PMAX works better as a complement with very specific conversion actions and proper audience exclusions rather than a replacement strategy.

[score=51] TrumpisaRussianCuck

Currently spending over 500K/mo on PMax (for lead gen) and have it regularly out performing search. > All traffic was "cross platform" All traffic will be classed as cross platform. You should have channel performance reporting under Insights. That will give you the breakdown you're after. Here's some other learnings: 1. Don't have an easily gamed conversion event. PMax operates on GDN and you're inviting bot fraud in if it's easily gamed. 2. Exclude brand so it's not just cannibalising your brand traffic 3. Set it to bid to new customers only so you're not just doing remarketing and not driving incremental new users. 4. You need a conversion event that passes through value. If you have a flat value, target CPA model, it'll find the cheapest traffic that "converts", not high value customers. 5. You need to test different traffic signals, creative angles etc till you find ones that work. For some advertisers it's no signals, for others it's detailed. People shit on PMax because they don't understand how the Google algo works. Garbage in, garbage out. When it first launched it was fairly trash but now it works fine as long as you set it up properly. I'd also say you're trying to go from a twenty year old car (manual CPC bidding) to a new model (PMax). If you're looking to scale, try using smart bidding and broad match on search.

[score=9] da1nonlyoska

You want to set up conversions that are either lead fork completions or offline uploads of transactions/purchases. Clicking on a widget is not a conversation action to set as primary

[score=9] kbutters9

I’m old enough to remember when “phrase match” and [exact match] worked incredibly well, because “phrase” and [exact] actually was an accurate description of the tool. when the ‘all search term tool gave more than enough data to build solid negative keyword lists …… and Google Ads created a desire to increase budget bc you knew legit things would / were transpiring. Oh, and when if you bid $4.50 for a keyword phrase you weren’t billed $67.24 for an obscure click on a keyword Google doesn’t identify.

[score=68] potatodrinker

PMAX is for newbies. Not us old dogs who still, out of habit, call it AdWords 😅