For a multi-product store, the two main schools of thought on PMax structure are consolidation versus control. You can either throw everything into one big campaign and trust the algorithm, or you can strategically segment your campaigns to maintain control over budget and data. The right choice makes a huge difference in your ability to scale profitably.
Camp A: The Consolidated "All-In" Approach
This approach leans fully into the promise of Google Performance Max. The argument is to create a single PMax campaign, feed it all your products, assets, and a healthy budget, and then let Google's machine learning do its thing. Sam Piliero on the 2X eCommerce Podcast breaks down how PMax hits all five of Google's channels at once: Shopping, Search, Demand Gen, YouTube, and Display. The philosophy here is that giving the algorithm the maximum amount of data in a single campaign provides the fastest and most effective path to finding converters across the entire Google ecosystem. This is the simplest structure to set up and manage, and it aligns with the "low-maintenance" benefit that Brett Curry highlights on The My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. You are trusting that how the machine learning contribute to the success of your ads is by having the widest possible canvas to paint on.
Camp B: The Segmented "Brand vs. Non-Brand" Split
This more advanced strategy is all about regaining control from the PMax black box. The most common and effective segmentation, championed by Tony Chopp on Ecommerce Playbook, is to create two separate PMax campaigns: one for branded search terms and one for everything else (non-brand). On the episode "Navigating the PMax Puzzle," Tony explains his agency’s most common tactic is running a "brand versus a non brand PMAX campaign." The reason is simple: PMax loves to find the cheapest, easiest conversions, which are almost always people already searching for your brand name. If you let it, PMax will spend a huge portion of your budget on branded search, delivering a fantastic but misleading ROAS. Separating the two lets you set a lower, more appropriate target for non-brand prospecting and a higher efficiency target for brand protection, giving you a much truer picture of your ad spend distribution and new customer acquisition.
Personally, I land firmly in Camp B. The segmented approach is more work to set up, but it's essential for any store that’s serious about growth. The consolidated approach makes it nearly impossible to know if PMax is actually finding new customers or just taking credit for sales you would have gotten anyway from people searching your brand. As Ginny Marvin, a Google Ads Liaison, acknowledged on Ecommerce Playbook, using multiple campaign types requires you to be thoughtful about overlap and strategy. By separating Brand and Non-Brand, you aren't fighting the algorithm so much as giving it clearer boundaries to work within. This gives you clean data on your actual growth efforts (Non-Brand) without the numbers being inflated by defensive brand spend.
So, what should you do? If you are a brand new store with a very small budget, it's perfectly fine to start with a single, consolidated PMax campaign to gather initial data. But as soon as you have consistent revenue and a marketing budget of any significance, you should implement the Brand vs. Non-Brand split. This structure provides the clarity needed to make smart decisions about scaling your budget, optimizing your creative assets, and truly understanding your profitability on Google Ads.
