Performance Max spending but no sales: what to check, and when to cut it

What this means

Performance Max (PMax) is a campaign type that lets Google access all Google Ads inventory from 1 campaign. Google picks where each ad runs: Search, Shopping, Display (banner ads on other sites), YouTube, Gmail and more. You set the budget and the goal. Google decides the rest.

When PMax spends and Google Ads shows no sales, 1 of 2 things is true. Either sales happen and Google Ads isn't counting them, or the ads really aren't selling. Check them in order, because every later check reads numbers that the first one has to make trustworthy.

Why it costs you money

PMax bids with Smart Bidding, Google's automatic bidding. Google says that using Smart Bidding, real-time auctions bid based on your conversion probability. It learns that from the purchases your tracking reports. With no purchases coming in, it has little to learn from, and the budget still gets spent.

Here's a worked example. A store keeps 40% of each sale after product cost, shipping and fees. Its break-even ROAS (return on ad spend: sales per $1 of ads, as a percentage) is 100 / 40 = 250%. Below that, the ads lose money. Its average order is $120, so it can pay up to $120 x 40% = $48 in ads for each sale.

Its new PMax campaign has run for 21 days. Its buyers usually order within 3 days, so that's the end of Google's window (see check 2). It spent $1,800 on 900 clicks, $2.00 a click, and Google Ads shows 0 sales. At $48 a sale, $1,800 is the ad cost of 37.5 break-even sales, with nothing back. The owner had set a test limit of $1,500 before launch, so the campaign is already past it.

Say the owner finds the cause and the next 14 days spend $1,200 and bring in $1,800. ROAS is 1,800 / 1,200 = 150%, below the 250% break-even. The store keeps $1,800 x 40% = $720, so it's down $480 after ads. To break even on $1,200 it needs $3,000 in sales. At $3,600, a 300% ROAS, it keeps $1,440 and makes $240. Run your own numbers in the break-even ROAS calculator.

How to check your account, in order

1. Is tracking counting real purchases?

Compare the sales Google Ads shows with the orders your store got from Google ads in the same days. If your store has orders and Google Ads has none, the tracking tag (the code that reports each sale to Google Ads) is broken. If your store has no orders from those clicks either, place a test order on your phone from a page the ads link to. A broken checkout or a missing payment method stops sales just like weak traffic does. Follow the steps to fix conversion tracking that stopped.

Then check what PMax is told to buy. A conversion action is 1 thing Google Ads counts as a result. Primary actions are the ones used for bidding as long as the standard goal they are part of is used for bidding. Secondary actions are for observation only. If Add to cart is Primary, PMax can hit its goal and still sell nothing. Here's how to set Add to cart back to Secondary.

2. Is it still learning, or too new to judge?

Learning is a status on your bid strategy. Google says you can determine whether your campaign is still learning by consulting its bid status. Its Smart Bidding page says you may see a "Learning" status in your account for up to 7 days, and your ads continue to run and serve as normal. It also says budget and target updates take effect in the next auction, but never trigger "Learning" status. Google's page on primary and secondary conversion actions says otherwise. It says Smart Bidding needs a standard 7-14 day learning phase, and that frequent budget or target changes will reset the learning window. Both pages warn about the target. The Smart Bidding page says to avoid making multiple target changes within a single conversion cycle. So set your target once. If you add budget, add it once, then wait.

The label ending doesn't mean the campaign is ready to judge. Google says Smart Bidding performance typically converges to your new goal within 1 to 2 conversion cycles. After that, it says to evaluate performance over 2 conversion cycles or a 2 week window (whichever is longer). A conversion cycle is how long your buyers usually take to order after they click an ad. If most buyers order within 3 days, allow up to 6 days to settle, then judge the next 14. That's about 3 weeks. If they take 10 days, allow up to 20 days to settle, then judge the next 20. That's up to 6 weeks.

3. Do the target and budget leave room to find buyers?

A Target ROAS tells Google the return you want. Google warns that setting a target that's too high may limit the amount of traffic your ads may get. It also says very restrictive settings, such as tight targets, low daily budgets, or narrow targeting, can slow down campaign ramp-up. A $20 daily budget with $2.00 clicks buys about 10 clicks a day. That's very little to learn from. Read whether to raise a budget that's limited before you add money.

4. Where is the money going?

1. Go to Campaigns within the Campaigns menu, open the Insights and reports drop down and pick Channel performance.
2. Pick the PMax campaign in the filter at the top. The channel distribution table shows cost and conversions for each channel, such as Google Search, Display Network and YouTube.
3. Select Segment on the table toolbar (a segment splits each row into parts) and add Ads using product data. That shows how much of the Search cost was Shopping ads.
4. Read the Status column. Eligible (Limited) means something is holding that channel back. Hover over it to see why.

If most of the cost sits on Display and YouTube with no sales, that's your answer. Then see which searches the rest bought. Open Search terms insights (Google's steps) for the themes. For cost per search, open the search terms report and choose Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max. Searches that will never buy from you can go on a negative keyword list, a list of searches you block. In PMax, negative keywords apply to Search and Shopping inventory only.

For the split by asset group (a set of images, text and products inside PMax), go to Asset groups within the Campaigns menu and switch to the table view.

5. Are your products approved?

Go to Products within the Campaigns menu and open the Diagnostics tab. Products marked Not eligible can't show. Google says that if an item violates Shopping ads policies, it must be approved before it can serve. If your best sellers are blocked, the campaign is spending without its strongest products. Here's how to find and fix products that aren't showing.

6. Are the few sales brand searches?

Sometimes PMax shows a handful of sales, and they all came from people who typed your store name. Those people were coming anyway. Count those sales out and the rest of the campaign may be at 0. Here's how to judge PMax without brand searches. To keep your name out of PMax, Google offers brand exclusions in campaign settings.

How PerfoAds flags it

PerfoAds flags any campaign that spent money and got 0 conversions over the audit period, once it has 25 clicks or more. Below 25 clicks it doesn't call it. When nothing else is flagged, the report names those campaigns as too thin to judge. It holds the finding back for a campaign that first spent under 14 days ago, and says so in the report. If your main conversion action has stopped recording, it files the campaign under that tracking finding, since broken tracking explains the 0.

PerfoAds also runs 2 Performance Max checks that show where the money went:

• Off Search and Shopping. It flags a PMax campaign when under half of its cost went to Search and Shopping. It needs at least $50 (or the same in your currency) of cost it can place by channel. Gmail, Discover and mixed rows are left out of the share and printed beside it.
• Products that don't sell. It flags a product inside a PMax campaign that spent past a money bar with no sale. The bar is the higher of your average cost per conversion and a floor set by monthly spend: $20 under $1,000 a month, $50 up to $10,000, $100 up to $50,000 and $200 above. The fix it gives is to exclude that product in the asset group's listing group (the product selection). A product past the same bar whose sales came to less than its ad cost is flagged too. For that one, the fix it gives is to move the product into its own asset group (or its own split in the listing group) with a higher return target, and to check its price against competitors.

When it is not a problem

• It's inside your window. A new campaign needs 1 to 2 conversion cycles to settle, then 2 cycles or 2 weeks to judge, whichever is longer. Inside that window, 0 sales may only mean it hasn't had time. Google also says to account for conversion delay, the days between a click and the sale being reported.
• You sell high-ticket items. At 1 sale a month, 3 weeks of 0 sales can be normal. Judge it over a longer window, and judge it in dollars.
• A channel looks weak on its own. Google says that looking at the average return from one channel especially over short timeframes doesn't tell the full story. Weak Display numbers over 1 week aren't proof yet. Weak numbers over 6 weeks with no sales are.
• An asset group looks weak on its own. Google says we don’t recommend removing asset groups based on this information. Judge the campaign first, then the parts.

When to cut it, and how to fix it

Before you launch, write down 2 numbers: your break-even ROAS, and the most you'll spend to find out. Then work through the checks above in order, fixing as you go.

1. Fix tracking first. Every other number depends on it. Once it's fixed, judge the campaign only on the days after the fix.
2. Give it time when the setup is sound. Tracking works, products are approved, the budget buys real traffic, and you're still inside the window from check 2. Leave it alone and don't keep changing settings.
3. Fix what the checks found. Block searches that won't buy, get products approved and lower a target that's choking traffic. If most of the money went to banner ads, check whether your campaign has channel prioritization. Google says it lets you set priority tiers across inventory to guide how your campaign budget is allocated, and that Search partners and the Google Display Network can be configured with separate priority tiers. Search partners are sites outside Google that show its search ads. YouTube, Search and Gmail are grouped together as "Google channels", so YouTube can't be split off this way. If you don't see the setting, your account may not have it yet.
4. Cut it when the window and the limit are both used up. If it's past the window from check 2, past your test limit and still at 0 sales, pause it. Then move the budget to campaigns that clear your break-even ROAS.
5. Cut it when it sells below break-even. Sales that come in under your break-even ROAS lose money on every order. A smaller budget won't change that. Cut it, or fix the cause first and test again with a new limit.