2025 has seen a number of exciting evolutions in the Google Ads space, including the introduction of AI Max optimization strategies and new ads opportunities for nonprofits using the Google Ad Grant. Performance Max campaigns are among the most significant of these expansions, providing a new AI-driven campaign type for Google Ads users that has major potential for increased reach and impact in both paid and Grant accounts.
What are Performance Max (pmax) campaigns?
Google Performance Max (or Pmax) campaigns are highly-automated, conversion-driven campaigns that serve ads across all of Google’s ad inventory. In the past, nonprofits have had to manage search, display, video, and other Google ad campaign types separately, manually allocating budget and developing audiences and ads for each channel. Pmax campaigns allow advertisers to take advantage of Google’s AI-powered creative and ad placement tools to run more efficient campaigns that are designed to serve ads wherever users are most likely to convert. This means that your nonprofit can set and achieve your digital goals (like volunteer sign-ups, resource downloads, or donations) without having to build and manage separate search, video, and display campaigns.
Using Pmax Campaigns in the Google Ad Grant
Google recently announced that nonprofits can use their Google Ad Grant accounts to run Pmax campaigns. This is a deviation from past restrictions, which kept Ad Grant account strictly search-only. However, there’s a limitation: Pmax campaigns in Google Ad Grant accounts can only access search and map placements, meaning they won’t have access to the full inventory offered in traditional, paid Pmax campaigns. Still, this presents a great opportunity to organizations that have a physical presence in their communities. For organizations that don’t have physical locations but do have conversion goals that are relevant to a broad audience, Pmax campaigns may still be worth a test to see how Google’s more updated algorithmic placements may support your digital goals.
Stay on top of the latest for nonprofits in digital advertising, AI, and the Google Ads universe. For more hands-on support with Google Ad Grant strategy and management, look out for our next Ad Grant Cohort session.
Benefits of Pmax Campaigns for Nonprofits
At the simplest level, Pmax campaigns promise maximum optimization via maximum automation. This has a few key upsides:
Efficient campaign management
By allowing advertisers to access all of Google’s ad inventory within one campaign type, Pmax campaigns can greatly reduce the amount of time it takes nonprofits to build, manage, and monitor campaigns in Google’s advertising platform. Instead of managing multiple paid search, YouTube, and Google Display network campaigns to achieve your fundraising goals, Pmax campaigns theoretically allow you to access those same audiences and ad placements all within one campaign. This is less time investment from your team in building, monitoring, and reporting on your paid media strategy.
Conversion-focused budget optimization
Pmax campaigns take the fullest advantage of Google’s algorithm to serve ads in the placements and to the users most likely to take the specified conversion action. This level of automation allows for more efficient and sophisticated campaign optimization, reducing the time your team spends digging through data to understand which ad types, audiences, headlines, graphics, and other elements are most effective at achieving your goals.
AI-assisted creative augmentation
Appropriately sized and formatted creative is a non-negotiable in digital advertising, but the necessary level of creative customization can be a barrier for a lot of nonprofits. Pmax campaigns allow nonprofits to upload a variety of creative assets and copy, which Google uses to dynamically create ad placements. This level of automation gives advertisers access to more ad inventory, maximizing relevant reach cost efficiency.
7 Steps for Running Successful Pmax Campaigns
While Pmax campaigns are highly automated, their success still relies on high-quality, strategic inputs from you and your team. The following steps are critical in developing an effective Pmax campaign:
1. Set a goal:
Be clear on what it is you are aiming to achieve with these campaigns. For example, you might be looking to recruit volunteers via a form submission on your site, encourage users to download PDF resources, or drive donations. The goal should be measurable and easily achieved on your website.
2. Ensure accurate conversion tracking
Once your goal is clear, ensure that you have conversion tracking configured properly within Google Ads. This is a critical step in all advertising, but especially for Performance Max campaigns, which rely so heavily on conversion data to inform where, when, and to whom ads are served.
3. Organize strategic asset groups
Asset groups are bundles of creative, copy, logos, and other info that Google will use to create the ads that it shows to your audience. Because Google will consider all of these elements together, it’s important that these assets all work together to form a cohesive message – each asset should be relevant to, and make sense alongside, all of the other assets. Learn more about Google’s asset specs.
4. Clearly define your target audience
Performance max campaigns allow advertisers to give Google “audience signals”, which are general audience suggestions to aid the algorithm in ad placements. Unlike ad targeting for other campaign types and platforms, these are truly just a suggestion – Google will serve ads to whichever users are most likely to convert. Still, you might employ relevant affinity audiences, search segments, demographics, or other audience signals that give the campaign an initial direction.
5. Enable location assets
Pmax campaigns allow your organization to opt into map placements, giving you the opportunity to reach people searching on Google maps for local services or resources. If you have physical locations, like blood donation centers or food banks, this is an incredible opportunity to reach people locally.
6. Closely monitor performance
With extreme automation comes extreme variability. Monitor your campaign performance early and often to ensure it is delivering the conversion value you are looking for, and make adjustments to assets and audience signals as needed to hit your advertising goals.
Pmax Risks: Automation vs. Control
With increased automation comes decreased control. While nonprofits stand to gain quite a bit from this lower-lift campaign approach, it does not come without risks. A few points for nonprofits to keep in mind:
Lack of control over creative
If you’re using Google’s automated creative tools to their fullest extent, be mindful of how those tools might deviate from your brand and language standards. Depending on the nature of your mission and the content you’re promoting, this can pose significant risks to your brand’s presentation.
Vague audience definitions
Because Pmax campaigns are designed to serve whichever users the algorithm thinks are most likely to convert at that moment, your ads are likely to show to users who fall outside of the audience signals you input. This means you could have a much broader reach than you may be used to having with highly-targeted search campaigns. If your campaign is designed to get information to a very specific demographic, or deals in more sensitive topic areas, this might be something to avoid.
Less visibility into what is working
While Pmax campaigns do offer insights around creative performance, advertisers get less granular performance data for Pmax campaigns than are offered for paid search and YouTube campaigns. This can make it a bit more difficult to manually tweak the campaign toward stronger performance over time.
Stay on top of the latest for nonprofits in digital advertising, AI, and the Google Ads universe. For more hands-on support with Google Ad Grant strategy and management, look out for our next Ad Grant Cohort session.