Since the launch of its automated campaign type Performance Max back in 2021, Google hasn’t exactly been subtle in pressing advertisers to make the switch from standard Google Ads campaigns to PMax. So PPC advertisers were pretty shocked when Google revealed that, as of October 2024, they will no longer prioritize PMax campaigns over Standard Shopping campaigns.

Here’s the announcement from Google:

“We are changing how Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns interact. Now, if you are running Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns together, Performance Max will no longer be automatically prioritised when the campaigns are in the same account targeting the same products. Instead, Ad Rank will determine which campaign serves an ad. This is consistent with how Performance Max works together with other campaign types like Demand Gen.”

This move runs counter to Google’s messaging in recent years, which has strongly encouraged advertisers to use PMax. For example, they’ve discontinued Smart Shopping campaigns and moved these features to PMax, forcing many advertisers to switch to PMax.

The timing of this move was also notable, coming just before the major shopping season kicked off. This understandably caused some panic among eCommerce marketing teams who’d already set up their ad campaigns for Black Friday and the festive season.

It’s possible this major switch signals a bigger change in direction from Google. But at the moment, it’s unclear exactly why Google has chosen to deprioritize PMax over standard shopping campaigns.

So what does this mean for you and your Google Ads campaigns? Should you stick with PMax, switch back to Standard Shopping, or use both? In this article, we’ll take a look at how experienced PPC marketers are interpreting and tackling this unexpected change, as well as some of the early results. 

Selina Patel’s PMax/Standard Shopping Strategy

We recently spoke to PPC expert Selina Patel on an episode of the Paid Media Lab podcast about all things PMax vs. Standard Shopping in 2025 and beyond.  

Selina’s been diving deep into what the deprioritization of PMax vs. Standard Shopping means for marketers, and has been a frontrunner when it comes to testing and theorycrafting the best strategies going forward. 

We’ll get into the full implications of PMax deprioritization below, but first, we’d highly recommend listening to Selina’s thoughts on PMax vs. Standard Shopping going forward:

Topics & timestamps: 

0:00 - Intro

02:34 - What Google's deprioritization of PMax means for marketers

05:19 - Early Data on Standard Shopping performance

06:47 - How PMax feed-only has weakened significantly due to the change

08:15 - Key advice for marketers: How to manage the change in prioritization + feed-only

09:40 - Shopping Spend Alert Script: Custom script to monitor changes in spend

10:27 - The implications of consolidated campaign structures for PMax

12:37 - PMax strengths: When to use PMax over Standard Shopping

14:35 - The drawbacks of PMax (+standard shopping advantages)

16:45 - Case Study: How Standard Shopping can improve product visibility

21:02- Key recommendations: How to approach PMax and standard shopping

23:51 - Final thoughts

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Make sure to subscribe to the Lunio YouTube channel to watch full episodes of the Paid Media Lab podcast, featuring insights from top PPC professionals.

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Standard Shopping vs. Performance Max: what’s changed?

Following Selina's key tips and insights, let's get into the details of exactly what Google has revealed about the change so far:

• Performance Max ads will no longer automatically be served over Standard Shopping campaigns.
• Ad Rank will determine which ad serves for campaigns where products overlap.
• This is the same way PMax works with other campaign types at auction.

Ginny Marvin, Google Ads product liaison, has confirmed these changes. She also clarified that where you have the same product in multiple Standard Shopping campaigns, PMax will compete primarily with the Standard Shopping campaign that has the highest priority level.

Google Ads expert Thomas Eccel shared this infographic exploring how this change in Google’s priorities could affect performance marketers:

We’ll take a deeper look at Thomas’s tips later in this article, but for now, let’s discuss why this change is important for advertisers.

Why does it matter?

Google has said that making Ad Rank the determining factor in ad serving should give advertisers more flexibility in campaign management and make campaign testing easier. They’ve also said they expect the change to have a “neutral or positive impact on performance at the account level.”

This sounds like good news, since advertisers have more flexibility in how they use PMax and Standard Shopping campaigns. But if you’ve already made the switch from Standard Shopping to PMax — or you’re running both alongside each other — this update could significantly affect your campaign strategies and performance. 

You’ll need to finetune your campaign settings to make sure you’re getting the best results for your spend. Google has offered advice for advertisers who want more control over their campaign spend (i.e. pretty much all of them):

“We recommend adjusting budgets and targets as needed, and making sure Performance Max campaign is following all the main fundamental best practices (URL Expansion, asset group strength, creatives and video).”

Shoptimised analysis from 2021 and 2022 — the early days of PMax — suggested that PMax significantly outperformed Standard Shopping:

But more recent experiences show that getting results like this from PMax takes a lot of work, and are far from guaranteed. In fact, an early case study from Thomas Eccel following the deprioritization of PMax found that a Standard Shopping campaign was more competitive in the auction landscape after the update (more on this later). And data published by Vervaunt co-founder Josh Duggan on LinkedIn suggests early wins for Standard Shopping since the update from Google:

So many advertisers are pleased to see Google deprioritizing PMax over Standard Shopping campaigns.

What performance marketers are saying

It’s safe to say a lot of performance marketers are pretty pleased about this change. It hands back some of the control Google has taken away from advertisers over the last few years, so it’s a welcome move in that respect.

To quote Thomas Eccel: it’s a positive update, but still, feels weird. Many marketers have a similar feeling, especially since Google hasn’t released much information about why they’re making this change.

Many performance marketers are dissatisfied with the results they’ve been getting from Performance Max. But with Google pushing it so hard, there’s been little choice but to use it, despite its limited insights and minimal ad spend control. So with this update, some marketers are considering switching back to Standard Shopping.

But making a significant switch like this isn’t always a simple decision. Google Ads specialist Bob Meijer explained his position in a detailed LinkedIn post — here are the key takeaways from his analysis:

• The case for using Performance Max feed-only campaigns has weakened since this update.
• The only reason Bob sees to choose Performance Max feed-only campaigns over Standard Shopping is if you’re considering expanding to PMax full-asset campaigns in the future.
• Standard Shopping gives you full transparency and control, unlike PMax. 
• Bob is leaning towards moving back to Standard Shopping campaigns after the holiday season.

Here’s Bob’s full LinkedIn post:

Interestingly, Bob’s analysis also highlights the distinction between prioritization within your own account and prioritization of you versus competitors. Bob suggests that this update may make it less likely that Google will prioritize a competitor’s PMax ad over your Standard Shopping ad.

Google has never confirmed or denied if this is the case. And part of Bob’s argument is that he uses PMax to avoid missing out on traffic, in case Google is (was) doing this. Other marketers, including Google Ads expert Miles McNair, says this update only affects prioritization within your own accounts, not across competitors — at least, according to the evidence provided by Google:

But both Bob and Miles agree that this update makes auctions fairer. So whether you’re concerned about losing traffic to competing PMax campaigns or you want greater visibility over your PPC data, this update is beneficial to everyone:

Among the many pros and cons of PMax, one of the biggest controversies since its introduction is the way it affects brand campaigns. Many marketers found PMax could artificially inflate its own success when including branded search terms.

In a recent webinar, we asked Chris Nightingale, founder of Can Do Digital Marketing, whether he felt this update to PMax/Standard Shopping would have a knock-on effect on branded keyword CPCs. Watch the full webinar here (and learn more about running branded search campaigns while you're at it!)

Some marketers believe that PMax deprioritization will have an impact on their CPCs, while others have already seen the effects. Here are two early case studies from Josh Duggan and Thomas Eccel — Josh is already reporting CPCs that are twice as high with minimal changes to PMax campaigns:

A 40% jump in costs and increased auction win rate suggest Standard Shopping campaigns can seriously compete on Ad Rank. So there’s massive potential value in using Standard Shopping campaigns if you’re not already.

PPC influencer Nils Rooijmans also expects to see Standard Shopping campaign spend to increase. But he also notes that this may come as an unexpected shock to advertisers who aren’t aware of this update to Google’s ad serving priorities.

Using Google Ads scripts to manage campaigns is really useful. Consider setting up a script or alert to notify you of spend increase so you can keep a close eye on your budget while your campaigns adjust.

All in all, marketers are viewing this update positively. Those who felt strong-armed into using PMax (and didn’t get the results they wanted) can revert to Standard Shopping campaigns without compromising their auction win rate. And those who want to use PMax alone or both PMax and Standard Shopping can do so in the knowledge that the ad with the highest Ad Rank is served, regardless of campaign type.

What marketers should do now

Google has stated that there’s no immediate action required. But you also have an opportunity to get your best performing ads in front of buyers, regardless of their campaign type — so here’s what marketers should consider doing now based on PPC expert experiences:

• Check your data — Any action you take should be based on your own insights and data. This update has been in place for a couple of months now, so if you’re using these campaign types you’ve probably already seen some changes. Analyse your ad spend and results to see the impact on performance so far, and adjust accordingly.
• Gradually increase target ROAS on Standard Shopping campaigns — Thomas Eccel suggests this because you no longer need to wait for your PMax budget to run out before Standard Shopping ads are served.
• Consider using PMax feed-only campaigns as a backup — Because you get more insights and data from Standard Shopping campaigns, you could theoretically use PMax as a contingency rather than a main campaign.
• Set up an alert to notify you of increased spend — Track spend more easily with alerts or scripts. This is important if you’re changing and/or increasing budgets.
• Set up an experiment — Experiments can help you establish the best course of action within a campaign. Learn how to set up a PMax vs Standard Shopping experiment in Google Ads.
• Optimize your ads — Google recommends ensuring your PMax campaigns follow best practices, but this applies to all campaign types. Ensure you’re utilising all the relevant features to improve Ad Rank across the board.
• Think to the future — Some marketers are thinking about transitioning away from PMax back to Standard Shopping campaigns. Consider whether this is the right option for you and your brand based on your results so far.

It seems like most marketers are taking a combined approach of using PMax alongside Standard Shopping campaigns, at least for now. However, some have already decided to make the switch back to Standard Shopping only. 

Make sure to check out Selina Patel’s episode of the Paid Media Lab podcast for the full PMax deprioritization takeaways from an industry expert.

Protect all Google Ads campaigns from fake users

Every industry, brand, and campaign will yield different results, despite everyone being affected by the same update. So it’s essential that marketers continually track their results and test new approaches to optimize their campaigns.

Regardless of whether you use Standard Shopping, PMax, or other PPC campaign types, your ads are vulnerable to invalid traffic. Invalid traffic consists of fake users and bots that infiltrate your campaigns and lead to fake conversions, wasted ad spend, and inaccurate data.

Lunio works to detect and prevent invalid traffic across all campaigns. Find out how much invalid traffic is affecting your PMax and/or Standard Shopping campaigns with a two-week, no-obligation free traffic audit with Lunio.