Standard Shopping or Performance Max: Which Suits Your Online Store?

An online store can run Shopping ads with two campaign types in Google Ads. Standard Shopping gives you more control and Performance Max gives you more automation and more channels. My recommendation is to start with Standard Shopping while the account has few conversions and to test Performance Max once there is data to learn from.

Performance Max has gained several new controls since 2024, so some older advice about the campaign type no longer holds.

What are Standard Shopping and Performance Max?

Standard Shopping is the original campaign type for Shopping ads. The ads appear on the Shopping tab and next to the search results in Google Search. They can also appear in Google Images and on search partners. With Manual CPC you set bids per product group, and you can see which search terms triggered your ads. If you are new to Google Shopping for online stores, Standard Shopping is often a good place to start.

Performance Max launched for all advertisers in 2021 and replaced Smart Shopping campaigns in 2022. A Performance Max campaign with a product feed can show ads across all of Google's channels, and bidding is fully automated. The ads are built from your product feed and from the text and images you add to asset groups.

Strengths and weaknesses

Standard Shopping gives you more control over bids and products. With campaign priority you decide which campaign bids when the same product is in several Shopping campaigns. Impression share is available down to product group level and shows whether your ads could reach more people with higher bids or a bigger budget. The ads only appear on Google's search surfaces and on search partners, so there are fewer placements to keep an eye on.

Performance Max needs less manual work and reaches customers in more channels. The campaign can also show your products on YouTube and in Gmail, where the customer is not in the middle of a search. The drawback is that you cannot set your own bids per product.

When does each campaign type fit?

Standard Shopping fits when you want to steer the budget product by product or when the account has few conversions. It also fits when you want to expand at your own pace and have time to adjust bids yourself.

Performance Max fits when you have enough conversions and little time for manual work. It also fits when you want to reach new customer groups in more of Google's channels.

Add your own brand as a brand exclusion in Performance Max. Otherwise the campaign can take credit for purchases from people who were already searching for your name, and the results then look better than they are. The exclusion is based on a brand list and applies to both Search and Shopping. According to Google, a Search campaign also takes priority over Performance Max when the search is identical to a keyword in the campaign.

Five things to weigh up

1. Conversion data. Google does not set a minimum number of conversions for Performance Max with a product feed, but it recommends letting a new campaign run for at least six weeks. My rule of thumb is around 30 conversions in 30 days. If you have fewer, Standard Shopping may be a better first step.
2. Range and margins. If margins vary a lot between products, Standard Shopping gives you better control with bids per product group and campaign priority. In Performance Max you steer with different ROAS targets in different campaigns instead.
3. Time. Consider how much time you can spend on the campaigns each week. Performance Max needs less ongoing work on bids.
4. Reach. Standard Shopping only appears in connection with searches. If you also want to reach customers on YouTube and in Gmail, you need Performance Max.
5. Visibility. Standard Shopping shows impression share down to product group level and auction insights per ad group. Performance Max gained a search terms report and a channel performance report in 2025, but auction insights are only available per campaign.

Standard Shopping and Performance Max point by point

The table shows the differences as Google describes them in November 2026.

Point	Standard Shopping	Performance Max
Where ads appear	Shopping tab, next to search results in Google Search, Google Images and search partners	The same surfaces plus text ads in Search, the Display Network, YouTube, Gmail, Demand Gen and Maps
Ad creative	Product feed	Product feed plus text, images and videos in asset groups
Bid strategies	Manual CPC, Maximize clicks, Target ROAS and Maximize conversion value	Maximize conversion value with an optional ROAS target or Maximize conversions with an optional CPA target
Control per product	Bids per product group and campaign priority set to low, medium or high	Product filters per asset group but no bids per product
Same products in both	Competes with Performance Max on equal terms	No longer prioritised automatically. Ad Rank decides since October 2024
Search terms	Search terms report	Search terms report for all campaigns since 2025
Negative keywords	At account, campaign and ad group level	At account level and since 2025 also at campaign level and as lists. Applies to Search and Shopping
Brand searches	Excluded with negative keywords	Excluded with brand exclusions and a brand list
Search partners and the Display Network	Search partners can be switched off in campaign settings	Can be set to low priority with a budget cap through channel prioritisation. Google is rolling this out from October 2026
Devices	Bid adjustments per device. With Target ROAS and Maximize conversion value you can only exclude a device	Device targeting since 2025
Competitive data	Impression share down to product group and auction insights per ad group	Auction insights per campaign, split into Search and Shopping

How do you choose between Standard Shopping and Performance Max?

The choice depends on how many conversions you have and how much time you can spend on the campaigns. You can run both at the same time. If they have the same products and the same targeting, they compete for the same impressions and the one with the highest Ad Rank is shown.

My recommendation is to split the products between the campaigns or to compare them in an experiment. Google Ads has a ready-made experiment that tests a Shopping campaign against a Performance Max campaign with similar settings.

Review your choice at regular intervals. Several of the differences in the table arrived in 2024 or later, and Google keeps changing Performance Max.

If you want to broaden your advertising, search advertising with text ads can complement Shopping with your own keywords and copy. Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) is another complement and has its own Shopping campaigns, which are also available in Sweden.