Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! Read through your situation with your ads manager and PMax, and I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and guidance. It's a common point of friction, and your gut feeling is pretty much spot on. Let's break down why and what to do about it.
TLDR;
- Your instinct is correct: for an event-driven business selling high-end gifts, PMax is likely burning a significant portion of your budget on low-intent awareness placements (Display, YouTube) that don't convert.
- You should transition your budget to high-intent channels: traditional Search and Shopping campaigns. This allows you to "own the moment of need" when a customer is actively looking to buy.
- The transition needs to be managed carefully to avoid performance drops. You'll need to run new Search/Shopping campaigns in parallel with PMax initially, then gradually shift budget as the new campaigns prove themselves.
- The core issue is a strategy mismatch. You're not selling an impulse buy; you're fulfilling a specific, time-sensitive need. Your ad strategy must reflect this reality, focusing on capturing existing demand, not trying to create it from scratch.
- I'll walk you through a detailed transition plan, provide a 'Wasted Spend Calculator' to illustrate the PMax problem, and a flowchart to compare the two strategic approaches.
Your ICP is a Nightmare, Not a Demographic
First things first, let's talk about your customer. You've correctly identified that your sales are driven by specific life events. This is the most important piece of the puzzle, and it's where the disagreement with your manager stems from. The problem with most agencies is they think in terms of demographics. "Women, 30-55, interested in luxury goods." It's useless.
You need to define your customer by their pain, or in your case, their urgent need. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. It's the husband who's suddenly realised his 10-year wedding anniversary is next week and he has nothing. It's the manager who needs a high-quality leaving present for a valued team member, and needs it sorted by Friday. It's the friend who wants a really special 'congratulations on the new baby' gift that isn't another generic babygrow.
These people aren't casually browsing YouTube and thinking, "You know what, I might buy a £200 gift box just in case." That's not how it works. They have a specific, urgent, and often stressful problem to solve. Your job isn't to create that need; it's to be the perfect, immediate solution when that need arises. This is a fundamental distinction that makes all the difference to your advertising strategy.
We'll need to look at why you are paying Google to find non-customers...
Here is the uncomfortable truth about broad-reach campaigns like Performance Max, especially for a business like yours. When you use PMax and let it run wild across all of Google's channels, you're giving the algorithm a very specific, and very flawed, command: "Find me conversions at the target CPA, and I don't care how you do it."
The algorithm, being a machine, looks for the easiest path. It finds that showing your beautiful gift box on a thousand lifestyle blogs (Display Network) or as a pre-roll ad on YouTube is incredibly cheap. It costs pennies to get those impressions. It then finds the one person in ten thousand who happens to be in-market, clicks, and maybe converts. The algorithm then averages out the cost of all those thousands of useless impressions against that one conversion and says, "Look, I hit your $40 CPA!"
But what actually happened? You've just paid to advertise to 9,999 people who had zero interest, zero intent, and will forget your brand two seconds after the ad disappears. You are actively paying the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you an audience of non-customers. The awareness you're generating is completely wasted because it's delivered at the wrong time. When that person's anniversary *does* come around in six months, they won't remember your YouTube ad. They'll go to Google and search for "anniversary gift for wife."
This is why your budget should be focused entirely on capturing that search. Awareness is a byproduct of making a sale to a happy customer who had a great experience, not a prerequisite for it. For your business, the best brand awareness is being the #1 result when someone is in a panic and needs a solution *now*.
The PMax 'Spray & Pray' Approach
(YouTube, Display, Discover)
The High-Intent 'Capture' Approach
(Search, Shopping)
I'd say you need a Fortress of Intent, Not a Billboard Blitz
So, what's the alternative? It's exactly what you suspect. You need to pull back from the broad-reach model and build a fortress around high-intent keywords using traditional Search and Shopping campaigns. Your goal is to be completely unavoidable at the precise moment a potential customer needs you.
This means getting forensic with your keywords. You're not targeting "gifts." You're targeting "luxury corporate leaving gift," "what to buy for 40th birthday," "next day delivery new baby hamper," and "help i forgot my anniversary gift." These are queries loaded with intent and urgency. Each one tells a story about the searcher's specific problem.
For Search Campaigns: Your structure needs to reflect these different events. You'd have campaigns, or at least ad groups, built around themes:
- -> Anniversary Gifts (with ad groups for '1st year', '10th year', 'for husband', 'for wife')
- -> Birthday Gifts (with ad groups for '18th', '30th', 'for mum', 'for best friend')
- -> Corporate Gifting (with ad groups for 'client thank you', 'employee recognition', 'leaving present')
- -> New Baby & Christening
The ad copy for each ad group must speak directly to that specific need. The copy for "last minute anniversary gift" should mention fast delivery and saving the day. The copy for "corporate client gift" should talk about making a lasting impression and professionalism. This level of granularity is something PMax completely obscures and prevents you from controlling.
For Shopping Campaigns: This is all about the data in your product feed. PMax uses this feed, but so do standard Shopping campaigns, and with the latter, you have more control. Your product titles need to contain the keywords people are searching for. Instead of just "The Celebration Box," the title in your feed should be "Luxury Champagne & Chocolate Gift Box - Perfect Anniversary or Celebration Hamper." You need to think like your customer and put their search query right in your product title. Make sure your images are impeccable and your pricing is clear. High-quality images are non-negotiable for a luxury product.
Here's a quick look at the kind of keyword thinking you need to adopt. It's about moving from generic to specific, from passive to active.
| Low-Intent Keywords (What PMax often targets) | High-Intent Keywords (What you should target) |
|---|---|
| 'gift ideas' | 'leaving gift for manager next day delivery' |
| 'beautiful gift boxes' | 'high end corporate thank you gifts' |
| 'presents for her' | 'special 50th birthday gift for wife' |
| 'luxury gifts' | 'congratulations on new job gift hamper' |
You probably should estimate your wasted spend...
The $40 conversion cost you mentioned is a classic example of a blended metric hiding the truth. Some of those conversions are likely coming from high-intent Brand Search within PMax and are very profitable. But many are probably costing you much more, coming from Display or YouTube after dozens of low-value touchpoints. The average smooths it all out and looks acceptable, but it's deeply inefficient.
Let's try and quantify this. PMax doesn't give you great reporting on channel breakdown, but from experience with many accounts, it's not uncommon for 50-80% of the spend to go towards these upper-funnel, low-intent placements for a visual product like yours. Use the calculator below to get a feel for how much of your budget could be getting burned each month.
PMax Wasted Spend Estimator
You'll need a careful transition, not a big bang
So, you're convinced. You agree you need to move away from PMax. The big question is how to do it without your sales falling off a cliff. This is where your ad manger's caution is understandable, if misdirected. You can't just switch PMax off and turn on new campaigns overnight. That's a recipe for disaster. You need a structured, phased transition.
Here's the best practice we use for this exact situation:
Phase 1: Build & Launch in Parallel (Weeks 1-2)
- -> Do not pause PMax. Leave it running as is.
- -> Build out your new, granular Standard Shopping and Search campaigns. Get your keyword research done, write your targeted ad copy, structure your ad groups by theme.
- -> Launch these new campaigns with a small portion of the overall budget, say 20-30%. You're effectively running both systems in parallel. Reduce the PMax budget by the same amount to keep your overall spend consistent.
- -> This is the critical bit: add negative keywords to your new Search campaigns to avoid directly competing with PMax on every single term. More importantly, you can now add negative keywords to PMax (this is a newer feature, your manager should be able to do it via Google support or in the account settings) to block it from bidding on your most important, high-intent terms that you want your new Search campaigns to exclusively own. This starts to carve out protected territory for your new, more efficient campaigns.
Phase 2: Monitor & Shift Budget (Weeks 3-4)
- -> Now you watch the data like a hawk. You're comparing the performance of the new campaigns directly against PMax. Look at CPA, Conversion Rate, and critically, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
- -> Your new campaigns, being highly targeted, *should* start showing a better ROAS, even if the CPA is initially a bit wobbly. You're getting better quality clicks.
- -> As you see the new campaigns stabilise and perform well, you begin to gradually shift more budget away from PMax and into them. It's like turning one tap down while you turn another one up. Maybe you move another 20-30% of the budget across.
Phase 3: Finalise the Transition (Weeks 5-6)
- -> By now, your new Search and Shopping campaigns should be handling the majority of your budget and driving the majority of your high-intent conversions.
- -> You can now make a decision on PMax. You can either pause it completely, or you can keep it running on a very small budget (maybe 10-15% of your total) purely for retargeting and some very limited prospecting, with strict audience signals applied. Some businesses find this works, but for many in your position, turning it off entirely is the cleanest option.
- -> Your ads ecosystem is now much more transparent. You can see exactly which keywords and products are performing, and you can optimise them directly. You've taken back control from the black box.
This phased approach minimises risk. At no point are you "flying blind." You're making data-driven decisions at each step to shift your investment from an inefficient system to an efficient one. I remember working with an e-commerce client where we saw a significant increase in revenue and return on ad spend after implementing a similar focused strategy, moving away from a broad approach. The principles are the same: focus on the people who are ready to buy.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
| Recommendation | Action | Why It's Important |
|---|---|---|
| Pause the PMax Debate | Agree to a structured test. Propose the phased transition plan outlined above. | This moves the conversation from a subjective disagreement to an objective, data-driven experiment. It's a low-risk way to prove your hypothesis. |
| Build High-Intent Campaigns | Create new Standard Shopping and granular Search campaigns based on specific 'event' themes (anniversary, birthday, etc.). | This aligns your ad spend directly with customer intent, focusing budget where it has the highest chance of converting immediately. |
| Implement a Phased Budget Shift | Start the new campaigns on 20-30% of the budget, and gradually move more spend from PMax as performance is proven. | This prevents any sudden drops in traffic or sales and ensures a stable transition from one strategy to the next. Cannibalisation is managed. |
| Optimise Your Product Feed | Rewrite product titles and descriptions in your Google Merchant Center feed to include high-intent keywords. | This is the foundation of successful Shopping ads. A well-optimised feed is the single biggest lever you can pull for better performance. |
| Take Back Control | Move to a campaign structure where you have clear visibility and direct control over keywords, bids, and ad copy. | This allows for proper optimisation. You can't improve what you can't measure, and PMax is notoriously opaque. |
Ultimately, this isn't just about PMax vs Search. It's about a fundamental business strategy. You're in the business of fulfilling needs, not creating them. Your advertising should be a precision instrument, not a sledgehammer. It sounds like you already understand this better than your current ads manger. The challenge is implementing the change in a safe, controlled way.
Executing a transition like this requires a fair bit of expertise, particularly with the technical setup of the new campaigns and the careful management of the budget shift. If you make a mistake, you can end up with a dip in performance which might wrongly convince your team that PMax was the right strategy all along. It’s one of those situations where getting some expert help to manage the process can make all the difference, ensuring it’s done right the first time and you get the clean data you need to prove the case.
We do this kind of strategic overhaul and transition for businesses all the time. If you'd like to chat through your specific account and get a second opinion on how we'd approach it in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. It might be helpful to have an expert in your corner for this conversation.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
