Two new reports let Performance Max advertisers see product performance by asset group and spending by audience segment, cutting through the black box that's made PMax hard to optimize.
Google Ads is rolling out two new reports for Performance Max campaigns that address the biggest complaint from advertisers: you couldn't see what was actually working. The first lets you measure product performance by asset group. The second shows you how your budget breaks down across audience segments Google identifies during its automated buying.
Performance Max is Google's most hands-off campaign type. You upload creative assets, set a budget, and Google's algorithms decide which audiences see which ads across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, and more. The tradeoff for simplicity is visibility. Until now, you had little clarity into which of your asset groups (creative bundles) or audience segments were actually driving ROI.
The product reporting by asset group answers the question: which creative combinations are converting? You'll see performance metrics tied to each asset group you uploaded, so you know whether your hero image bundle or your text-heavy variant is carrying the load. For product-focused businesses (retailers, manufacturers, e-commerce), this is crucial because it ties spend back to what actually shipped.
The audience segment spend report shows you how much budget each audience Google identified is eating up. Google's algorithms create and bid on audience segments automatically in PMax. Now you can see the breakdown: how much went to in-market shoppers versus past website visitors versus affinity audiences. If you find one segment is cheap but converting poorly, or another is high-cost but worth it, you at least know where the money went.
PMax's automation is powerful, but it's also a trust fall. You're handing budget to Google and hoping the algorithm spends it wisely. Without these reports, you're flying blind. A manufacturer running PMax might spend 50 percent of budget on an audience that converts at half the rate of another, and never know it.
These reports close that gap. They give you the intelligence to spot which asset groups or audiences are pulling their weight and which are anchors. Combined with your own conversion data (sales, leads, phone calls), you can finally connect ad spend to real business outcomes.
The roll-out is happening now across Google Ads accounts. You may not see the reports immediately, but they should appear in your Ads interface within weeks. When they do, spend an hour reviewing them against your own conversion data. That alignment is how you turn PMax from a hope into a system.
How WebKing runs this
We've watched PMax frustrate account owners for years because Google's black-box optimization meant you couldn't tell if your best creative was driving sales or your cheapest audience segment was a money sink. These new reports are the transparency layer that makes PMax actually manageable. We're watching these roll out and will help you read and act on the data they surface.
Asset groups are bundles of headlines, images, and descriptions you upload to PMax. The new product reporting by asset group shows you which creative bundles are performing best, so you can stop guessing which combination of ads is actually converting and double down on what works.
The audience segment report shows you how much of your PMax budget Google is spending on each audience it identifies (e.g., in-market shoppers, past visitors, age groups). You can now see if budget is flooding to cheap, low-converting audiences and reallocate to segments that actually buy.
These reports give you the visibility to identify which asset groups and audiences underperform, but PMax is designed as an automated system; optimization decisions depend on how Google's interface lets you act on the data. The reports are the foundation for informed decisions.
Yes. By connecting product performance and audience spend to your actual ROI, you'll be able to show stakeholders exactly where budget is going and which campaigns or segments are profitable, making it easier to justify continued investment or reallocation.
Sources
The Lab is original analysis by WebKing. We summarize and interpret developments from the sources above for industrial, commercial, and small business owners. Figures are reported as published by their sources.
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