PPC Search Campaign Development

PMax Campaign Structure

PMax campaign structure is defined by two primary components: Asset Groups and Listing Groups. Both function as containers within the campaign, organizing how products, creatives, and targeting signals are grouped and served. PMax campaign structure is defined within the campaign by these two major components. Both are software objects or containers that aggregate other objects, to form a PMax campaign.

PMax Asset Groups: PMax Asset Groups are a container for Ad Assets, but they also contain targeting signals.  The difference as compared to other campaign types is, in PMax we are serving ads on multiple Google Channels (Shopping, Display, Search, etc) so a more robust collection of “ad Assets” are required in order to serve ads.

Asset Groups combine creative assets (images, headlines, descriptions, video) with targeting signals and a subset of products (via Listing Groups). Each Asset Group represents a specific targeting theme, allowing campaigns to test how different audiences and messaging perform against similar or overlapping products.

PMax Listing Groups: Listing Groups exist within Asset Groups, linking product subsets to specific targeting and creative combinations. Listing Groups organize products product feed, based on shared product feed attributes such as category, brand, product type, or custom labels.

So Listing Groups are subgroups of product SKU’s within the product feed. In small campaigns, a listing group could contain all SKUs in the campaign, but usually, it is a subset, and multiple Asset Groups are present.

Most PMax campaigns pull the majority of their conversions from the Shopping Ads channel. So the most important items in PMax Listing Groups is the product data contined in the Listing Groups. The Shopping Ad copy and images are pulled from the product feed.

Targeting PMax Asset Groups

PMax Targeting is semi-automated and somewhat opaque.  Each channel where PMax is served is targeted somewhat differently.

The keywords in the product feed are used as the keyword targeting, and the audiences defined are treated as suggestions, or seed targeting.  In most PMax campaigns experimentation and split-testing is beneficial, to find the most effective targeting configuration.

As campaigns scale, segmenting products across multiple Asset Groups—each with distinct targeting—creates more control and clearer performance signals.

Building structure into Asset Groups and Listing Groups improves visibility into performance. As data accumulates, this structure allows weaker segments to be identified and refined through ongoing optimization.