In Which Niches and Offers Does Performance Max Truly Shine?

[Yeezypay]

The affiliate community still hasn't reached a consensus regarding Performance Max (PMax). For some, it has already proven to be that coveted "money button" that finds conversions all by itself. Others, conversely, curse the format for draining budgets on junk traffic and total opacity, even after implementing source tracking. On forums and in chats, discussion threads about PMax have ballooned into hundreds of messages. As always, the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle. This tool is undeniably powerful, but it is by no means universal. Practical experience from many affiliates shows that campaign effectiveness here depends less on the media buyer's skill and more on how well a specific offer or vertical fits the algorithm's logic.

Let’s break down where PMax can genuinely prove to be a top-tier solution and where it's better to stick to classic Search campaigns or other formats.

E-commerce and Retail Products — PMax's Natural Habitat



Google originally created Performance Max precisely for the retail of physical goods shipped by mail. PMax works best with clean retail offers, online stores, or dropshipping marketplaces that feature a large inventory. The algorithm requires extensive data and clear signals, and in e-commerce, the data feed serves as this primary signal. The higher the quality and detail of the feed (images, titles, prices, availability), the easier the algorithm optimizes and finds buyers.



However, even in white-hat retail, the main roadblock often occurs during the scaling phase. When an affiliate finds a working offer and begins scaling the budget, Google either places limits on the new account or simply cannot spend the required volume due to the profile's low trust score. Many experienced affiliates have long bypassed this "bottleneck" by launching campaigns directly from agency accounts. By linking their Gmail accounts to the agency accounts provided by the YeezyPay service, affiliates gain the ability to work with ad cabinets that have no daily spend limits and benefit from a generally more lenient attitude from moderation, even for campaigns with offers from gray verticals. In the case of e-commerce, scaling a successful bundle can happen almost instantaneously while the trend is hot, rather than waiting weeks for the algorithm to "allow" spending more than $100 per day. Although Google, as a business, benefits the more an advertiser spends, the algorithms approach the issue of spend limits with particular caution.

Overall, in the retail niche, PMax covers all placements: from product listings in Search to YouTube and Gmail, eliminating the need to create a multitude of separate campaigns. The key here is not to interfere with the algorithm and aim to feed it the broadest possible audience from the start. Google itself recommends allowing six weeks for the algorithm to learn, but if you assist it in this process, you can save a significant portion of your budget.

Grayhat Nutra

The situation is more complicated with nutra. PMax is a highly visual format. It demands images and videos for YouTube and the Display Network (GDN). In nutra, especially with "before/after" approaches or aggressive promises, any visual creative inevitably increases the risk of a campaign ban or freeze. Since Performance Max requires a considerable amount of time to learn, it needs to accumulate 30–50 conversions to build an approximate portrait of the target audience. With self-registered accounts, campaigns often get banned faster than the algorithm can even complete its learning phase.

Nevertheless, experienced buyers have long adapted their approaches using pre-landers and "whitened" creatives even for PMax. Furthermore, utilizing asset groups segmented for different audience approaches helps with long-term profitability. Simply put, the affiliate doesn't dump everything together but splits their creative strategies.



Since moderation in PMax is automated and quite strict, the ban problem is particularly acute for those running campaigns for various dietary supplements (nutra). Standard farmed accounts are more frequently flagged for document verification or completely frozen at the slightest algorithm trigger. Trusted agency accounts, which you can access through YeezyPay, partially alleviate this issue. Such ad cabinets inherently possess a higher degree of trust from the system, resulting in milder moderation and fewer fatal blocks caused by random algorithm triggers. Essentially, this loophole in Google Ads' loyalty provides the affiliate with the necessary time for PMax to learn. Affiliates using standard, even slightly warmed-up accounts rarely have this luxury.

Gambling and Betting

Traditionally, iGaming is run through Search or UAC (Universal App Campaigns), directing traffic to apps. PMax's advantage over UAC is its superior performance in retargeting and finding lookalike audiences based on data, but as a standalone tool for high-risk verticals like gambling and betting, it is practically not used. There are several justifications for this:

- Since stable conversions are difficult to track via API in iGaming, and without it, PMax cannot scale and will, at best, dump traffic into the Display Network. In the worst-case scenario, it might start driving bots and non-target traffic.
- Unlike UAC, PMax practically analyzes content much more aggressively and faster identifies a potential link between the campaign and prohibited verticals.
- There is no control over keywords, bid dynamics, or placements. In the Gambling and betting niches, it is critically important for the affiliate to control these variables, especially when working with branded keywords targeting a specific GEO. PMax replaces all of this with automation, often delivering expensive, non-target traffic.
- Self-restriction of risky campaigns. The tool is structured such that if the perceived risk of violating platform rules exceeds a certain value set by Google, it operates on the principle of "better not show the ad at all than block the campaign." Consequently, a campaign is formally "Active" with an "Eligible" status but receives 0–10 impressions per day.



Despite all the pitfalls and complications, there are affiliates who successfully run iGaming campaigns at a profit, utilizing funnels structured as "Quiz → Content → Soft Pre-lander → Lander or App." They position PMax only at the top of the funnel, often mixing its traffic with Search and Discovery traffic.

Observation from YeezyPay: In Tier-3 GEOs of the Asia-Pacific region, LatAm, and Africa (South Africa, Nigeria), algorithms are, for some reason, less severe in restricting gambling campaigns. Conversely, PMax shows very mediocre results with gambling campaigns in Tier-1.

Overall, running iGaming with Performance Max is possible, but it is best used as an auxiliary channel and a complement to other formats, and only when a data pool on the target audience is already available.

Lead Generation (Finance, Crypto, Services)

On the one hand, massive amounts of money circulate in niches like insurance, legal services, or crypto investments. At the same time, Performance Max is notorious for pumping in fraudulent traffic and bots that deplete the budget and fill forms with garbage data.

For those running Crypto or Forex campaigns, PMax can deliver excellent volume, but traffic will need to be rigorously filtered, and offline conversions must be used. In short, you need to upload data back to Google about which leads actually answered the call and made a deposit. Without this, the algorithm will train on bots and drain the budget.

Here, we should recall another pain point of working with gray verticals that operate on the brink of violating platform rules—payments. Serious budgets are required here, and spending needs to be high and fast. Not only virtual cards but even physical cards are often flagged, transactions are blocked as suspicious, and Google issues a ban for Risk Payment, paralyzing operations.



Today, changing payment logistics has become one of the effective ways to minimize such problems. With YeezyPay, you can fund your balance with cryptocurrency, completely eliminating issues with bank cards and fund holds. The affiliate simply runs traffic, and the service handles the technical side of interaction with Google's billing. This allows for maintaining high spends in competitive niches for longer periods.


Why Audience Signals Are Critically Important for PMax



Regardless of whether an affiliate is running clean retail or gray crypto, the success of PMax in 2025 hinges on audience signals. Simply put, you cannot just launch a broad campaign and expect a miracle. The affiliate or buyer must guide the algorithm on who to search for.

The following signals work best:

- Customer Lists (Customer Match): The first and most important signal can be uploaded databases of phone numbers and emails of those who have already purchased or deposited.
- Custom Segments based on Search Queries: Whenever possible, add the keywords that your clients used in Search so that PMax searches for users with the same intent.
- Website Visitors of Competitors: Create and add a segment of people who visited the URLs of direct competitors.

If this data is unavailable at the start, PMax will drain the budget on testing. Therefore, the optimal strategy in this case is to first run Search or YouTube campaigns to collect data, and only then launch Performance Max based on the accumulated statistics.

When PMax Definitely Won't Work

There are situations where this format is simply useless. If you have a very small budget (less than $50–$100 per day), PMax won't be able to learn quickly. It needs data volume. If you receive 1–2 conversions per day, the campaign will take several months to exit the learning phase. Moreover, its performance will be unstable.

PMax is also unsuitable for offers with very narrow targeting, such as only men aged 45+ from a specific city interested in elite travel. The PMax algorithm strives for reach expansion and will constantly attempt to push beyond set limits, showing ads in non-target placements, such as in simple mobile games. In such cases, good old manual targeting in Search or Display works more reliably.

Conclusion

Performance Max, for working not only with gray but also white niches, can hardly be called a completely independent format. It is rather a powerful campaign amplifier for those who already know how to work with data. It is ideal for e-commerce and for scaling campaigns in any other niche. However, for working in Nutra and Crypto, for example, it requires trusted agency accounts and rigorous lead filtering. The main thing is not to give the algorithm complete freedom. You must feed it quality audience signals, use a reliable account infrastructure, and always monitor the quality of incoming traffic. Only then can you compel this "black box" to generate profit, not losses.