Why does my Performance Max campaign only run in the Display Network?

Performance Max rarely runs only on Display; when most of the budget does go there, the campaign usually has no product feed, weak search assets or a conversion goal that is cheap to reach on Display placements, such as e-mail clicks. So before you treat it as a case of Performance Max only on Display, open the channel performance report and check where the money actually goes.

The report covers dates from 6 June 2025 onwards. In one of our shop accounts it showed the opposite of what was suspected: 98 % of the spend on Search.

Where does your Performance Max campaign actually run?

1. Select the campaign and go to Insights and reports → Channel performance. The report lists Google Search, Google Display Network, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail and Search partners, with cost and conversions per channel.
2. Check the Status column. “Missing required assets” or “Eligible (Limited)” next to a channel points to a cause you can fix.
3. Switch the format filter to Ads using product data. Shopping is not a separate channel: product ads appear on Search, YouTube search, Maps and search partners, and as dynamic remarketing on Display.
4. For individual websites and apps, open Insights and reports → Report editor → Performance Max campaigns placement. It shows impressions per placement; Google describes it as a brand safety tool, not a performance report.

If a channel gets no spend and shows no issue, Google’s troubleshooting guide says the system most likely expects a better return on other channels.

What are the usual causes of Performance Max running only on Display?

• A shallow conversion goal. If e-mail clicks, phone clicks or page views count as primary conversions, Display placements can deliver them cheaply, including accidental taps. Google’s lead generation guidance recommends optimising towards actions deeper in the funnel. Why such clicks inflate your figures is explained in why Google Ads shows more conversions than inquiries.
• No product data. Without a Merchant Center feed there are no Shopping ads for Search, and the campaign relies on text, image and video assets alone.
• Weak search assets. Google names low or medium asset strength as a sign that a campaign is not fully optimised for Search.
• Channel settings. Since 15 October 2026 Google has been rolling out Channel Prioritization. If “Google channels” were set to Low priority, the Display Network gets budget first. By default all channels are High.
• Brand exclusions. They apply only to Search, Shopping and YouTube search inventory. Excluding your own brand removes brand searches, often the cheapest conversions on Search, while Display is not affected.

What did two client accounts show about the channel mix?

When we audited the Performance Max campaign of an online shop in September 2026, the channel data for 90 days showed: €1,722.61 and 57.5 conversions on Search including Shopping, €10.65 on search partners, €10.78 on YouTube and €8.32 on Display. That is 98 % on Search. The real levers were elsewhere: brand searches inside Performance Max (about €327 in 365 days), a single listing group for all products with 24 % of the 90-day spend on products without a sale, and the home page as the asset group’s final URL (about €159 in 90 days, no purchases).

A B2B client had the opposite problem with a lead-generation campaign. From January to June 2025 it spent €10,916 and reported 907 conversions, but 810 were e-mail clicks and only 24 were forms or calls: about €450 per real lead. The client complained about spammy e-mails. Our reading is that Display and Discover placements produced cheap taps on mailto links. We can’t prove the channel split, because the channel report only goes back to June 2025. The campaign stays paused; if it ever returns, forms and calls will be its only goals.

How do you steer Performance Max away from Display?

1. Goals. Let the campaign optimise only for real leads or purchases. Set phone and e-mail clicks to secondary under Goals → Conversions → Summary.
2. Channel Prioritization. In the campaign’s Settings, open the Channel Prioritization card, select Use campaign-level settings to override account defaults and set the Google Display Network to Low priority with a daily budget percentage. 0 % stops Display spend; other values are a best-effort cap. With Target CPA or Target ROAS, the priority only matters when the campaign is limited by budget.
3. Feed. Link Merchant Center and split listing groups so that best sellers and products without sales do not share one budget.
4. Assets. Fill every asset group with enough headlines, descriptions, images and a video, then check asset strength.
5. Landing pages. Final URL expansion is on by default and may send visitors to other pages of your site. Exclude pages in the campaign settings under Asset optimization → Text customization → Exclude some URLs.
6. Patience. After major changes, Google recommends allowing one to two weeks before you judge the new channel mix.

Read the channel performance report before you change anything. If Display really dominates, fix the goal first: a campaign that may only optimise for forms, calls or purchases has little reason to buy cheap Display taps. Use Channel Prioritization as a cap on top, not as a substitute for clean conversion data.

Sources

• Google Ads Help: Troubleshoot the channel performance report
• Google Ads Help: About channel prioritization and budget allocation
• Google Ads Help: About Final URL expansion in Performance Max

Want to know where your Performance Max budget really goes? We analyse channels, search terms and conversion goals and set up the campaign so that it optimises for real leads or sales. Book a free initial call or see how we run Google Ads campaigns for our clients.