Pmax in 2026 used for lead generation is either going to flood you with bogus junk leads or quickly become your most profitable campaign.
The difference comes down to four fixes and 95% of advertisers are not doing these correctly.
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I’m going to show you exactly what those are in this video.
Welcome to Google Ads Quick hits. I’m Todd Nevins, I’m the founder of CLICKPlacement and we are a Google partner.
Performance Max is now unavoidable for lead generation in 2026, but most companies are still running it like it’s e commerce and that’s why lead quality is collapsing.
PMAX isn’t broken, the structure is broken. And in 2026, Google’s AI will amplify a bad structure faster than ever. These four fixes will equate to high profit leads.
Fix number one asset groups by categorical search themes and the services that you provide.
Stop dumping all of the different types of services into one asset group. One asset group, one service. Give you an example of a cosmetic surgeon. One asset group would be breast augmentation.
Asset group number two liposuction. Asset group number three facelift. And each asset group has its own headlines, ad copy, landing page and specific conversions.
Why this matters Google now weighs search intent and asset content and landing page relevance.
So mixed services, confused AI, terrible, bad, awful traffic, no leads, no high quality leads. So one service, one message, one asset group.
Fix number two placement monitoring and YouTube exclusions. Especially if you’re running video assets in your PMax campaign.
In 2026, most wasted ad spend in PMAX campaigns is going to come from trash placements.
In other words, Google is putting your ads on horrible quality websites and showing your ads to on YouTube channels that are completely irrelevant to your business and your niche.
And also running ads for you on your behalf on mobile apps and specifically gaming apps. Those low quality placements destroy your lead quality.
So every week you’ve got to run a placement report to see where your ads are being shown and add all of those URLs and into your exclusions lists so your ads will no longer show on those terrible sites and YouTube channels.
Fix number three negative keyword architecture yes, PMAX campaigns need negatives. Google needs you to tell them who to block out.
Who do we not want our ads to show to? I’m going to break this into three different categories.
First one Competitors Put in all of your competition names.
Not only the names of the companies but but also the names of the founders, the owners.
If they’re also prominently known in your area.
Number two, if people put in cheap, free or discount.
If you’re a law firm and somebody searches for cheapest divorce attorney near me, that is a really low quality lead.
Put in negatives like cheap, free, discount, low cost budget. Get rid of those types of searches.
The third one, let’s say you’re an accounting firm and you’re bidding on somebody doing a search for accounting services for startups.
Austin Google will show your ads to people that are looking for accounting jobs or how much do accountants make their salary. So put in all of those different types of searches.
And an added bonus here, put in your the cities that are close to the area that you target.
Let’s say you’re in Dallas but you don’t serve Fort Worth or up to Denton. Put in the names of the cities of the areas that you do not target. So you’re going to just drill in.
Have Google drill into the core geographic area that you serve, like Dallas as an example. So negatives will not restrict growth, they will protect your profitability.
Fix number four Proper conversion tracking for both primary and secondary conversions you want leads.
And most leads come in three different forms. Either a booked appointment, a phone call that lasts one minute or a high value form submission on your website.
Those should be your primary conversions. All other types of conversions on your website like button clicks or page views, newsletter signups, those are secondary. The reason is that Google will only use your primary conversions in your maximize conversions bid strategy.
So you’re feeding Google system clean high quality primary conversions that will equate to high quality leads.
And here is how these four fixes work together. Your service based asset groups will result in cleaner intent.
Your clean placements will result in higher quality traffic. Then your strong negatives is a tighter audience control.
And then your proper conversions are smarter bidding.
And so together that means lower CPAs, higher quality leads and a better return on your ad spend.
When you’re spending money on Google Ads, I hope this video helped you. If you have any other questions, please send me a direct message or comment on this video.
And thank you for watching Google Ads Quick Hits.
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CLICKPlacement is a Google Ads Partner and works with regional niche companies and national organizations to maximize prospect and customer engagement, and sales with proven Google Ads strategies.
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