Should you be using automatically created assets for Performance Max?
So for my PMax campaign, I’m using automatically generated video assets to optimize for mobile which is okay. But when it comes to final URL, and titles, should I uncheck these options for generating assets for me? Maybe this is another money waster for my e-com business? Our products have great AD copy already, and our headlines/descriptions are great as is. Why should I be using google to generate them for me when I’ve created/optimized my own? Will this decrease performance turning these off? Anyone have experience with these options.
The short answer is:
You should definitely consider turning off the automatic generation of text assets (final URL, titles, and descriptions) if your existing, well-optimized ad copy is performing strongly.
Google’s machine learning, even with your existing assets, is often powerful enough to achieve great results.
Disabling the automatic text assets usually won’t decrease performance and often ensures your brand messaging is consistent and high-quality, aligning with your already excellent ad copy.
However, you should leave the automatically created video assets on for now, as video is often an area where PMAX needs more variety, especially for mobile optimization.
For advanced conversion tracking to validate your performance, using the Google Ads API in conjunction with Google Tag Manager and a server-side tagging solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform is an excellent, cost-effective method to gain control and accuracy.
The long answer is:
Your hesitation about Google automatically generating your text assets is completely valid, especially since you’ve put in the work to optimize your own ad copy, headlines, and descriptions.
For a successful e-commerce business, maintaining brand voice and quality is crucial, and automatically generated text can sometimes miss the mark or sound generic.
Since you already have great, optimized text assets, unchecking the options for automatically generated final URL, titles, and descriptions is generally a good idea.
This ensures the campaign uses your high-quality, pre-approved copy, which is essential for conversion and brand consistency.
Turning these off is highly unlikely to decrease your performance and, in many cases, can improve the quality of the traffic and conversions by ensuring the messaging is spot-on.
PMAX is designed to prioritize the best performing assets, and if yours are already great, they should naturally be preferred.
The machine learning will still combine your existing assets dynamically.
Your approach of keeping the automatically generated video assets for mobile optimization is smart, though, as video creation is more time-consuming, and PMAX often needs volume and variety there.
To address your deeper concern about whether PMAX is a “money waster” and to ensure you can accurately measure performance and confirm the impact of these changes, an excellent solution is to upgrade your conversion tracking.
A combination of the Google Ads API with Google Tag Manager (GTM) and a server-side tagging solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers superior accuracy, resilience, and data control compared to client-side tracking.
Client-side tracking, where tags fire directly from the user’s browser, is increasingly unreliable due to browser privacy restrictions (like Intelligent Tracking Prevention – ITP) and ad blockers.
By implementing server-side tagging using GTM and a platform like Stape or GCP, you move the processing of your tracking tags to a cloud server you control.
This allows for more reliable data collection and helps with the deprecation of third-party cookies.
The Google Ads API comes into play by allowing you to send enhanced conversions data directly and securely from your server to Google Ads, bypassing the browser entirely.
This dramatically increases the accuracy of your conversion reporting, giving you a much clearer picture of your PMAX ROI.
Using a service like Stape keeps the costs very low, often making it much cheaper than the lost revenue from inaccurate conversion data.
This setup is a one-time project that significantly improves the foundation of all your marketing efforts, allowing you to accurately track critical Standard Events like purchase, add_to_cartview_item
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