What configuration do you need before you can launch a Performance Max campaign?
Correct Answer
Product feed in Merchant Center
Key takeaways
The Merchant Center feed, linked to the ads account, is the prerequisite.
Assets are supplied during the build.
There are no keywords in Performance Max.
Why is this the correct answer?
A retail Performance Max campaign advertises the products in your Merchant Center feed, so that feed has to exist and be linked to the ads account before launch. Nothing can serve without it. Assets are supplied while building the campaign, enhanced conversions improve measurement but do not gate the launch, and keywords have no place in this campaign type at all.
Why are the other options wrong?
Enable enhanced conversions
Enhanced conversions are strongly recommended for measurement accuracy, but a campaign can launch without them.
Keywords
Performance Max has no keywords. Matching comes from the feed, your assets and audience signals.
Assets
Assets are part of the campaign build rather than a separate prior configuration.
Frequently asked questions about this topic
How long does the Merchant Center link take to activate?
The request is sent from Merchant Center and approved by an administrator on the ads account, so it depends on whoever holds that access. Until approval is granted the campaign has no products, which is a common cause of a new campaign not delivering.
Official documentation: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/12446595
Topics in this question
About the Shopping Ads Certification
The Shopping Ads Certification checks that you can run retail campaigns end to end: product data in Merchant Center, linking it to Google Ads, and choosing between Standard Shopping and Performance Max to drive sales and value.
Exam guide and all 407 Google Ads Shopping questions →Related Google Ads Shopping questions
- 1Which configuration must you configure before launching a Performance Max campaign?Explained
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