A fall in branded conversions inside Performance Max can invite the wrong budget decision. First establish whether the demand disappeared or moved to a dedicated Search campaign. A documentation change reported on 3 November makes that distinction particularly relevant for accounts running both campaign types.
The useful response is a coverage review, followed by a comparison of the account’s combined result. The recommendations below are an editorial control process; they are not evidence that any individual advertiser has already been affected.
What Google’s clarification actually says
Google’s current help page says Performance Max may direct navigational and brand-specific queries away from PMax toward dedicated Search campaigns. It recommends adequate brand Search budget and eligible, good-quality ads, and suggests considering search themes in PMax. “May” matters: this is conditional wording, not a promise that every brand query will be excluded.
The fresh event is a reported documentation revision. It does not establish a universal activation date, an automatic brand-exclusion setting, or a measured change in your account. Do not use the publication date as a substitute for evidence in campaign reporting.
Protect the campaign expected to receive the demand
Start with a short list of commercially important brand and navigational searches, including the variations customers actually use. For each one, identify the intended Search campaign, its market and its relevant landing page. This gives the team a concrete coverage map instead of the assumption that another campaign will take care of it.
Check eligibility before increasing spend. Google’s prioritization documentation lists disapproved ads or destinations, targeting differences and restricted budgets among reasons an expected candidate might not serve. Owning a matching keyword is therefore not enough to establish coverage.
Record the specific obstacle and its owner. An approval problem needs an ad or destination repair; a location mismatch needs a targeting decision. Where budget is the constraint, estimate the value of the additional coverage and agree a spending limit. Moving money without resolving eligibility can leave the original problem intact.
Read the combined account outcome before judging PMax
Compare equivalent periods using the same conversion actions, attribution settings and reporting scope. Build three views: branded-query activity in PMax, branded-query activity in Search, and the combined account outcome. Keep total spend beside business results so a cheaper-looking campaign is not automatically treated as a better business result.
If brand activity shifts between campaigns while the combined outcome holds, investigate redistribution before declaring lost demand. If both decline, investigate coverage and changes in demand. If spend rises without a corresponding improvement in useful outcomes, review the economics before allocating more. These are diagnostic branches, not proof of a single cause.
Query reporting can have gaps. Keep those gaps visible and avoid presenting the sum of reported brand terms as a complete census. A campaign-level conversion movement alone cannot demonstrate that new demand was created or destroyed.
Choose one next action and preserve a comparison
Use a simple decision rule: repair an identified eligibility issue; test extra budget where a genuine coverage constraint exists; investigate further when account evidence is inconclusive. Do not simultaneously change brand structure, bidding targets and measurement definitions if the purpose is to understand one routing effect.
Search themes should be considered within the account’s targeting design. They are not a guaranteed recovery switch for branded traffic. Write down the expected effect, the observation period appropriate to your conversion delay, and the result that would justify keeping the change.
For a CMO, the question is whether valuable existing demand remains covered at an acceptable cost. PMax’s own reported efficiency is one input. The budget decision belongs to the combined commercial outcome, with uncertainty stated explicitly.
Sources
- Search Engine Roundtable: PMax may filter navigational and brand queries (3 November 2026)
- Google Ads: How Performance Max interacts with other campaigns
- Google Ads: Ad group and asset group prioritization
