Performance Max vs Search campaigns for insurance agencies

Start with a Search campaign. It shows your ads only to people searching words you choose, and you can see and block every search that costs you money. Performance Max can come later, once your conversion tracking records real quote requests and calls, and once Search has shown you which products and areas sell.

Key facts

• Performance Max runs across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one campaign (About Performance Max).
• A Search campaign with an exact match keyword identical to the search is served before Performance Max (About keyword matching options).
• Performance Max now allows up to 10,000 negative keywords per campaign, and they apply to Search and Shopping inventory only (Performance Max FAQ).
• Google added search terms reporting for all Performance Max campaigns in 2025 (Google Ads Help).

What is the difference between Performance Max and Search?

Search is keyword-led, and Performance Max is goal-led. In a Search campaign you choose keywords, write the ads and pick the landing page. Your ads show on Google's results pages when someone searches something that matches.

Performance Max starts from a conversion goal, such as a lead form or a call. You supply asset groups, which Google defines as "collections of creative assets, like images, text, logos, and videos." Google's system then builds ads from those assets and places them across all its channels.

Why does a small agency usually start with Search?

Because every dollar goes to someone who searched for insurance. A small budget spread across YouTube, Display and Gmail buys impressions from people who weren't shopping. Search keeps the money on searches like "home insurance agent near me" in the area you serve.

Search also gives you control while you learn. You decide which product each ad group sells and which page it sends people to. You can see what each keyword costs per inquiry, and you can pause the ones that don't produce quotes.

The third reason is data. Google says of Performance Max that "AI is only as good as the data you put into it," and that more conversion data lets it reach your goal faster.

A new account has little data. If your tracking counts page views or button clicks as conversions, the system will chase those instead of buyers. Our conversion tracking guide shows how to count only real inquiries.

How much control does Performance Max give you now?

More than it did at launch. Google's 2025 update added these controls and reports to Performance Max:

• Search terms reporting for all campaigns, so you can see which searches triggered ads.
• Campaign-level negative keyword lists, alongside up to 10,000 negative keywords per campaign.
• Channel performance reporting, which shows how each channel contributes to your goals.
• Device targeting and age-based demographic controls.
• Search themes, raised from 25 to 50 per asset group.

Brand exclusions are a separate control. Google says they block brand traffic better than negative keywords, because they also catch misspellings of a brand name. That matters if you don't want to pay for searches of your own agency name, or for searches of a carrier's name.

Read this before adding negative keywords to Performance Max: they block only Search and Shopping inventory, not YouTube, Display, Gmail or Discover (Performance Max FAQ).

So a search for "insurance jobs" can be blocked in Performance Max today. A YouTube placement next to unrelated content can't be blocked with a keyword. The negative keywords guide lists the searches insurance agencies usually exclude.

What happens if you run both?

Google decides which campaign serves for each search. Its keyword matching page sets the order:

1. An exact match keyword identical to the search wins, and the Search campaign serves.
2. Phrase match, broad match and Performance Max search themes share priority after that.
3. Among those, Google picks the most relevant ad group or asset group, then the one with the higher Ad Rank.

In practice, keep your core product searches as exact match keywords in Search. Performance Max then fills in around them rather than taking your best searches. Google says Performance Max can "complement your keyword-based Search campaigns," and running both this way follows that design.

When can Performance Max fit an insurance agency?

When three things are true. First, your tracking counts quote requests and answered calls, not clicks.

Second, you have enough of those conversions for the system to learn from. The Google pages cited here give no minimum number, so judge it by whether your monthly conversions are steady. Third, you have real photos and short videos for the asset groups, because Google will place them on YouTube and Display.

Even then, give it a defined test. Run it alongside Search with a separate budget, check the search terms and channel reports each week, and compare the cost per sale, not the cost per lead. Google's FAQ suggests enhanced conversions for leads to tie online inquiries to offline sales. It also suggests a CAPTCHA (a test that tells people from bots) on lead forms to stop bot submissions.

Performance Max can also reach people on YouTube, Display and Gmail who weren't searching for insurance. Watch for form fills nobody can reach, or calls about unrelated topics. The junk leads guide covers how to spot and cut them.

Our Google Ads management sets up tracking first, then Search campaigns and a landing page. The fee is 10% of total monthly ad spend, and the agency owns the account.

What about AI Max for Search?

AI Max is a set of targeting and creative enhancements inside a Search campaign, not a separate campaign type. Google says it adds search term matching, text customization and expanding which page of your site an ad sends people to (AI Max help). Those features widen the searches and pages a campaign can use, so the same rule applies: get the tracking right first, and read the search terms report often.

To work out which campaign type fits your budget and tracking, book a Google Ads strategy call.