Maria runs a family dental practice in Lakewood. Last month, she finally set aside a budget for Google Ads. Within a week, two people gave her completely different advice.
A representative from Google called and recommended Performance Max. “It uses Google’s AI to find patients for you across all of Google,” he said. “You just give it your goals and your budget.”
Then her nephew, who has run ads for a few small businesses, told her the opposite. “Start with a Search campaign. You’ll know exactly what you’re paying for.”
Both of them sounded confident. Both of them had a point. And Maria was left wondering which one to trust with her money. (Maria is an example we made up for this guide, but her situation is one many local business owners face.)
If you are in the same position, this guide is for you. We will explain what each campaign type actually does, in plain English, and walk through how a local business like Maria’s can decide.
First, what is a “campaign type”?
When you create a campaign in Google Ads, the first big decision is the campaign type. It decides where your ads can appear and how much control you have over them. There are several types, but for most local businesses, the choice comes down to two: Search and Performance Max.
A simple way to picture the difference is fishing. A Search campaign is like fishing with a single line in a spot you chose, for a fish you know is there. Performance Max is like handing a large net to an experienced crew and letting them decide which waters to fish in. The crew may catch more, but you do not always see where they went or why.
How a Search campaign works
You have seen Search ads hundreds of times. When you search on Google for something like “emergency dentist Lakewood”, the first few results often have a small “Sponsored” label. Those are Search ads.
With a Search campaign, you choose keywords: the words and phrases you want your ads to appear for. Maria might choose “dentist Lakewood”, “family dentist near me” and “teeth cleaning Lakewood WA”. When someone searches for something that matches, Google can show her ad.
You also write the ads yourself, decide how much you are willing to pay per click, and, most importantly, see a report of the searches people typed before clicking. If Maria notices her ad appearing for “dentist jobs Lakewood”, she can block that search so she stops paying for job seekers.
Search campaigns only reach people who are actively searching. That sounds like a limitation, but for a local business it is a strength. Someone typing “emergency dentist open Saturday” is not browsing. They need help now.
How Performance Max works
Performance Max, often shortened to PMax, is a single campaign that can show your ads across nearly all of Google at once:
- Search: text ads on Google search results, like a normal Search campaign.
- YouTube: video ads before or during videos.
- Display: image ads on millions of websites and apps that partner with Google.
- Discover and Gmail: ads in the Google app’s news feed and in Gmail’s promotions tab.
- Maps: ads when people search on Google Maps.
Instead of choosing keywords and writing every ad, you give Google ingredients: headlines, descriptions, photos, videos, your website and your goal. Google’s system then mixes these into ads, decides where to show them, who to show them to and how much to bid, all automatically. Google’s overview of Performance Max campaigns explains how the pieces fit together.
It learns by watching which people go on to become conversions. A conversion is whatever you count as a win: a phone call, a booked appointment, a completed form. The more conversions Performance Max sees, the better it gets at finding more people like them.
Why tracking decides everything
That last point is where many local businesses get into trouble with Performance Max.
Imagine Maria’s website counts a conversion every time someone visits her contact page, rather than when they actually submit the form or call. To Performance Max, a visit to the contact page looks like success. So it goes looking for more people who visit contact pages, which is not the same as people who book appointments.
Within a few weeks, the campaign can look like it is performing brilliantly while the phone stays quiet. Nothing is wrong with the campaign. It is doing exactly what it was told. It was simply told the wrong thing.
A Search campaign suffers from bad tracking too, but much less, because Maria still controls the keywords and can see the searches behind the clicks. Performance Max relies almost entirely on what the tracking tells it.
Which one should Maria choose?
Instead of picking a side, Maria can answer five questions about her own business.
1. Are calls and form submissions tracked correctly?
If she is not sure, the answer is probably no. Fixing tracking comes before choosing a campaign type, and it matters far more for Performance Max.
2. How many patients come from ads each month?
Performance Max needs enough conversions to learn from. A brand-new advertiser with a handful of leads a month gives it very little to go on. Search can work well with much less data.
3. How big is the budget?
With a modest budget, every dollar matters. Spending it on people actively searching for a dentist is usually safer than spreading it across YouTube, websites and Gmail.
4. Does she have good photos and video?
Performance Max shows image and video ads. If Maria only has a logo and a stock photo, Google may build ads from whatever it can find, and they often look generic. Real photos of her team and her office make a big difference.
5. How much does she want to see and control?
Some business owners are happy to let a system run. Others want to know exactly where their money goes. Search gives far more visibility.
For Maria, a new advertiser with a modest budget and tracking she has never checked, the answer is clear: start with Search. Her nephew was right, for now.
When Performance Max becomes the better tool
That does not mean Performance Max is wrong for Maria forever. Picture her six months later. Her tracking counts only real calls and booked appointments. Her Search campaign brings in a steady flow of new patients. She has a set of good photos of her team and a short video tour of the office.
Now Performance Max has what it needs: reliable conversions to learn from and good material to build ads with. It can reach people Search would miss, such as someone who visited her website last week but did not call, and now sees her ad on YouTube. At this point, testing Performance Max alongside Search makes sense.
How to run both without them competing
Many local businesses end up running both types. Search Engine Land has reported substantial overlap in the searches the two campaign types compete for, so a few rules help stop them from stepping on each other’s toes.
Search is preferred for matching searches
Google’s help page on how Performance Max interacts with other campaigns says that a Search campaign with a keyword that exactly matches a person’s search, or is spell-corrected to it, will be preferred over Performance Max. So if Maria has the keyword “dentist Lakewood” in Search and someone types exactly that, or misspells it slightly, her Search ad is preferred, with the copy she wrote for it. Keep your most important searches as keywords in Search.
Keep Search funded
If Maria’s Search campaign runs out of budget at 2 p.m., it stops showing for the rest of the day. Google does not spell out what happens to those searches next, but Performance Max may still be able to show for some of them, and you lose the control you planned for. Google’s own advice is to give brand Search campaigns “sufficient budget and high-quality, eligible ads.” Make sure your Search budget covers the day.
Use brand exclusions
People who search for your business by name are already looking for you. Many advertisers prefer to handle those searches in Search, where they control the wording and the bid. Performance Max lets you add brand exclusions so it stays away from your own name. Google’s guide to brand exclusions shows how.
Add negative keywords
Negative keywords tell Google which searches to avoid. Google now allows up to 10,000 campaign-level negative keywords in each Performance Max campaign, and they apply to its Search and Shopping traffic, as PPC Land reported in March 2025, citing Google. Maria might block “dental school”, “dental assistant jobs” and “free dental clinic”. Use them with care, though. Blocking too much can stop the campaign from finding good patients.
Check location settings in both
Both campaign types use the same location settings, and the default can show ads to people outside your area. We explain this in detail in our guide on why Google Ads can show outside your service area.
A simple plan for most local businesses
Put together, a sensible path for most local businesses looks like this:
- Months 1 to 3: run a focused Search campaign with tight keywords, clear ads, and a fast, matching landing page. Make sure calls and form submissions are tracked properly.
- Once tracking is reliable and leads are steady: test Performance Max with its own budget, your best photos and video, brand exclusions and a list of negative keywords.
- After a few weeks of running both: compare cost per lead, then ask the more important question: which leads became paying customers?
That last step is easy to skip, and it is where the real answer lives. A campaign that brings in many cheap leads who never book can be worse than one that brings fewer, better ones.
Back to Maria
Maria went with her nephew’s advice and started with Search. She spent her first month fixing her tracking so only real calls and booked appointments counted. By the third month, she knew exactly which searches brought new patients, and which ones to block.
When she is ready to test Performance Max, she will do it with good data, good photos and a clear way to judge it. The Google representative was not wrong either. He was just early.
Frequently asked questions
Is Performance Max bad for local businesses?
No. It can work very well, but it needs reliable conversion tracking, enough conversions to learn from, and good photos and video. Without those, Search is usually the safer place to start.
Can Performance Max show my business on Google Maps?
Yes, Maps is one of the places Performance Max can show ads. Linking your Google Business Profile to your account helps.
Can I see which searches Performance Max showed my ads for?
Google has added more search term reporting to Performance Max over time, but Search campaigns still give you the clearest and most complete view.
Not sure which is right for your business?
At Around29, we build and review Google Ads campaigns for local businesses every week, starting with the tracking that makes them work. If you serve Tacoma or the South Sound, see our Tacoma Google Ads page, or run a free audit to see where your marketing stands today.