Performance Max can make CPA look splendidly efficient when it is buying our own brand searches, inclusive of demand we might have captured without that spend. Audit brand search-term coverage this week, then test brand exclusions against total qualified-lead volume, not just the campaign’s reported CPA.
Analysis by Ryan Sappington, founder of Scaled Advertising, a paid media agency for B2C big-ticket lead generation across Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and Meta.
What was published
The Performance Max Brand Leak Audit: Measuring the Spend You Would Have Won Anyway
Performance Max often reports your best return because it is quietly buying your own brand. Here is the audit that sizes the leak, and the levers that plug it. The post The Performance Max Brand Leak Audit: Measuring the Spend You Would Have Won Anyway first appeared on PPC Hero .
Read the original on PPC HeroWhat we'd do about it
Changes like this show up in cost per qualified lead before they show up in the interface. Audit the affected campaigns this week: search terms, conversion actions tied to real PII capture, ad relevance, and landing page speed. Then decide whether spend can scale rather than assuming it can. We do exactly that work for clients as part of our paid media management.
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