Use the 3 Performance Max controls Google quietly returned

By the end of this build you'll have switched on the three controls Google quietly returned to Performance Max and fenced off your brand spend, so your numbers reflect real prospecting instead of a black box taking credit for people who already know you. About twenty minutes inside your Google Ads account plus one keyword tool. Stack: Google Ads, Semrush to mine the search terms report, and a CRM to catch the clicks afterward.

For two years Performance Max, Google's all-in-one automated campaign, gave you almost nothing to steer with. You set a budget and a goal, handed over your assets, and hoped. Through 2025 and into 2026 Google added back three real controls: campaign-level negative keywords, account-wide placement exclusions, and a search terms report. None were announced loudly. All matter if you spend on Google Ads.

What you'll build

A supervised Performance Max setup instead of a black box:

• Negative keywords stripping the junk queries you never wanted.
• One account-level placement exclusion list protecting every campaign.
• A brand fence so the campaign stops claiming traffic it did not earn.

Stack

• Your Google Ads account. All three controls live inside it.
• Semrush, to mine the search terms report faster.
• GoHighLevel as the CRM downstream, so protected clicks don't leak after they land.

The stack

Google Adsall three controls live inside the account

Semrushmine the search terms report for junk themes faster

GoHighLevelcatch the protected clicks before they leak

In order of money saved: campaign-level negatives rolled out to every advertiser in January 2025, and Google later lifted the cap far past the old 100-keyword ceiling. (Search Engine Journal has tracked the rollout.) Account-level placement exclusions came next: as of early 2026 they apply across Performance Max, Demand Gen, Display, and YouTube from one list, after researchers showed Google ads on junk surfaces and Google gave impression-level placement data starting March 2025. (eMarketer covered the transparency push.) Third, the search terms report. Thinner than the Search version, but it finally shows the queries you're paying for. A fourth change is coming whether you act or not. AI Max for Search is replacing Dynamic Search Ads, with forced migration pushed to 2027 but new Search campaigns leaning on it by default. (Google's announcement lays out the features.)

Steps

Spend twenty minutes and do these in order.

The part that breaks

The second trap is protecting the click and then wasting it. The ad gets the visit, but if it lands on a page with no clear next step and no follow-up, the budget you just cleaned up leaks out the other end. A lead-to-CRM automation in Make closes that gap.

Copy this

A starting negative-keyword theme list to paste in after your first search-terms read, then expand monthly from the report:

free
jobs / careers / hiring
diy / how to / tutorial
[competitor names]
cheap / wholesale (if you are not those)

These themes most often burn budget on people who will never buy.

Upgrade path

Once the controls and brand fence are live, watch for budget control to catch up with the reporting. Performance Max shows how spend split across channels but still will not let you set a budget per channel. Reporting without control is half a gift.

Google and Meta are moving the same way: AI owns the targeting, and your creative, offer, and exclusions are the levers you keep. The Meta Advantage+ default build covers the other platform, the automation playbook hub tracks what's shifting, and the full archive has the rest.