Campaign types in Hero Marketer
Google Ads supports several campaign types. Hero Marketer focuses on two of them, in different ways:
- Search campaigns are what the campaign wizard creates. End-to-end: targeting, keywords, ad copy, sitelinks, launch.
- Performance Max (PMax) campaigns aren't created by the wizard, but Hero AI can analyze and manage PMax campaigns that already exist in your Google Ads account.
This article explains the split and what to expect from each.
Search: what the wizard creates
The campaign wizard builds Search campaigns. These run on Google's search results page and are the right default for most B2B SaaS marketing:
- Triggered by keywords. You target the queries you care about. People searching those queries see your ad.
- Per-keyword reporting. You see exactly which keywords drove which clicks, conversions, and spend. The data is granular enough to act on.
- Ad-group structure. Each campaign holds one or more ad groups. The wizard usually maps one cluster to one ad group.
- Full text-ad control. Headlines and descriptions are written by Hero Marketer's AI from your product description and keywords. You review and edit before launch.
For most lean B2B SaaS teams, Search campaigns are where the demand-capture work happens. The keyword–intent–copy chain is transparent, every metric maps to a controllable input, and Hero AI's analysis ladder (campaign → ad group → keyword → search term) walks the same hierarchy you can fix things at.
Performance Max: managed but not created
Performance Max is Google's automated campaign type. One PMax campaign serves ads across all Google surfaces (Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps) using assets you provide. Google's system decides where, when, and to whom the ads show.
A few things make PMax different from Search:
- No keywords or ad groups. PMax uses asset groups instead — bundles of headlines, descriptions, images, videos, and logos that Google mixes into ads on the fly.
- Less granular reporting. The placement view (where your ads showed across the web) only exposes impressions, not clicks or cost. Search-intent insights are aggregated into Google-defined categories rather than raw search queries. This is a Google decision, not a Hero Marketer one.
- Creative-completeness signals. Asset coverage and ad strength tell you whether you've given Google enough creative to work with. They're closer to structural diagnostics than performance variance.
Hero Marketer's wizard doesn't yet create PMax campaigns. The wizard is built around the keyword–cluster–copy flow, which doesn't apply to PMax. If you want to run PMax alongside your Search campaigns, create them in Google Ads directly.
What Hero AI does with each type
Hero AI handles both types, but the analysis tracks differ:
| Topic | Search campaign | Performance Max campaign |
|---|---|---|
| Top-level reports | Campaign performance, segmentation, change history, billing | Campaign performance, segmentation, change history, billing |
| Drill-in | Ad group → keyword → search term | Asset group → placement → search-intent category |
| Reportable per-element metrics | Cost, clicks, conversions, CPA, ROAS at every level | Cost / clicks / conversions at the asset group level; impressions only at the placement level; volume and conversions at the search-category level |
| Recommendations | Ad group restructuring, negative keywords, search-term mining, ad copy fixes | Asset group composition, asset-coverage / ad-strength fixes, placement themes, search-intent category gaps |
When you ask Hero AI about a campaign, it detects the type before drilling in and routes the analysis down the matching track. You don't have to specify Search vs PMax — it'll figure it out and call out which track it's on.
When you'd want each
A rough rule:
- Use Search when intent is clear. People are typing exactly what your product does, and you want full control over which queries trigger your ads. Most B2B SaaS demand-capture campaigns are Search.
- Use Performance Max when intent is broader and you have the creative. Brand awareness, retargeting, or top-of-funnel campaigns where Google's automation can find audiences across surfaces. PMax needs a meaningful library of headlines, descriptions, images, and ideally videos to work well.
If you're early in paid search, start with Search. Add PMax later if the use case fits and you have the creative budget.
Other campaign types
Hero Marketer doesn't analyze or manage other Google Ads campaign types (Display, Video, Shopping, Demand Gen, Discovery, App). They're outside the product's scope today. If you have those running alongside Hero Marketer's campaigns, you'll see them in Google Ads but Hero AI won't drill into them.