Google and Microsoft: How their Performance Max approaches align and diverge

Performance Max (PMax) campaigns have become the cornerstone of AI-driven advertising. 

Both Google and Microsoft offer advertisers a way to consolidate creative assets, audience signals, and automation into a single campaign type. (Disclosure: I work as Microsoft’s product liaison.)

While the concept is similar across platforms, the execution and feature sets differ significantly.

This article aims to provide an objective comparison of Google PMax and Microsoft PMax as of late 2025. 

We’ll explore what’s universally true, what’s unique to each platform, and strategic considerations for advertisers looking to maximize performance.

What’s universally true about PMax

Despite platform differences, several foundational principles apply to PMax campaigns across both Google and Microsoft:

Asset groups replace ad groups

PMax campaigns use asset groups instead of ad groups. 

Each asset group contains a mix of creatives (images, headlines, videos…