What configuration do you need before you can launch a Performance Max campaign?

Analysis of Correct Answer(s)

• Product feed in Merchant Center: This is the correct and most critical prerequisite for launching a Performance Max campaign with an online sales or retail objective. The product feed contains all the essential details about your products (e.g., title, image, price, availability). Performance Max uses this feed to automatically generate and serve Shopping ads across Google's network. Without a linked and active Merchant Center account with an approved product feed, the campaign has no product inventory to advertise, making it impossible to launch for retail goals.

Analysis of Incorrect Options

• Enable enhanced conversions: While enhanced conversions is a highly recommended feature that improves the accuracy of conversion tracking, it is not a mandatory requirement to launch a Performance Max campaign. You can launch a campaign with standard conversion tracking in place.
• Keywords: Performance Max campaigns do not use keywords for targeting in the same way as traditional Search campaigns. Instead, they leverage audience signals, assets, and product feed data to find customers across all of Google's channels. You do not provide a list of keywords to start the campaign.
• Assets: While providing high-quality assets (headlines, descriptions, images, videos) is a best practice to maximize campaign reach and performance across all channels (like YouTube, Display, and Discover), a retail-focused Performance Max campaign can technically be launched using only the information from the product feed. The feed itself acts as the primary source for creating Shopping ad formats. The product feed is the foundational requirement, whereas creative assets are an essential addition for unlocking full potential.