Knowledge base
What's the difference between automated bidding and Performance Max?
Automated bidding is one setting inside a campaign (how bids are set). Performance Max is a whole campaign type that also controls targeting, placements, and creative assembly.
Automated bidding is a setting you can apply to almost any campaign type, Search, Shopping, Display, and it only controls how bids are set for a given auction, based on a goal like maximizing conversions or hitting a target cost per action.
Performance Max is a full campaign type that includes automated bidding but goes further: it also decides which of Google's channels to serve on (Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps), which audience signals to weight, and which combination of your uploaded assets to assemble into an ad. You can run automated bidding without Performance Max. You cannot run Performance Max without some form of automated bidding, it is built into the campaign type.