Performance Max reaches more of Google than any other campaign type, and for a franchise it comes in two very different shapes. One is built around physical locations: directions, calls from the map, visits to the store. The other is built around leads, the same form fills and booked calls the Search campaigns already chase.
Google's own tips for the first shape assume many locations in one account: it recommends at least 5 or 10. That describes a chain, not a single store. Below: the point in a location's life when Performance Max earns a place, the location counts Google wants before store goals make sense, the franchise categories Google refuses to count store visits for, and the version a single-store owner should run. Where we use examples, they come from the nine franchise locations we profiled in one example market, Orlando. The rules come from Google and apply everywhere.
Performance Max on Day One Spends a New Franchise Location's Budget Before Anyone Knows What a Customer Costs.
Google describes Performance Max as "a goal-based campaign type that allows you to access all Google Ads inventory, including YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps, from a single campaign." That reach is the point of it, and it's also why it doesn't go first.
A new location's opening campaign is Isolation, BrandRocket's exact-match Search campaign with bids set by hand. The second is Exploration, the broad match copy that's added once the location logs about 30 quality conversions a month. Performance Max comes third. For most new accounts that's around months six and seven. A busy location, or a franchisor pooling several locations' data, can get there sooner; a quiet one takes longer. The trigger is the conversions, not the calendar.
Google's lead-goal advice points the same way. Even for value-based bidding, its tip is a goal "closest to a sale or closed deal that has at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days." A location that hasn't yet proven which leads become customers gives Performance Max nothing solid to learn from, and Performance Max spends across every channel while it learns.
Store Goals Work Best for Brands With Many Doors. Google Recommends 5 Locations for Local Actions and 10 for Store Visits.
The location-based version of Performance Max is what Google calls Performance Max for store goals. It promotes physical locations linked from Business Profiles, shows ads in places like Google Maps, and bids toward offline outcomes: store visits, store sales, or local actions such as a tap on Directions.
Google's own optimization tips set the bar: "It's recommended that you have a minimum of 10 business locations in campaigns with store visits or store sales. For campaigns with local actions, it's recommended that you have a minimum of 5 business locations."
A franchisee with one store sits well under both numbers. A franchisor running one account for a whole region can clear them easily. Google's location groups help there: reusable collections of locations that can be applied at the account, campaign or ad group level.
Local actions are worth knowing either way. Google counts a Directions tap as a local action you can bid on in Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. A Call tap on a business location is different: Google says it's biddable "only in Performance Max campaigns." For a franchise location whose customers call from the map, that's one of the few things store goals offer that Search doesn't.
Google Counts Store Visits Account by Account. A Franchisor's Manager Account Can't Pool Its Franchisees' Foot Traffic.
Store visits are Google's estimate of how many people visited a location after interacting with an ad. They need enough data to report at all. Google's eligibility rules require enough ad clicks or impressions, and enough foot traffic, "to pass our privacy thresholds," and add that "The more locations you have, the higher the likelihood your account will have enough data to be eligible for store visits."
For a franchise system, one rule on Google's page decides a lot. Store visits can be reported in a manager account, but the eligibility test happens one account at a time: every sub-account has to qualify on its own data before it reports a single store visit.
So a franchisor can't add up its franchisees' separate accounts to qualify. If each location runs in its own account, each one has to clear the bar alone. If the franchisor runs many locations in one account, that account is judged on all of them together. This is one of the places where Chapter 14's question, who runs the account, changes what's possible.
Even when an account qualifies, store visits land in a different place from the leads a location already tracks. Google says they're added to the "All conversions" column, and for YouTube and Display to view-through conversions, as a separate conversion action. Check whether that "Store visits" action counts in the Conversions column, and ask for both columns side by side, before comparing a store-goal campaign with Search.
Google Won't Report Store Visits for Locations Related to Children. Kids' Education Franchises Need a Different Goal.
Google's store visit rules carry an exclusion that hits a whole corner of franchising. Google's eligibility list says store locations must not be sensitive, and its examples of sensitive places include locations tied to religion, to children, and to some health conditions. Those locations can't get store visit conversions at all. Google applies the same rule to local actions, the other store goal, so for these franchises store goals as a whole are off the table.
Three of the nine franchise locations we profiled are kids' education: a tutoring center, a math-and-reading center and an early-education academy. All three serve children, which Google lists as a sensitive category, so expect store visits and local actions to be unavailable however many locations those brands have. Chiropractic is less clear. Google's health examples, such as addiction treatment, fertility and counseling centers, don't name chiropractic, and the list isn't complete, so a clinic franchise should check eligibility first.
None of this takes Performance Max off the table for these franchises. It changes the goal. A tutoring center's Performance Max campaign bids toward the same leads its Search campaigns do: a booked assessment, an enrollment inquiry, a qualified call. Chapter 1 covered how each location reports those.
A Store-Goal Campaign Picks Its Own Radius Unless Someone Sets One. Google's Radius Has Never Seen the Territory Map.
Chapter 9 drew each location's territory in ZIP codes. A store-goal campaign has its own idea of where to show. Google says it uses "radius targeting for the Business Profile and affiliate local assets (ALA) locations that can either be set in the campaign's location targeting or automatically determined, if you haven't set a specific radius."
That automatic radius, Google says, depends on "the targeted locations and a user's preference of travel distance to them," along with the business category, population density and existing competitors. None of those is a franchise territory. Left alone, in our reading, the radius around one location can reach past its territory into a neighbor's ZIP codes, and Google's Maps ads can reach anyone "located nearby or shows interest in your location."
The fix follows Chapter 9. Set a specific radius, or location targeting, that matches the territory instead of leaving it automatic. When a franchisor runs a chain-wide store-goal campaign from the brand fund, it should cover only the locations the franchisor actually runs ads for, or leave out the ZIP codes franchisees already pay for, the same rule Chapter 9 set for the brand's own campaigns.
Store-Visit Campaigns Are a Franchisor's Tool. A Single Franchise Location Runs Performance Max for Leads.
For a franchisee with one location, the version of Performance Max that fits is the one built around leads. It bids toward the same quality conversion the Search campaigns use, so its results can be judged against theirs, and it doesn't need five or ten locations to work.
It also doesn't take over the searches Isolation already owns. Google's rule: "Search campaigns containing an exact match keyword are prioritized to serve over Performance Max when a query hits an exact match keyword. Search themes carry the same priority as phrase and broad match keywords." So the location's biggest near-me searches from Chapter 6 keep running through its exact-match campaign, with the bids and ad copy chosen for them, while Performance Max reaches into YouTube, Display, Maps and the searches nobody listed.
Two settings matter at launch. First, the bid target is conversions, not conversion value. A location that hasn't put a reliable dollar value on each lead has nothing for a value target to work with. Second, brand exclusions. Performance Max can show on searches for the brand's own name, which Chapter 2 gave to the brand campaign, usually the franchisor's. Google lets advertisers apply brand exclusions to Performance Max campaigns, and a franchisee's campaign should use them so it doesn't pay for searches the brand campaign already covers. Chapter 15 covers brand-name searches in full.
The campaign's creative should come from the location, not the brand's national kit. The headlines and descriptions Chapter 8 built from the location's own reviews belong in its asset groups, along with photos of its own team and its own storefront. A Performance Max campaign filled only with brand assets looks the same as every other location's, and the customer it reaches can't tell which door it leads to.
Next: Grand Opening Marketing Should Start in Search
With the full campaign lineup in place, Chapter 11 goes back to the beginning of a location's life: the grand opening, why its money belongs in Search first, and what Demand Gen and YouTube need before they're worth adding.
All sixteen chapters, from tracking and territories to who runs the ads and franchise development, are on the guide's home page.
Every franchise location in our Google Ads management adds Performance Max only after its Search campaigns have proven the cost of a customer, and a single-location account runs it for leads. Own a location? Ask whoever runs your account which goal your Performance Max campaign bids toward, and whether brand exclusions are on.
