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No Search Terms in Performance Max? Here’s Why (and What to Do)
Uncover the mystery behind the Performance Max Search Terms report.
No Search Terms in Performance Max? Here’s Why (and What to Do)
Aug, 14, 2025
“We’ve had thousands of clicks — 3,398 to be exact — and yet only about 150 search terms show up. The rest are hidden in this mysterious ‘Other search terms’ bucket.”
If that sounds familiar, you might be wondering if something’s broken in your own account. It’s not — this is exactly how Performance Max works.
What Performance Max actually is
Performance Max (or PMax for short) is Google’s all-in-one campaign type. Instead of splitting budgets between Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Shopping, PMax runs across all of them automatically.
You give it your goals, ad assets (text, images, videos), and audience hints — and Google’s AI decides who to show your ads to, where, and when.
It’s great for reach and automation, but it also means you give up some of the transparency you might be used to in standard Search campaigns.
Why so few Search Terms show up
Only clicks that come from Google Search (or Shopping listings) have an actual search term behind them. If someone clicks from YouTube, Display, or Gmail, there’s no search query to show you.
Even for the Search clicks you do get, Google won’t list every query. They have privacy and volume thresholds — if not enough people searched a term, or if the data is considered too small to be useful, it gets hidden.
The result? You see the top, high-volume queries, but all the small one-offs (which in PMax can be the majority) end up grouped together.
The “Other Search Terms” bucket
That big “Other search terms” line in your report is simply Google’s catch-all category for every query it decided not to display individually.
It’s not one keyword. It’s dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of unique searches bundled together. In Performance Max, this category often eats up a huge chunk of your clicks and budget because the campaign casts such a wide net.
It’s frustrating, I know — especially if you’re used to combing through every keyword in a Search campaign. But with PMax, this is normal.
How I work around it
Even though Google won’t show me every search term, I’ve learned to work with what I get. Here’s what I do:
- Check the Insights tab regularly – The “Search terms insights” section groups queries into themes, even if they’re not shown individually. This helps me spot trends and new opportunities.
- Add negative keywords – If I see irrelevant terms in the report or know certain words are a bad fit, I add them as negatives to block them in the future.
- Run separate campaigns for key terms – For my most important keywords, I’ll use a regular Search campaign. That way I get full transparency and control over bids.
- Tighten up audience signals and assets – The more relevant my targeting and creative, the less likely Google is to show my ads on completely off-base searches.
The bottom line
If you’re running Performance Max and only see a fraction of your search terms, don’t panic — that’s exactly how Google built it. The key is to focus on the performance metrics that matter (like conversions and cost per conversion) and use the tools you do have to steer the campaign in the right direction.
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