Liam Walsh
Liam is a Co-Director at Intelligency and heads up the agency's Digital Intelligence & Paid Social activity. Over the last decade, he has worked with brands from the world of sports such as Premier League clubs to entertainment such as Channel 4 and Disney.
Google has quietly rolled out a new beta feature in its Performance Max (PMax) campaigns, enabling advertisers to exclude audiences by gender.
What is Performance Max?
Performance Max is Google’s goal-based campaign type that runs across all Google Ads inventory—including Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps—using machine learning to find the best-performing placements in real time. Advertisers provide creative assets, audience signals, and goals, and Google’s AI automatically serves the most relevant ads to likely converters. While powerful, PMax has often been criticised for its lack of control over targeting compared to traditional campaign types.
Why This Matters
The ability to exclude genders gives marketers more precise control, allowing them to avoid wasting spend on audiences unlikely to convert. For brands with gender-specific products or services, this could mean better campaign efficiency, stronger return on ad spend (ROAS), and more relevant ad experiences for users.
How It Could Be Used
- Separate campaigns for men’s and women’s products – allowing Google’s algorithms to optimise budgets and bids based on gender-specific performance.
- More relevant ad copy and creatives per audience – tailoring messaging, tone, and imagery for maximum resonance.
- Focused product feeds for higher Shopping ad relevance – ensuring the right products are shown to the right gender, reducing mismatched impressions.
For example, a sportswear retailer could run one PMax campaign exclusively targeting men with male-specific creative and product listings, while running a parallel campaign for women with tailored visuals and messaging. This not only improves the relevance of ads but also ensures each campaign can be optimised for its specific audience without budget dilution.
Bottom Line
As with most new features, early adopters could see performance gains before competitors are even aware the option exists—especially in markets where relevance and targeting precision make all the difference.
