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The product is excluded. The listing group marks it as Excluded. Everything is correctly set in Merchant Center. And yet, you still see impressions, clicks, and spend in your report.
If this is happening in a Performance Max campaign, the issue is not your product segmentation. The issue is the campaign architecture.
The mechanism behind it
In Google Ads, Performance Max campaigns typically operate with the Final URL Expansion feature enabled by default in most accounts. And this is exactly what can bypass your feed logic.
According to official Google documentation:
Technically, this means Google can select a different landing page from your domain than the one defined in your campaign — based on evaluated relevance to the user’s query.
This highlights a critical distinction many advertisers overlook:
Performance Max does not work exclusively with the feed. It works in parallel with both the feed and website crawling.
Feed Logic ≠ URL Logic
Technically, P.Max operates with two parallel inputs:
1. Merchant Center Feed
Google Merchant Center provides:
- product ID
- price
- availability
- custom labels
- product URL
→ The feed controls your Shopping inventory.
2. Web Crawling + URL Expansion
When Final URL Expansion is enabled, the system:
- crawls your domain
- maps website content
- evaluates relevance to user queries
- may use a landing page outside of your feed segmentation
Traffic can be directed outside your defined Final URL
Besides showing ads on your specified final URL, if Final URL Expansion is enabled, the system may direct traffic to additional URLs within the same domain. It can also work with product URLs from your Google Merchant Center source.
Why an excluded product still shows
The critical phrase here is: “additional URLs on the same domain.”
In practice, this means that if a product page exists on your website that you have excluded in the campaign, but the page is still accessible, indexable, and content-relevant, the algorithm may evaluate it as a better match for a specific user query and use it as the target landing page.
The scenario then looks as follows:
From the algorithm’s perspective, this is relevance optimization. From a campaign management perspective, it bypasses your feed segmentation.
Simple solution in a BlueWinston P.Max campaign
At BlueWinston, we solve this directly at the campaign settings level.
If spend leakage is caused by URL Expansion (or Automatically Created Assets), the solution is straightforward:
→ Go to General → Automatically created assets → Disable the “Final URL” option
This removes the layer that allows the system to use additional URLs from your domain outside your feed segmentation.
What happens after deactivation?
Once disabled:
- Ads only direct traffic to URLs defined in the feed
- The system no longer uses “additional URLs on the same domain”
- Excluded products are truly not advertised
- Custom label segmentation remains intact
- Budget follows your business logic
Your campaign architecture returns fully under feed control.
Summary
If Performance Max is showing products that are set as Excluded in your listing group, it’s not a feed or segmentation error. It’s the result of an enabled feature that allows the system to use additional domain URLs beyond strict feed logic.
At BlueWinston, you can resolve this simply by disabling the Final URL option. This ensures campaigns only direct traffic to feed-defined URLs and keeps your budget under control.
If you’re unsure where to find this setting or how to properly apply it to your account, the BlueWinston team is happy to help.
Just contact our PPC specialists at [email protected] We’re here for you.
