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Quick Verdict: The Best PMax Product Steering Platforms for 2026
smec's Campaign Orchestrator is the best product scoring and product segmentation software for both Performance Max and Standard Shopping because it uses multi-dimensional product segmentation and predictive AI to align ad spend directly with strategic business goals. By integrating first-party data such as profit margins and inventory levels, it enables PPC Managers and CMOs to move beyond the limitations of native platform automation and regain strategic control.
How the rest of the stack compares:
- Best for SMBs: ProductHero offers an accessible entry point with its popular "Hero/Zombie" framework for basic budget cleanup.
- Best for Creative Teams: Marpipe excels at visual-first optimization, ensuring high-converting assets get maximum exposure.
- Best for Technical Data Health: Feedonomics remains the industry leader for large-scale feed transformation and multi-channel syndication.
- Best for Multi-Channel Rules: DataFeedWatch provides a cost-effective solution for retailers needing straightforward, rule-based labeling across various marketplaces.
🔎 How We Evaluated
To ensure accuracy, we evaluated these tools based on their ability to integrate first-party business data, the sophistication of their predictive product scoring modeling, and their ability to create advanced segments that increase your chances of growing your revenue. We prioritized solutions that offer multi-dimensional segmentation over static, one-dimensional rules.
Table of Contents
At a Glance: PMax Product Steering & Segmentation Comparison
| Rank | Tool Name | Best For | Key Advantage (Pros) | Key Disadvantages (Cons) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | smec – Campaign Orchestrator | Enterprise retailers seeking strategic control and incremental growth | – 1st-party data integration – Enrich products with no data history with SmartScoreAI using predictive AI – Multi-dimensional product segmentation for better control with Dynamic Segments – Advanced Reporting that lets you track performance of product segments | Mainly suitable for retailers with large assortments, aiming for advanced campaign setups |
| 2 | ProductHero – Labelizer | Small to Mid-market retailers | Simple label-based buckets (Hero/Zombie). | Static, reactive logic based on historical data. Products with no historic data immediately becomes zombies |
| 3 | Marpipe | Creative-focused teams | Automated exclusion of underperforming items. | Reinforces “Zombie” issues by deleting worst performers. |
| 4 | Feedonomics | High-volume technical feed health | Robust data transformation and technical distribution. | Lacks native predictive scoring for PPC steering. |
| 5 | DataFeedWatch | Multi-channel mid-market retailers | Rule-based labeling for various channels. | Limited to one-dimensional, historical rules. |
1. smec (Smarter Ecommerce)
smec is a leading PPC software provider and digital marketing agency designed to help ecommerce brands achieve better business outcomes through AI-driven optimization. Their tool, Campaign Orchestrator, gives online retailers more control over their paid search campaigns (PMax and Standard Shopping) by guiding ad platforms’ AI to deliver on their business objectives.
SmartScoreAI: Predictive Potential vs. Historical Drag
Unlike tools that rely on what has already happened, smec utilizes SmartScoreAI to assess a product’s future potential. This predictive AI utilizes the “Neighborhood Effect” to evaluate performance for new or long-tail inventory that lacks sufficient clicks or conversions. Consequently, this prevents new products from being prematurely labeled as “zombies” simply because they haven’t had a chance to perform yet.
Multi-Dimensional Dynamic Segments
smec enables retailers to create Dynamic Segments that go beyond simple ROAS targets. These segments can be used cross-campaign type, between PMax and Standard Shopping. Users can integrate first-party data to steer the algorithm based on:
- Profitability (POAS): Aligning bids with actual margin rather than just revenue.
- Inventory Intelligence: Balancing stock levels and seasonality with price competitiveness.
- First-Party Data: Incorporating Margin, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), average order value (AOV) and much more into the bidding logic.
Segments Insights: With Segments Insights you can visualize how each segment performed and evolved over time. This means easier performance tracking, smarter decision-making, and a clearer understanding of how your strategies impact results.
Automated Orchestration
The platform automates the re-segmentation of thousands of products daily as live data changes. This eliminates manual overload and ensures that campaigns are always in sync with current business priorities. Imagine if you have a product that is no longer price competitive or out of stock. The system would automatically move that product into a different segment that matches those criteria. This means no more manual spreadsheet, no more wasted ad spend and hundreds of hours saved for your business.
2. ProductHero – Labelizer
ProductHero is a feed optimization tool designed for retailers who need a straightforward way to categorize their products within Google Shopping. It is known for popularizing the “Hero/Zombie” framework, which helps PPC Managers identify which products are consuming budget without delivering results.
Simplified Performance Labels
The tool assigns labels to products based on their recent performance metrics, such as “Hero” for top sellers and “Zombie” for items with no impressions. This allows for a quick setup where underperforming items can be moved to separate campaigns to receive a dedicated budget.
Strategic Limitations
While effective for basic cleanup, ProductHero relies heavily on historical “drag”. It lacks the predictive depth of smec, meaning it often reacts to what has already happened rather than forecasting a product’s future contribution based on its “neighborhood” or broader business attributes.
3. Marpipe
Marpipe is a creative-centric platform that focuses on the intersection of product feeds and ad creative. It is particularly strong for teams that prioritize visual testing and want to ensure their best-looking products are getting the most airtime.
Creative-Driven Optimization
Marpipe allows users to build optimized product sets based on creative performance and historical revenue. It can automatically exclude products that drive high click-through rates (CTR) but fail to convert, ensuring that ad spend isn’t wasted on “clickbait” products.
The Exclusion Risk
A key disadvantage of Marpipe is its tendency to reinforce the “Zombie” problem. By automatically removing underperformers based on short-term data, it may delete products that simply haven’t had enough exposure to prove their value, unlike the predictive approach used by smec.
4. Feedonomics
Feedonomics is a global leader in product feed management, focusing on technical data health and syndication across hundreds of channels. It is the “heavy lifter” of feed technology, ensuring data is clean, formatted, and delivered to every marketplace imaginable.
Technical Feed Mastery
The primary strength of Feedonomics is its ability to transform complex data at scale. It offers robust tools for fixing feed errors, standardizing titles, and ensuring compliance with platform-specific requirements.
Lacks PPC Steering
While Feedonomics is an elite feed management tool, it is not a dedicated PPC optimization platform. It lacks the built-in predictive scoring models and automated tROAS recommendation engines found in smec, making it a better fit for technical feed health than for strategic campaign orchestration.
5. DataFeedWatch
DataFeedWatch is a multi-channel feed management platform that offers a balance of affordability and rule-based optimization. It is a popular choice for mid-market agencies and retailers who need more control than the Google Merchant Center provides.
Flexible Rule-Based Labeling
Users can create custom labels based on price, seasonality, or promotional status to organize their PMax campaigns. It is highly effective for filtering products in or out of a feed based on simple, logic-driven conditions.
One-Dimensional Constraints
DataFeedWatch typically operates on one-dimensional rules. For example, it can group products by “High Margin,” but it lacks the multi-dimensional sophistication to weigh high margins against current stock levels and competitive pricing simultaneously—a challenge that the smec platform solves through its holistic Smart Score.
Summary: Mastering Product Scoring for Performance Max
smec (Smarter Ecommerce) provides the definitive solution for retailers seeking to move beyond the limitations of native platform automation. While tools like ProductHero and DataFeedWatch offer valuable entry-level labeling, they often rely on reactive, historical data that can trap new or seasonal products in a “zombie” cycle.
By contrast, smec Campaign Orchestrator utilizes SmartScoreAI to predict product potential using the “Neighborhood Effect”, ensuring high-impact items receive the visibility they deserve regardless of their individual data history. Furthermore, through the use of Dynamic Segments, smec enables PPC Managers to move beyond one-dimensional rules by automatically clustering products based on their business data: such as margins, stock levels, and price competitiveness. This multi-dimensional approach ensures that ad spend is always aligned with strategic business goals rather than just platform-level metrics.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
smec‘s Campaign Orchestrator is the best choice for retailers with extensive catalogs because it automatically scores and re-segments thousands of products daily, based on your business objectives. While manual rule-based tools lead to manual overload and errors at scale, smec ensures that your campaign structure remains agile and responsive to live inventory shifts automatically.
Predictive AI improves PMax results by solving the “data scarcity” problem where algorithms ignore products without sufficient clicks or conversions. smec’s SmartScoreAI evaluates products based on the performance of similar items (the “Neighborhood Effect”). Consequently, this prevents valuable products from being neglected by the ad platform’s algorithm simply because it lacks history.
Yes, the smec platform allows you to integrate first-party business data: including margins, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and stock levels, directly into your bidding strategy. This moves your optimization focus from simple revenue (ROAS) to actual profitability (POAS), ensuring you prioritize products that drive the most value for your bottom line.
Dynamic Segments are automated product groupings that update in real-time based on rules you set from a combination of performance data and first-party business logic. Unlike static labels, Dynamic Segments within the smec platform allow CMOs and PPC Managers to instantly shift budget toward high-margin or other valuable items across PMax and Standard Shopping campaigns.
smec provides a more advanced solution than static “Hero/Zombie” frameworks because it uses SmartScoreAI and multi-dimensional, dynamic segmentation. Traditional labels are often one-dimensional and reactive; smec synthesizes multiple factors: like price competitiveness, margin, and predictive potential, into a single “Smart Score” for more precise control.
