After a busy 2024 full of updates related to enhance control and reporting capabilities, Google is not ready to stop and has already unfolded more updates which will be focused on further improving Performance Max.
Pmax will continue to grow in critical areas and aim to improve results and gain even more transparency into what’s working and what’s not. Some of the already introduced new features are:
New Features
- More campaign controls to navigate AI
- Campaign level negative keywords
- New customer acquisition goal
- Brand exclusions for different formats in campaigns with product feeds
- ‘URL contains’ rules for campaigns with product feeds
- Demographic exclusions
- Device targeting
- Deeper Search reporting
- Search themes usefulness indicator
- Search terms insights source column
- Better Asset group reporting
- Ability to segment and download asset group performance
Even though some of those features sound a lot more exciting than others it shows that Google is focused on finally making performance max the product it should be. An ad type that would allow the advertiser to have more control.
More Campaign Controls to Help You Steer AI
Last year Google unveiled the beta for campaign-level negative keywords. And in the following weeks this will be rolling out for all advertisers.
Additionally, advertisers will soon have the capability to restrict based on demographics. Betas will be launching based on age brackets and later on device traffic.
Enhance your performance max campaigns by using new customer acquisitions with dedicated goals. In 2024 Google launched a beta for high-value new customer mode, which is now being rolled out for everyone. This feature allows you to define high-value customers and their long-term worth using Customer Match. Google AI then analyses your data to identify and bid more aggressively on new users with the highest potential lifetime value. Plus, campaign-level reporting gives you visibility into how many new customers you’re acquiring—and how many fall into the high-value segment.
Retail advertisers using product feeds will soon have more control over brand exclusions across different ad formats. Previously, brand exclusions applied to both Search and Shopping ads. Now, you’ll have the flexibility to apply them only to Search text ads while maintaining branded traffic for Shopping ads. This update is particularly useful if you want to continue showing Shopping ads for brand terms while managing Search text ads separately in a different campaign.
URL contains” rules, already available in standard Performance Max campaigns, will soon expand to Performance Max campaigns with product feeds. These rules allow you to target traffic based on specific page categories on your website. For example, if you run an athletic apparel store, you can set your campaign to focus on all pages with “shoes” in the URL, ensuring more precise targeting and better campaign performance.
Enhanced Search Reporting and Guidance
Performance Max will be getting richer, more detailed reports as soon as this month. Search Themes were launched in beta that allow advertisers to specify queries through which customers can find them. These themes complement the queries and placements that Performance Max already predicts based on your assets, feeds, and landing pages.
Now after plenty of feedback and requests, Google is officially launching in search themes with improvements. Advertisers will gain access to search terms insights, allowing them to see whether queries are coming from performance max’s keywordless targeting or the search themes added! – This is going to be one of the best recent additions, allowing the much-desired transparency and control that Performance Max was lacking.
Further to that, an indicator next to the search themes will show how ‘useful’ they are. With that, it will be easier to determine if search themes are driving incremental traffic to the advertiser’s website.
Improved Asset Group Reporting
And finally, asset grouping reporting gets fresh new enhancements. You can now segment asset group performance across all Performance Max campaigns, breaking down results by device, time, and more for deeper insights.
And that’s not all. More controls, insights and reporting are coming in the months ahead.
All of those mentioned above are a great addition to an ad type that looks to be the future of online advertising. As Google continues to improve and implement more and more AI, we will continue to see rapid improvements and updates that will hopefully keep offering not only transparency but even more control to the advertisers. Something that Google has been heavily criticised about in the last few years.
If you are a business looking to start advertising on Google Ads and using all of its up-to-date features, don’t hesitate to contact us at hello@cmemedia.com and let’s get you live.
