Google has kicked off 2025 with a series of updates to its Performance Max campaigns, aiming to empower advertisers with more control, transparency, and actionable insights.
These enhancements help businesses optimise their ad performance across Google’s diverse advertising channels, including Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.
The announcement was made on January 23, 2025, highlighting Google’s commitment to continuously improving its advertising tools.
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As Tal Akabas, Google’s Director of Product Management, Google Ads, noted, “In 2025, we’ll continue growing Performance Max in several key areas to help you improve results and gain more transparency into what’s driving performance”.
Enhanced campaign controls
Google has introduced several new features to give advertisers more control over their campaigns:
Campaign-Level Negative Keywords: Now available to all advertisers, this feature allows advertisers to exclude specific queries to maintain brand suitability.
New Customer Acquisition Goal with High-Value Mode: Advertisers can prioritise high-value customers using Customer Match data, enabling Google AI to predict and bid more for users with more excellent long-term value.
Brand Exclusions: Retailers can apply brand exclusions to Search text ads while keeping branded traffic for Shopping ads.
“URL Contains” Rules: These rules enable targeted traffic based on specific page categories, such as focusing on pages featuring “shoes” in the URL.
Demographic and Device Targeting: New betas for age-based exclusions and device targeting offer more customisation options.
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Enhanced reporting and insights
The updates also include improvements in reporting and insights:
Deeper Search Reporting: Advertisers can now use search terms insights to see whether queries come from Performance Max’s keyword-less targeting or custom search themes. An indicator shows the usefulness of search themes, helping advertisers assess if they need updates.
Improved Asset Group Reporting: Advertisers can segment and download asset group performance data, allowing for more granular analysis by device, time, and other metrics. This data can now be shared outside the Google Ads interface, offering greater flexibility.
Google’s Performance Max commercials emphasise openness and advertiser control. These enhancements aim to empower businesses with AI tools that maximise their potential while reaching goals.