Google Ads is starting 2025 with exciting updates to Performance Max, focusing on enhanced controls and deeper reporting insights. These new features aim to empower advertisers by providing more ways to steer campaigns and better understand what’s driving results. Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect from Performance Max this year.
1. Greater control over campaigns
Google is rolling out new features to help advertisers guide AI-driven campaigns more effectively:
- Campaign-level negative keywords: Now available to all advertisers, this long-awaited feature allows you to exclude specific queries for brand suitability or other reasons.
- New customer acquisition goal with high-value mode: Prioritize high-value customers using Customer Match. Google AI can now predict and bid more for users with greater long-term value, helping you maximize lifetime customer impact.
- Brand exclusions for retailer campaigns: Retail advertisers with product feeds can now apply brand exclusions to Search text ads while keeping branded traffic for Shopping ads, offering more tailored control.
- “URL contains” rules for product feed campaigns: Expand your targeting by directing ads to specific website page categories. For example, athletic apparel brands can focus campaigns on pages featuring “shoes” in the URL.
- Demographic and device targeting betas: Exclude age brackets like “18-24” or “65+” with demographic exclusions or target specific devices like computers, mobile phones, or tablets. Interested advertisers can sign up for these betas through Google Ads support.
2. Enhanced search reporting and insights
Detailed reporting improvements are making it easier to understand campaign performance:
- Search themes launch: Search themes allow advertisers to suggest key queries their customers use. The new search terms insights feature reveals whether queries stem from Performance Max’s keywordless targeting or your custom search themes.
- Usefulness indicator: Check the effectiveness of your search themes with a new indicator showing whether they drive incremental traffic or need updating.
3. Improved asset group reporting
Asset group performance reporting is becoming even more actionable:
- Granular performance breakdown: Segment your results by device, time, and other metrics to gain deeper insights into what’s working.
- Downloadable reporting: Share insights easily by downloading performance data directly from the Google Ads interface.
These updates enhance your ability to steer Google’s AI, prioritize valuable audiences, and gain transparency into campaign performance. Find Google’s official announcement here.
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