Google’s AI-powered campaign types have been a revelation for advertisers: Performance Max has proven a valuable full-funnel tool for deploying across Shopping, Search, and other key ad placements, while Demand Gen has deftly taken over many top-of-funnel awareness functions on platforms like YouTube.
Campaigns like these, which require fewer user inputs and rely more on automation, can sometimes diminish the amount of control advertisers have over them—but that’s changing. Recently, Google announced updates to both Performance Max and Demand Gen that give brands more flexibility and oversight when using them.
Performance Max Updates: More Insights and Placement Control
Earlier this year, Google announced a slew of new updates to Performance Max that the company claims will make it more effective and transparent.
Campaign-level Negative Keywords
Previously introduced as a beta in 2024, campaign-level negative keywords for Performance Max received wide rollout in Q1 2025. These allow advertisers to nullify search appearances for certain queries that may be irrelevant or unsuitable to the brand. ADM has already found these particularly useful for excluding some of our health clients from searches that they don’t want to appear in, streamlining a process that formerly required us to directly request adjustments from our agency partners at Google.
New “High Value Mode” for Customer Acquisition
One of the great advantages of automated campaigns is their ability to optimize for highly-specific marketing goals, which is what makes the new Performance Max high value new customer mode an intriguing functionality. Using Customer Match, brands can now specify what constitutes a “high-value” customer to them, and Google’s AI will optimize customer acquisition to target those who may represent the highest lifetime value (LTV) to your business. Google also promises reporting that will show what share of new customers acquired qualify as “high value new customers.”
Additional Exclusions and Targeting
In addition to these two large changes, Google Ads also rolled out quite a few active features and betas to give advertisers more control over Performance Max. These include:
- Updated brand exclusions: Previously only applicable to Search AND Shopping placements simultaneously, Google will now allow advertisers to apply brand exclusions solely to Search ads—decreasing the likelihood of cannibalization between your Performance Max campaigns and any dedicated branded search campaign you may have in your account.
- “URL contains” rules for campaigns with product feeds: Long available in standard Performance Max campaigns, those that rely on product feeds will now also have the capability to target traffic to certain areas of your website based on URL conventions.
- Age-based demographic exclusion beta: This beta allows brands to exclude users by age group.
- Device targeting beta: Another beta allows brands to target Performance Max campaigns based on device—computer, mobile device or tablet—which could also influence the placement types that campaigns prioritize.
Demand Gen Updates: Emphasis on YouTube Shorts, Display Inventory, and Reporting Tools
Demand Gen, which replaced Discovery campaigns early in 2024, is an AI-powered campaign type meant to simplify the steps between top-of-funnel awareness advertising and bottom-of-funnel conversions. A whole host of new updates promise to deepen those capabilities.
More Creative Options
Demand Gen is a visual-first campaign type, and Google is giving brands even more options for their videos and visuals.
- Vertical image ads in YouTube Shorts: 9:16 aspect ratio image ads will be available to run in YouTube Shorts now.
- Video shortening tool: Advertisers will be able to make one video ad go a lot further with video editing tools meant to create shorter versions of existing video ads at scale—once again, allowing them to repurpose other YouTube ad content for usage in Shorts.
- Demand Gen now has access to Google Display inventory: A substantial change that may call into question the future of traditional display Google Display campaigns, Google has announced that Demand Gen now has access to Google Display inventory, claiming that it reaches 90% of the global internet population.
Expanded Channel Controls
Advertisers will now have greater control over where their Demand Gen ads appear, with new channel controls rolling out this month. Brands can now specify placements across YouTube, Discover, and Gmail. One particularly appealing option is to exclusively target YouTube Shorts—Google’s answer to short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels.
Betas meant to Refine Purchase Journeys
A couple of new betas seek to smooth the process between research and purchase. Demand Gen is also adding new product feed integrations that will allow users to view full product details directly from ads, provided your account is set up in Google Merchant Center.
Additionally, for brick-and-mortar retailers, a beta program will enable advertisers to showcase real-time in-store availability, helping to drive foot traffic to physical store locations. Google claims this will allow brands to optimize for both online and in-person sales via omnichannel bidding.
More Visibility in Reporting
To help advertisers compare Demand Gen’s performance against paid social efforts, Google is rolling out new reporting columns in Google Ads. These will include view-through conversions, which align with social platforms’ typical measurement methodologies, and will provide clearer insights into how Demand Gen contributes to overall campaign performance. With YouTube Shorts taking aim at things like TikTok and Instagram Reels, it seems natural that Google wants to create comparative reporting views while also enhancing Demand Gen’s interplay with Shorts.
Analysis
While campaigns like these might seem to be geared less at expert marketers and more at self-starters and in-house marketing teams. But because these campaigns have quickly proven themselves as some of the most powerful tools at marketers’ disposal, mastering them has been a key initiative for Google Ads agencies like ADM.
These new tools open new avenues for marketers to innovate even sharper Google Ads strategies. On the Performance Max side, changes like the ability to apply negative keywords and other exclusions could be seen as a sharper line between Performance Max and Search campaigns so advertisers can use each more efficiently—or one could interpret them as a push towards campaign type consolidation by allowing brands to build Performance Max campaigns that operate more like traditional search campaigns.
On the Demand Gen side, there’s little doubt that consolidation is a focus. Adding Google Display inventory calls into question the future of Display campaigns as a standalone option, because brands may be able to someday build Demand Gen campaigns solely around display assets.
Likewise, the emphasis on YouTube Shorts sends a clear signal that Google, like Meta, believes short-form vertical video ads are the wave of the future—no matter what becomes of TikTok. Reporting features that focus on comparing Demand Gen to paid social campaigns only underscore Google’s interest in proving its worth in that format.
As Google Ads continues to advance, refine, and often consolidate its campaign types, it is only becoming more complex. If you’re looking for an elite Google Ads marketing agency to help you find the right strategies for your brand, consider reaching out to the ADM team today.
