• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 25, 2023

Google is rolling out two new upgrades to Performance Max.

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) and Google Display Ads (GDA) campaign upgrades are open to all advertisers, but opting-in to Performance Max supported by artificial intelligence (AI) is voluntary. A self-serve tool will appear in advertisers' accounts. Both DSA and GDA campaigns will continue to be fully available.

Advertisers who upgrade DSA campaigns to Performance Max (PMax) see an average increase of more than 15% in conversions, according to Google. 

The PMax platform will create a separate campaign for each that is upgraded using a combination of settings and learnings from historic data to maintain consistent performance.

The idea is to reach valuable audiences more effectively across channels such as Display. Advertisers can improve performance using audience signals to share understanding of the most important audiences to engage, while allowing Google AI to expand beyond these to help you find new audiences. 

DSA will continue to be fully available for marketers to use for those choosing not to upgrade.

“We upgraded our Display campaigns to Performance Max and achieved unprecedented growth, with a 47% increase in conversions while maintaining a healthy CPA,” Leonardo Martins, Marketing Superintendent at Santander Brazil.

In the blog post, he attributes Performance Max's ability to reach a wide audience with more relevant ads, as well as its use of Google AI to optimize our campaigns in real time across channels.

Advertisers opting into the upgrades will have access to a variety of tools and capabilities aimed at improving campaign performance and user experience. New features like inventory-aware ad serving will become available.

Upgrading also enables marketers to monitor out-of-stock pages to ensure they do not serve up with Search ads by automatically factoring in product inventory.

Google AI in Performance Max also will use campaign’s creative assets as a signal to find more converting search queries. This is beneficial when pages have sparse or minimal content.

For advertisers wanting to manually upgrade campaigns on their own, they can create a new Performance Max campaign or move the budget into an existing Performance Max campaign, but should ensure that campaign settings and configurations remain consistent. More information can be found in the best practices guide.