Google Ads launches placement reports for Performance Max campaigns

Google Ads has launched placement reports for Performance Max campaigns, the company confirmed to Search Engine Land on Thursday. Placement reports can be generated to see where ads have served for Performance Max campaigns as well as how many impressions they’ve received.

Tip of the hat to Gianpaolo Lorusso and Giuseppe Scollo for bringing this to our attention.

Why we care. Google created the placement report to provide some insight into where Performance Max ads are showing, which may help advertisers with their brand safety efforts.

Unfortunately, the data only shows where ads have served and their impressions — not click data. Nevertheless, this data may help inform your campaigns. 

Google’s statement. “Placement reports for Performance Max campaigns are a new reporting resource for advertisers to easily see where on Google’s channels ads have served and associated impressions,” a Google spokesperson said, “We created these reports to give advertisers more transparency and assurance around where their ads are showing.”

Marketers should keep an eye on Performance Max campaigns. Introduced in October 2020, Google has steadily built out this automated campaign type. Support for it has been added to the Google Ads Insights page as well as within the Google Ads API.

Performance Max campaigns became available to all advertisers in November 2021. Google also announced that, beginning sometime in 2022, Smart Shopping and Local campaigns will be rolled into Performance Max, which might indicate that the company is trying to usher more advertisers to this campaign type.