In 2024, Google Ads introduced a range of powerful Performance Max features designed to enhance control and reporting capabilities.
Now, Google Ads is building on that momentum in 2025, expanding PMAX in key areas to deliver even better results and provide greater transparency so you can combine the full power of Google’s channels and AI into a single campaign.
Here are the exciting new features you need to know about.
More Campaign Controls To Steer AI
- Campaign-level negative keywords rolling out to all advertisers
- New customer acquisition goal with high-value mode
- Brand exclusions for different formats in retailer campaigns with product feeds
- “URL contains” rules for campaigns with product feeds
- Demographic exclusions
- Device targeting
Deeper Search Reporting
- Search themes usefulness indicator
- Search terms insights source column
Improved Asset Group Reporting
- Ability to segment and download asset group performance
More Campaign Controls to Steer AI with Precision
Campaign-level negative keywords
Last year at DMEXCO, Google launched the beta for campaign-level negative keywords, allowing advertisers to exclude specific queries they don’t want to target—whether for brand suitability or other reasons. Now, the feature is rolling out to all advertisers and will be available in the coming weeks.
New customer acquisition goal
That’s not all. Google also introduced a beta for High-Value New Customer Mode last year, and now it will roll out to all advertisers. This powerful feature allows you to identify and target high-value customers by leveraging Customer Match.
Google’s AI will use your data to predict which new users will most likely generate significant long-term value. You can also track campaign performance more effectively with new reporting at the campaign level, so you can see how many new customers you're acquiring—and how many of them are high-value.
Brand exclusions for different formats
For retail advertisers using product feeds, Google Ads is rolling out more control over brand exclusions across different ad formats. Previously, brand exclusions applied to both Search and Shopping ads. Now, you’ll have the flexibility to apply brand exclusions only to Search text ads, while still allowing branded traffic for Shopping ads. This is particularly useful if you want to show Shopping ads for brand terms but manage your Search ads for those terms in a separate campaign.
“URL contains” rules for campaigns
In addition, “URL contains” rules—already available for standard PMAX campaigns—will soon be extended to campaigns using product feeds. You can target traffic based on specific page categories within your website.
For example, if you’re an athletic apparel retailer, you could set your campaign to target any pages that include “shoes” in the URL, helping you narrow in on the most relevant traffic for your products.
That’s not all. Two exciting new betas are coming soon for Performance Max campaigns.
- Demographic exclusions: The first beta will introduce Age-Based Demographic Exclusions, allowing you to exclude specific age brackets like “18-24” or “65+” from your campaigns.
- Device targeting: The second beta, Device Targeting, will give you the ability to customise your targeting for different devices—whether computer, mobile, or tablet.
If you’re interested in these betas, reach out to your Google Ads account team or Google Ads support to sign up.
Enhanced Search Reporting & Guidance for Greater Insight
This month, PMAX is rolling out robust search reporting features, giving you deeper insights into campaign performance.
Building on last year’s beta launch of Search Themes, which allowed you to add specific queries you know your customers are using to find you, this feature now has some significant improvements.
Search themes are designed to work alongside the keyword-less targeting that Performance Max already uses, which predicts high-performing queries based on your assets, feeds, and landing pages.
With the new update, you’ll gain the ability to see exactly where queries are coming from—whether they’re from the system’s automated targeting or from the custom search themes you’ve added. Understand how your hand-picked search terms complement Performance Max’s insights.
In addition, it will make it easier to track the effectiveness of your search themes. You’ll now see an indicator next to each search theme, showing how “useful” the theme is. This new metric will show you whether your search themes are driving additional traffic beyond what PMAX would have found on its own, or if there’s room for improvement in your selection of search terms.
Optimise your campaigns by identifying which search themes are adding the most value and where adjustments might be needed.
Enhanced Asset Group Reporting for Greater Precision
Google Ads is also rolling out significant improvements to asset group reporting. Segment your asset group performance more granularly and get insights into how different assets are performing across various dimensions.
Whether it’s conversions by device, time of day, or other key metrics, you’ll have the flexibility to dive into the details like never before. Optimise your campaigns with greater precision and make data-driven decisions at every step.
In response to user feedback, Google is also making it easier to access and share this valuable data beyond the Google Ads UI. Asset group performance is now downloadable, so you can pull and share reports in formats that work best for your team or stakeholders. Whether you need to analyse performance offline or present findings in meetings, this new feature streamlines the process and adds flexibility to how you work with your campaign data.
Over the coming months, Google Ads will continue rolling out new PMAX improvements, including additional controls, reporting features, and actionable insights.
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