Welcome to this week’s PPC Pulse.
This week’s updates focus on Performance Max visibility improvements, new budget planning tools in Google Analytics, and generative video now integrated directly into Google Ads.
Here’s what was announced this week and why they matter for your campaigns.
Google adds more visibility and control to Performance Max
Google has rolled out several updates to Performance Max aimed at addressing two persistent gaps: monitoring and reporting.
Advertisers can now exclude first-party customer lists. This gives teams running acquisition-focused campaigns a cleaner way to avoid spending on existing users.
On the reporting side, Google added:
- Budget report
- Expanded audience insights, including demographic breakdowns
- Location reports segmented by network
Why it matters to advertisers
Audience exclusions help reduce the overlap between prospecting and retention, provided your customer lists are accurate. Report updates are more convenient. Advertisers benefit from better visibility into the pace of spending, who is reached by campaigns and where ads are shown.
For teams already using Performance Max, this improves daily monitoring. This does not make it a fully controllable campaign type.
What PPC Professionals Say
Antoine Simonetti is “very excited about more information” about PMax campaigns, while the company Optifeed shared his support for the update, saying “I love seeing PMax becoming more transparent! »
Google Analytics Introduces Scenario Planner and Projections
Google Analytics has launched two new tools as part of its cross-channel budgeting functionality:
- Scenario planner to create forward-looking budget models
- Projections to see if live campaigns are progressing toward goals
Both tools use historical data to estimate conversions, revenue, and spend across all channels, including non-Google platforms if cost data is imported.
At the moment, access is limited as this is a beta feature. Advertisers need at least one year of data across multiple channels, along with a few other eligibility requirements.
Why it matters to advertisers
Planning and performance traditionally live in separate places. These tools bring them closer, especially to marketers who manage more than just Google Ads.
Advertisers can now model budgets and monitor pace on the same platform used for reporting. This can help teams managing multiple channels make faster adjustments during a campaign.
The trade-off is reliability. Results depend entirely on data quality and historical consistency. For many accounts, this will limit the actual feasibility of these projections.
Veo integrates AI video creation into Google Ads
Google presented I seeits generative video model, in Asset Studio in Google Ads.
Advertisers can start by uploading just three static images and generating short-form videos, then packaging them into ads for formats like Demand Gen.
Each uploaded image can generate a video per Veo of up to 10 seconds.
Google positions this around speed and creative variation, and can be used in conjunction with the deployment of Nano Banana Pro. The goal is to facilitate the production of multiple video assets without traditional production.
Why it matters to advertisers
Creative production has been a bottleneck for many teams, especially video.
Veo significantly lowers this barrier for brands. Advertisers can generate variations faster and test more creatives without additional resources.
The biggest change is volume. Google continues to strive to have multiple variations of creatives on the market at any given time. This gives advertisers another way to meet these expectations, even if the result still needs to be reviewed and refined.
What PPC Professionals Say
This generated a lot of interest from advertisers, including 70 comments and more than 340 reposts from his site. LinkedIn Announcement.
André Félizol common:
The key here will be brands that could create something different. With AI making it easier to create videos from images, everything will be the same. So, companies that invest more in creativity with different and creative approaches to present their products will win in the long run.
Brooke Hess is “looking forward to testing” his agency’s clients while Thomas Eccel has already dug in and created a live demo test of Veo 3.
Personally, I can’t wait to test it after discovering the first version of Veo at the 2025 show. Google Live Marketing event last year:
Theme of the week: More ways to plan, pilot and build
This week’s updates all support a more concrete role for advertisers.
Google added more monitoring and reporting in Performance Max, more scheduling features in Analytics, and more creative production tools in Google Ads.
Advertisers have more ways to shape performance instead of just reacting to it after the fact.
More resources:
Featured image: Djile/Shutterstock; Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
