Google PMax upgrade allows mass AI creative asset production

Google introduced new AI-powered tools to help advertisers rapidly produce high-quality Performance Max creative assets at scale for campaigns across marketing channels. This was one of several announcements today at Google Marketing Live 2024.

What’s new. Upgrades to the Performance Max platform include:

• Generative AI capabilities to accelerate creative production speeds by up to 5x.
• Options for advertisers to incorporate brand fonts, colors and imagery as guardrails.
• Image editing features to add objects, extend backgrounds and optimize sizing/cropping.
• For retailers, the ability to automatically showcase product feeds in AI-generated creative.
• More reporting and control functionality:
  • Placement reporting and exclusions for YouTube videos.
  • Asset level reporting – you will see conversion metrics for each creative asset.

The big picture. As creative asset variety becomes crucial for strong ad performance, Google is leaning on generative AI to help automate and streamline labor-intensive production processes.

What Google is saying: According to Google:

• “Advertisers who improve their Performance Max Ad strength to Excellent see 6% more conversions on average.”

In practice. Event Tickets Center, an early beta tester, was able to accelerate creative production by 5x using Performance Max’s AI asset generation tools, according to Google tests.

Between the lines. While performance is key, Google recognizes brand consistency matters, too – hence the new branding guardrails and editing capabilities.

Why we care. While Performance Max adoption has increased in the past year, the AI-generated ads have been a common complaint among search marketers. Advertisers will be happy to see this being worked on as well as faster ways to upload creatives and incorporate their branding into the campaigns