New Google Ads Channel Prioritization Feature: What It Means for PMax Advertisers

For years, a key frustration among advertisers with Google's Performance Max (PMax) campaigns has been the lack of control over where their budgets are spent, with limited ability to control spending away from underperforming channels such as the Google Display Network or Search Partners. Google is finally addressing this issue with the rollout of the long-awaited and requested channel and budget prioritization options in Google Ads accounts. 

In this article, we walk you through the Google Ads channel and budget prioritization features, help you understand why they matter, and how to apply them in your account. While the new features are framed as impacting Search, Shopping, Performance Max, and Demand Gen campaigns, channel control options outside Pmax have already existed. With this in mind, we are focusing primarily on what this change means for Pmax. 

What Is PMax Channel Prioritization and Why Does It Matter?

Channel prioritization allows an advertiser to indicate what networks should get priority when Google allocates the campaign budget. Search campaigns have long allowed advertisers to opt out of Search Partners and the Display Network, while Standard Shopping campaigns have allowed advertisers to opt out of Search Partners. But with Pmax, the lack of channel control settings gave little control to advertisers over where their ads were appearing. 

PMax campaigns currently show ads across a wide range of Google channels, including Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps, and Search Partners. Some channels, such as Search, may yield better conversion rates compared to others, like Display or Search Partners, which often deliver high impression share and clicks, but fewer conversions. 

With the new change, advertisers will be able to assign channels to two categories:

• High Priority: Google prioritizes spending on these channels before allocating remaining budget elsewhere.

• Low Priority: These channels receive lower priority, and advertisers can set a maximum daily budget allocation percentage to limit spending.

Understanding Performance by Channel

Before making any changes, it is important to understand your campaign performance by channel. To do this analysis, go to your Pmax campaign, click on Channel performance and scroll down to the Channel distribution table. This will allow you to see which channels are driving clicks, ad spend, and conversions. If you find that some channels, like the “Google Display Network” in the example below are costing significant budget without converting, these channels should be de-prioritized.

How To Adjust the Pmax Channel Prioritization Settings

Once you understand which channels to prioritize, you can make adjustments in the account settings. The channel prioritization setting can be found under Admin > Account Settings. Scroll to the Performance Max campaign section and choose your priorities. As you make your selections, Google will give you helpful insight into your current ad spend per channel. In my example below, our campaigns are spending 47.8% of daily spend on Display. But since Display is not converting, we will shift that ad spend to Google Search, setting it to High Priority.

What About Search and Shopping Campaigns?

The new settings also apply to Search and Standard Shopping, but the change is less consequential for these campaign types. Search advertisers could already opt out of Search Partners and the Display Network, and Standard Shopping advertisers could opt out of Search Partners. For Search campaigns, we generally recommend opting out of Search Partners and Display completely and running separate campaigns, though the new controls do provide the option to keep these in the mix as a Low Priority with a small budget allocation (say 3%). 

You can also currently opt out search partners at the campaign level via Standard Shopping, though the options look a little different. 

Takeaway 

The new channel prioritization campaign and budget control features being rolled out by Google are highly welcome, especially for advertisers and experts seeking greater control over Pmax campaigns. We will be applying the new settings in client accounts as they become available, informed by performance analysis across channels, and will keep an eye on campaign performance post-change. 

It will be interesting to see whether these new settings eventually become Google's central control for channel distribution across campaign types, replacing the existing campaign-level options to opt out of Search Partners and Display entirely. For now, advertisers still have those options, but it remains to be seen whether Google will retain them alongside the new prioritization controls.