Google Ads API now supports Search Themes Beta for Performance Max Campaigns

Google today announced that Performance Max campaign search themes beta is now available through the Google Ads API, allowing advertisers to provide Google AI with inputs about their customers and business to further optimize Performance Max campaign serving and placement.

Search themes beta is a new feature that lets advertisers indicate queries that they know their customers are looking for. These themes are optional and are additive to what queries Performance Max would match by using your URLs, assets, and more.

How to use Search Themes

Advertisers can add up to 25 search themes per asset group. Search themes will respect brand exclusions in Performance Max and account-level negative keywords. You can configure brand exclusions through campaign criteria using the BRAND criterion type. Similarly, account-level negative keywords are configured at a customer level using CustomerNegativeCriterionService and the NegativeKeywordList criteria.

Results driven from search themes will bring customers to the landing pages indicated with the Final URL expansion, page feeds, or URL settings. Final URL expansions can be enabled or disabled with url_expansion_opt_out.

Google clarifies search themes will have the same prioritization as phrase match and broad match keywords in Search campaigns.

Advertisers will be able to see the search categories that the ads matched to, and associated conversion performance, in search terms insights at both the campaign and account levels with the campaign_search_term_insight and customer_search_term_insight reports. Advertisers can also view search term insights for custom date ranges, download data, and access it using the API.

In the Google Ads API, a search theme is a type of AssetGroupSignal, which can be attached to Performance Max campaigns at the asset group level. Advertisers can add a search theme to an asset group by creating an AssetGroupSignal and populating the AssetGroupSignal.search_theme with a SearchThemeInfo criterion containing a text string representing your search theme, for example, “activities for children”. In addition, advertisers must populate the AssetGroupSignal.asset_group with the resource name of an existing asset group you are targeting.