Google Ads has added a "Sourced videos" on/off toggle to the Asset optimization section of Performance Max campaigns, a setting that lets Google AI find videos from an advertiser's approved sources and place them in campaigns automatically. PPC News Feed first reported the toggle on October 23, 2026, noting that the feature is switched on by default for new campaigns and may already be active on existing ones.

In Short

Google has a tool that looks for an advertiser's videos on places like social media, its website and its YouTube channel, and then puts those videos into its Google ads by itself. That tool is now on unless someone turns it off, and Google says some older campaigns may have been switched on during a recent update. So a campaign you set up without ever choosing this may now be using it, and the on/off switch lives in each campaign's settings.

What was spotted

The toggle sits inside Asset optimization, the part of a Performance Max campaign where Google's automated creative features are switched on or off. According to PPC News Feed, "This toggle employs Google AI to identify and add relevant videos from approved sources directly into Performance Max campaigns. The setting allows for automatic integration of videos without manual opt-in."

The change was first noticed in the interface by Reva Minkoff, who asked in a LinkedIn post whether other advertisers had seen the new sourced video setting. Barry Schwartz covered it on October 23 on Search Engine Roundtable. According to Search Engine Roundtable, the toggle carries a "New" label and describes the feature as using videos from other channels. The same "New" label also appears next to "Landing page images," a setting Schwartz said he had already seen in March 2026.

Two days earlier, on October 21, PPC News Feed had reported a related change in Google's documentation. That post, titled Performance Max Sourced Videos Become Opt-Out, said the feature had been opt-in and off by default, and that Google's help page now described it as something advertisers had to switch off rather than switch on. Hana Kobzová spotted that edit, according to PPC News Feed.

How sourced videos work

The October 23 post lists three types of approved source. According to PPC News Feed, "Advertisers can approve sources from social media platforms, landing pages, and linked YouTube channels. The system selects videos based on relevance, performance potential, and adherence to best practices."

Google's help page, About sourced videos in Performance Max campaigns, fills in more of the mechanics. According to Google, the feature combines Google AI with automated video crawling, so that advertisers do not have to pick, format and upload footage themselves. The setting works at campaign level. Google names aspect ratio as one of the best practices it checks when choosing a clip, and says sourced videos are refreshed on a recurring basis. If a video is deleted from the platform where it was originally hosted, such as the advertiser's YouTube channel, it is removed from Google Ads as well.

Then there is the cap. "Up to 10 crawled videos can be added to a single asset group," according to PPC News Feed, and those videos sit alongside footage the advertiser uploaded and clips made with Google's own video tools. The post puts it this way: "The videos can complement manually uploaded content and those created with Google's video tools."

Eligibility and hosting

The help page adds conditions that the spotted toggle does not show. According to Google, the feature is rolling out in stages and may not yet be available in every account. A Performance Max campaign needs a daily budget above $5 to qualify.

Hosting is the less visible part. Google's documentation says every video must sit on a YouTube channel before it can serve, and that sourced videos are uploaded to a dedicated YouTube channel owned by Google, branded with the advertiser's logo and business name, which sends viewers to the advertiser's landing page. That mirrors the arrangement for direct video uploads in Performance Max, which PPC News Feed reported in November 2025: files uploaded that way go to a Google-managed "house channel," where YouTube Analytics, remarketing lists, metadata editing, custom thumbnails and appeals are not available, according to that report. Google's sourced videos page does not say whether the same limits apply to the channel that holds sourced videos.

Turning it off

The off switch is in campaign settings. According to Google's help page, advertisers open a Performance Max campaign through the gear icon in Campaigns, find the video option in the Asset group section, open the Asset optimization dropdown and check or uncheck "Sourced videos." A "Manage sources" link lets them review and approve the URLs Google may draw on, and approved sources can be changed at any time. Performance for sourced videos appears in the Assets report for the campaign, listed like any other asset, according to Google.

The default and the existing campaigns

Two separate defaults are at work. New campaigns get the feature switched on. Existing campaigns are less clear-cut. According to PPC News Feed, "Sourced videos are activated by default for new campaigns and may automatically enable on existing ones due to a recent platform update." Google's help page uses similar wording: some existing campaigns may have had the feature turned on automatically during a recent platform update.

"May" is doing a lot of work in both sentences. Neither the help page nor the posts that reported it give a date for that platform update, say which existing campaigns it touched, or explain how an advertiser would know that a campaign had been switched on other than by opening the Asset optimization settings and checking.

There is also a tension in the approval step. Google describes approving sources as something the advertiser must do before videos can be used, while the October 23 post describes integration "without manual opt-in." The two can be read together: the feature is on, but nothing is pulled until a source is approved. Yet the documentation does not say whether sources such as a campaign's landing page or a linked YouTube channel count as approved automatically on campaigns where the feature was switched on during the platform update. That point decides whether an existing campaign could start serving crawled clips without anyone at the advertiser taking an action.

What is not established

Google has not published a blog post, a Google Ads announcement or an Ads Liaison statement about the toggle. What exists is a help page whose wording changed, and a setting that practitioners found in their accounts. Several questions remain open:

  • Which social platforms. The help page and the October 23 post refer to social media platforms without naming them. When Google Ads began showing social video suggestions during Performance Max ad creation in November 2025, PPC News Feed reported that the clips came from Facebook and Instagram and carried the tag "ad sourced by Pathmatics." Whether sourced videos use the same pipeline, or a third-party data provider at all, is not stated.
  • Rights. Google's sourced videos page does not address who holds the rights to a crawled clip that features licensed music, stock footage or creators under contract, or whether a video built for organic social use is cleared for paid placement across Google's network.
  • Review. There is no mention of whether a crawled video is checked by the advertiser or by Google's policy systems before it serves, beyond the standard selection criteria of relevance, performance potential and best-practice fit.
  • Asset limits. The ceiling of 10 crawled videos per asset group is separate from the cap on videos an advertiser can add by hand. In January 2026, PPC News Feed reported that Performance Max allowed five video assets per asset group and that a test of 15 had been seen. The help page does not explain how crawled clips count against, or alongside, that limit.
  • Timing and reach. No rollout start date, no list of markets and no performance figures appear in the documentation.

Why the marketing community should pay attention

Sourced videos are the latest in a run of automated Performance Max creative features that start switched on. On October 21, 2026, Google told developers it would turn on image extraction by default for new Performance Max campaigns from December 4, even in accounts where advertisers had disabled dynamic images at account level. In both cases, Google's system reads an advertiser's own pages and channels and decides which creative to put in front of users; in both cases the control sits at campaign level.

Video has been the specific target before. In March, Google said it would add AI-generated voice-overs to Performance Max videos that had no voice track from March 20, 2026, unless advertisers turned off video enhancement control. On October 6, PPC Land reported that Google Ads would start extracting discount offers from advertiser websites and attaching them to eligible Search and Performance Max campaigns from October 12, with a single account-level setting to stop it. The site visits asset, made official in May, went further still: it deploys automatically for eligible accounts and, according to the documentation PPC Land reviewed, can only be disabled by contacting a Google representative.

Google's reasoning for putting video into every Performance Max campaign is not new. In February 2024, Google said advertisers who included at least one video in Performance Max campaigns saw a 12% average conversion uplift, and set out three ways to add video: upload existing footage, use the built-in creation tool, or let AI generate videos from images, text and product feeds. Video creation tools have grown since. Asset Studio, which went into beta for advertisers worldwide in August 2025, lets advertisers create video ads, trim clips and add AI voice-overs. Sourced videos add a fourth route, in which Google does the selecting from material the advertiser has already published somewhere else.

For advertisers whose social video is made for organic feeds rather than paid placements, the distinction matters. A short vertical clip built for one platform may carry music, creator appearances or claims that were cleared for that context and not for ads on YouTube, Display or Discover. The settings page lets advertisers restrict which URLs Google may use. It does not, on the evidence of the help page, show advertisers which clips were chosen before they run.

Measurement is the other open question. Since September 2025, Performance Max asset reports have carried network segmentation across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail and Maps, and Google has advised that asset-level ratio metrics are directional. Sourced videos will appear in the same Assets report. With up to 10 crawled videos in an asset group, alongside uploaded and generated footage, separating the contribution of clips the advertiser chose from those Google chose will depend on how clearly the report labels them, something the help page does not describe in detail.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Google Ads, affecting advertisers and agencies running Performance Max campaigns. The toggle was spotted by Reva Minkoff and first reported by PPC News Feed, with coverage from Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable; Hana Kobzová spotted the earlier help page change.

What: A "Sourced videos" toggle in Asset optimization lets Google AI crawl approved sources (social media platforms, landing pages and linked YouTube channels) and add up to 10 videos per asset group. The feature is on by default for new campaigns and may have been switched on for some existing campaigns during an undated platform update. Campaigns need a daily budget above $5, and sourced videos are hosted on a Google-owned YouTube channel branded for the advertiser.

When: PPC News Feed reported the help page change on October 21, 2026, and the toggle on October 23, 2026. Google has given no rollout date.

Where: Inside Google Ads, at campaign level in Performance Max settings. Google names no markets and says the feature is rolling out in stages.

Why: Google's help page frames the feature as a way to save advertisers the work of choosing and uploading videos and to surface footage from their libraries that fits video inventory. Google has not published an announcement explaining the move to a default-on setting.