Google to implement brand guidelines for Performance Max campaigns

Google has announced a significant update to its Performance Max campaigns that will affect advertisers and marketing agencies utilizing the platform. Starting May 1, 2025, Google will begin automatically enabling brand guidelines for Performance Max campaigns that use consistent brand assets across all asset groups, according to an official announcement made on March 28, 2025, just three days ago.

The implementation represents a substantial shift in how brand assets are managed within the Google Ads ecosystem and introduces new technical requirements for advertisers and developers who interact with these campaigns through both the user interface and API connections.

According to the Google Ads Developer Blog, the migration will follow a phased rollout schedule, with different timelines applying to different user categories. For advertisers who exclusively manage their campaigns using the Google Ads user interface, the automatic migration process will commence on May 1, 2025. For those utilizing API integrations, the process will begin approximately one month later, on June 1, 2025.

The comprehensive migration is expected to be completed across all campaigns by July 31, 2025, giving advertisers and developers approximately four months to prepare for and adapt to these changes.

Not all Performance Max campaigns will be automatically migrated during this process. According to the announcement, eligibility for automatic migration depends on specific technical criteria: "Only campaigns using consistent business names and logo assets across all asset groups will be automatically migrated. Campaigns with variations in these assets will not be migrated."

The migration specifically targets campaigns that maintain consistency in business names and logo assets, identified in the technical documentation as "BUSINESS_NAME, LOGO, and LANDSCAPE_LOGO" across asset groups. This standardization aims to create greater consistency in how brand elements are displayed across various ad placements and formats.

The technical implementation of this change involves a shift in how brand assets are stored and managed within the Google Ads system architecture. After migration, each affected campaign will maintain its own dedicated set of brand assets stored at the campaign level using a technical component identified as "CampaignAsset." This represents a consolidation of brand elements that were previously potentially scattered across multiple asset groups.

For developers and marketing technology teams, the changes necessitate specific code modifications. The Google Ads API team has outlined several required actions for those who interact with Performance Max campaigns programmatically:

Applications that create asset groups must be updated to check a specific technical field ("Campaign.brand_guidelines_enabled") to determine whether to include brand assets in newly created asset groups. Similarly, applications that modify brand assets will need to verify this same field to determine the appropriate location for saving brand assets—either at the campaign level using CampaignAsset or at the asset group level using AssetGroupAsset.

The technical implementation includes verification mechanisms for advertisers and developers to identify which campaigns have already undergone migration. According to the announcement, this can be determined by checking a specific field within the campaign data structure: "You can tell if a campaign has been migrated by checking its Campaign.brand_guidelines_enabled field."

While the automatic migration will proceed according to the announced schedule, Google is actively encouraging advertisers to proactively migrate their campaigns in advance. The announcement states: "To avoid extra steps later, we strongly recommend migrating all of your campaigns now using CampaignService.EnablePMaxBrandGuidelines."

However, this manual migration process comes with technical limitations. Each migration request can only include a maximum of 10 operations, which may present logistical challenges for advertisers managing large numbers of campaigns.

The announcement was made by Sarah Pollack from the Google Ads API Team, indicating that the change originates from the technical implementation side of the advertising platform rather than from marketing or product management divisions.

For marketing professionals and advertising agencies, this technical change carries significant implications. The consolidation of brand assets at the campaign level represents a move toward greater standardization and consistency in how brands appear across different ad placements and formats. This could potentially enhance brand recognition and prevent inconsistent brand presentations that might occur when assets are managed separately across multiple asset groups.

The migration also signals a continued evolution of the Performance Max campaign type, which has become increasingly important within Google's advertising ecosystem since its introduction. Performance Max campaigns utilize automation and machine learning to display ads across multiple Google platforms, including Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Maps.

The implementation of campaign-level brand guidelines suggests that Google is refining how these automated campaigns handle brand identity, potentially addressing feedback from advertisers concerned about maintaining consistent brand presentation across the diverse placement types that Performance Max campaigns can appear in.

From a technical perspective, the change introduces additional complexity to the campaign management process, particularly for organizations that use custom tools or integrations to manage their Google Ads campaigns. Development teams will need to modify their code to accommodate the new asset management structure, which could necessitate significant testing and validation before the migration deadlines.

The phased rollout approach, with different timelines for UI users versus API users, demonstrates awareness of the different levels of technical complexity involved in adapting to these changes. User interface-only advertisers will face the changes first, while those with API integrations are given an additional month to implement the necessary technical modifications.

For marketing agencies and in-house teams that manage campaigns for multiple brands, the migration process could present logistical challenges, particularly if they need to manually migrate large portfolios of campaigns. The limitation of 10 operations per migration request could necessitate numerous separate requests for organizations managing dozens or hundreds of Performance Max campaigns.

The announcement also raises questions about campaigns that do not meet the automatic migration criteria due to inconsistent brand assets across asset groups. These campaigns will require manual intervention, potentially creating additional workload for marketing teams who may need to standardize their assets before migration can occur.

Industry analysts note that this change aligns with broader trends in digital advertising toward greater automation and standardization. Major platforms have increasingly emphasized consistent brand presentation across different ad formats and placements, reflecting research showing that brand consistency can significantly impact recognition and consumer trust.

The technical nature of this announcement highlights the increasing importance of technical literacy within marketing organizations. As advertising platforms become more sophisticated and automated, marketing professionals need deeper understanding of the technical underpinnings of these systems to effectively leverage them and adapt to platform changes.

For marketing technology vendors and agencies that provide tools or services built on the Google Ads API, this change necessitates prompt updates to their products to ensure compatibility with the new brand guidelines implementation. This could potentially create both challenges and opportunities, as vendors race to update their offerings while potentially developing new features that leverage the consolidated brand assets structure.

The timing of the announcement, coming approximately one month before the implementation begins, provides a relatively short window for organizations to prepare for these changes. However, the phased rollout approach and the option for manual migration offer some flexibility in how organizations approach the transition.

Timeline of the Performance Max Brand Guidelines Migration

• March 28, 2025: Google officially announces the automatic migration plan on the Google Ads Developer Blog
• May 1, 2025: Automatic migration begins for customer IDs that exclusively manage campaigns using the Google Ads UI
• June 1, 2025: Automatic migration begins for API users
• July 31, 2025: Expected completion date for the migration process across all campaigns

Technical requirements:

• Campaigns must use consistent BUSINESS_NAME, LOGO, and LANDSCAPE_LOGO assets across all asset groups to qualify for automatic migration
• All eligible campaigns under a customer ID will be migrated simultaneously
• Each migrated campaign will have its own set of brand assets stored at the campaign level using CampaignAsset
• Migration status can be verified by checking the Campaign.brand_guidelines_enabled field