Google is announcing the launch of its AI-powered tools for generating and editing images in Performance Max campaigns.

These features, initially previewed in November, are now accessible in English worldwide, with more languages to follow.

Additionally, Google is enhancing its Ad Strength indicator to give advertisers more information about their ad assets, including amount and quality.

Here are all the details about the Google Ads updates announced today.

Gemini + Imagen 2 + Performance Max

Performance Max will soon offer new capabilities enabled by Google’s Gemini and Imagen 2 AI models.

Text & Image Generation Gets Smarter

With the incorporation of Gemini models, Performance Max will offer advanced features like long headline generation and upcoming sitelink generation.

These features leverage the reasoning capabilities of Gemini to craft text assets.

Enhancing Images With AI Precision

Google is updating its image generation technology with a new model called Imagen 2.

This model allows advertisers to create marketing visuals that depict people in active lifestyle scenarios.

Advertisers can also use Imagen 2 to make variations of existing top-performing images, expanding their creative options.

Diversity Drives Results

Pallavi Naresh, a Group Product Manager at Google Ads, states that using a diverse range of creative assets in campaigns can improve performance:

“Great creative drives results — we found that advertisers who improve their Performance Max Ad Strength to ‘Excellent’ see 6% more conversions on average.”

Google is integrating Gemini machine learning models into the platform to support creative diversity in Performance Max campaigns.

This will enhance Performance Max’s ability to automatically generate varied, high-quality text and image ad assets.

Asset Variety Boosts Ad Strength

Google is changing how it calculates Ad Strength scores for Performance Max campaigns by placing greater weight on the quantity and variety of ad assets.

To help advertisers optimize their asset mix, Google suggests the following:

• Add more assets, including AI-generated adaptations of existing creatives.
• Leveraging design platforms, like Canva, that allow you to import images directly into campaigns.
• Incorporating video, as Google says at least one video in a campaign can boost conversions significantly.

To help advertisers utilize more video, Google is expanding auto-generated video creation using Merchant Center product data across eligible campaigns.

Upcoming Feature: Share Ad Previews

In March, Google plans to launch a new feature enabling the sharing of advertising previews through links without requiring a Google Ads login.

This update could streamline the creative development process and improve collaboration between different teams working on ads.

Looking Ahead

For Performance Max campaigns, the key advice based on Google’s announcements is to focus on maximizing both the quantity and quality of assets.

Leveraging the new generative AI capabilities to expand image and text options while carefully reviewing them for relevance is likely the best path to improved performance.

As ad platforms grow increasingly sophisticated, dedicating time and resources to thoughtful, creative development with the help of AI will become steadily more important.