Performance Max (PMax) is a Google Ads campaign type that uses Google’s AI to run ads across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one set of assets: headlines, descriptions, images, logos and videos. It gives advertisers reach with little manual work. It also means the brand’s presentation is assembled automatically, in formats the advertiser may never see, from assets that may not all have been checked. Google provides several brand controls. They cover a lot, but not everything.
Details below come from Google Ads Help, checked in October 2026. Google updates these features often.
The brand controls Google provides
Brand guidelines
Brand guidelines are campaign-level inputs that control how the brand is represented in automatically created assets and formats:
| Element | Required? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Business name | Yes | Must match the verified legal name or domain |
| Logos | Yes | Up to 5 |
| Colors | Optional | Primary and secondary; applied to auto-generated YouTube videos and responsive display ads |
| Font | Optional | Applied to the same formats |
Google notes that guidelines are applied only where eligible, that some creative types don’t support them, and that logos aren’t guaranteed to appear in every impression.
Brand exclusions
Brand exclusions stop ads from serving on searches for specified brands, typically used to keep PMax from bidding on your own branded searches or on brands you don’t want to be associated with. They control where ads appear, not what they say.
Text guidelines (beta)
Text guidelines apply to text that Google generates. They allow up to 25 term exclusions (words that must never appear) and up to 40 messaging restrictions (concepts, styles or tones to avoid), written in natural language. We cover them in detail in AI Max for Search and your brand.
Asset review
Asset reports show which assets serve and how they perform. Reviewing them regularly is the only way to see what customers actually saw.
What these controls don’t cover
Whether your own assets are on strategy. Brand guidelines make sure the logo, name and colors are right. They don’t check whether a headline you wrote leads with a discount your premium brand never uses, or whether a description is generic.
What’s inside your images. PMax uses the images you upload across many formats. No setting checks whether an image shows only what it should. A common problem: a lifestyle image for one product with another brand’s product visible in the background, or a product the advertised brand doesn’t even make. In a multi-brand retailer’s asset library, images are often reused across brands, and these mismatches are easy to miss.
Whether text and images fit together. A headline about a premium technical jacket paired with a casual image from last summer’s sale.
Whether assets match the targeting. Messages written for one audience served to another.
What to check in a Performance Max asset group
Text
- Every headline and description expresses the brand’s positioning or a core message.
- No prohibited framings: discount or urgency language for premium lines, claims the brand doesn’t make.
- Each headline works on its own and next to any other.
Images and video
- The advertised product is the hero, clearly visible.
- No other brands’ products in frame, including in the background.
- No products from categories the brand doesn’t make.
- Settings, people and style fit the brand.
- Nothing from expired campaigns (old prices, past promotions).
Fit
- Text and images in the asset group describe the same product and message.
- Assets fit the audience signals and the landing page.
A practical PMax brand-control routine
- Set brand guidelines for every PMax campaign: name, logos, colors, font.
- Add brand exclusions where you need them.
- Use text guidelines for hard prohibitions, if you use text generation.
- Check every asset before upload, text and images, against the brand’s strategy. This is the only step that covers what Google’s settings don’t.
- Review asset reports monthly to see what actually served.
Checking assets systematically, rather than by eye, matters most for accounts with many asset groups or many brands. Organizing that check is part of brand governance; for the text side of Google Ads, see responsive search ads.
FAQ
What are brand guidelines in Performance Max?
Campaign-level inputs (business name, up to five logos, and optional primary and secondary colors and font) that Google uses to represent the brand in automatically created assets and formats. Google applies them only where eligible.
Can you control what Performance Max says about your brand?
Partly. Text guidelines (beta) allow term exclusions and messaging restrictions for generated text, and you control the assets you upload. No Google setting checks whether your own assets match your brand strategy.
Do Performance Max brand exclusions control ad content?
No. Brand exclusions control which brand-related searches ads can serve on. They don’t affect what the ads say or show.
What should you check in Performance Max image assets?
That the advertised product is clearly the hero, no other brands’ products or irrelevant categories appear in frame, the style fits the brand, and nothing comes from expired promotions.
How do multi-brand retailers keep Performance Max on brand?
By keeping separate, checked asset groups per brand, setting brand guidelines and exclusions, checking every text and image asset against each brand’s rules before upload, and reviewing asset reports regularly.