Google Ads campaign types: Search, Shopping, Display, Video, Demand Gen and Performance Max

Start with the buying situation, not the menu. Search is often a practical first test for an established service that people already look for. A retailer with a working product feed should compare Standard Shopping with feed based Performance Max.

An offer nobody searches for yet may need a visual campaign first.

The tree picks an option to assess, not a campaign to launch. Measurement, policy and economics still need checking on whichever branch you land. Choose the goal, the evidence you'll accept and the controls you need before splitting a dollar of budget. Then add one test at a time. The account itself is built in our guide to setting up Google Ads for a small business.

Campaign types, formats and networks

Four words get used as if they meant the same thing.

• An objective is the result you want, such as leads or sales.

• A campaign type is the delivery framework Google gives you to pursue it.

• A format is how the ad presents: text, image, video or product listing.

• A network or channel is where it appears.

YouTube is a channel. A skippable video is a format. A Shopping ad is a format that a Standard Shopping campaign or Performance Max can serve.

Brand and remarketing describe a strategy or an audience, not another campaign type. AI Max is a feature suite inside Search campaigns rather than a type of its own.

Keywords don't define a type either. Google's Performance Max overview calls it a goal based campaign type that complements keyword based Search. Performance Max is steered by search themes and what Google calls keywordless targeting.

Google's App campaigns page says App campaigns build ads from your text, images and videos. The only targeting they ask for is locations and languages. Shopping matches searches to product data. Even Search can reach past its keyword list through AI Max. So there's no fixed count of keywordless types.

False comparisons often start by mixing these up. "We tested video against Search" means little when the video ran through Performance Max and the Search campaign had Display expansion on.

Google Ads campaign types at a glance

Six options cover the choices a typical small business faces.

Google's campaign type page describes Performance Max, Search, Display, Video, App and Shopping. It lists Performance Max as a choice under the Sales, Leads or Local store visits and promotions objectives. It adds that App subtypes depend on eligibility.

A missing menu item is not proof that a product is discontinued. Google moved or narrowed four campaign types in 2026. Those dates explain many of the gaps between an older guide and what your account shows.

Six types don't cover every account either. These specialist options depend on the business and on what the account is eligible for.

Search: capture relevant demand

Search works when four things hold:

• Demand already exists.

• The query means what you hope it means.

• The page it lands on answers it.

• The business can act on the enquiry.

A Melbourne emergency electrician whose phone is answered at 11 pm fits all four.

The type alone proves none of them. An informational search or an out of area enquiry enters a Search campaign as readily as a buyer. Search isn't high intent by default. Some queries are. The job is to pay for those.

The controls are the reason to choose it. Keywords and match types decide eligibility. Google Ads negative keywords remove what you don't want. Conversion goals decide what the bidding optimises for.

Two qualifications keep the picture honest. Google's Search Network page says the network includes:

• Google Search results

• the Shopping tab

• Google Images

• Google Maps

• search partner sites, included by default unless you opt out in the campaign settings

So a Search campaign is not "Google Search only" unless someone made it so. Display expansion is a second setting to check. Our guide to the Google Ads settings that waste budget shows where both sit.

Our audit sample is 180 Google Ads account audits from August 2021 to September 2026. In about 3 in 5 accounts, a campaign the owner described as Search only wasn't. It had search partners or Display expansion turned on.

The second qualification is AI Max. Google's AI Max for Search page describes a suite of targeting and creative enhancements inside Search campaigns. It names search term matching, text customisation and final URL expansion. Google's AI Max setup page says new Search campaigns have AI Max turned on by default. Text customisation and final URL expansion are enabled too.

That means choosing Search no longer guarantees every query and every destination was hand picked. Nor will you see every query. Google's search terms report page says terms without enough query activity are left out to protect privacy. Our guide to Google Ads keyword match types covers how AI Max matching sits beside your keywords. The same guide shows how to rein it in.

A phrase or exact match launch is a legitimate controlled test. And broad match is not automatically wasteful. Where the click lands is its own decision. Our guide to the Google Ads landing page versus homepage choice covers it.

Shopping: advertise eligible products

Shopping ads are built from product data, not from a positive keyword list. Google's Shopping requirements page lists what you need:

• Merchant Center and Google Ads accounts linked together.

• Content that complies with the Shopping ads policies.

• A business, products, promotions and website that meet the requirements.

• Product data sent at least every 30 days that meets Google's data quality standards.

The same page has a note for anyone running a Shopping campaign and a Performance Max campaign. Changes have to be made in both. Accurate prices, stock and destinations and reliable purchase values are the practical version of those rules. A service only firm has no business here.

Neither campaign guarantees the lower acquisition cost. Margins, returns, stock and fulfilment matter as much as revenue ROAS.

The two can also cover the same products. Google's Shopping onboarding guide says that when they overlap, Ad Rank determines which campaign serves the ad. Neither campaign gets automatic priority.

Running both at once and reading the before and after is not an experiment, because the overlap moves. Separate the inventory deliberately or run a proper experiment if you want a cause. Google Ads for ecommerce goes into the feed and store specifics.

Display: reach people while they browse

Display puts image ads on websites and apps, for prospecting or for eligible follow up audiences. It is not a remarketing only product. Nor is it a guarantee of poor leads. Placement relevance, creative, audience controls and the business objective decide whether it earns a test.

Follow up audiences and their eligibility rules are covered in our guide to Google remarketing ads.

The inventory is staying and the campaign type is moving. Google's Display campaigns in Demand Gen page sets out the change. Display campaigns are moving into Demand Gen as Google Display Network inventory. A phased rollout of the migration tool began in June 2026. New Display campaigns will later be created only within Demand Gen, on a date the page doesn't give.

So "create a Display campaign" is advice that depends on the account's migration stage. Check which stage yours is at before building anything.

Video: choose the right viewing objective

Video is both a format and a campaign family. As a format it can run through a Video campaign, through Demand Gen or through Performance Max. "We ran video" says nothing about the campaign type.

As a family, reach, views and sequencing remain useful objectives for a brand with something to show. The conversion focused member of the family has moved. Google's Video action campaigns page now says they were all upgraded to Demand Gen as of May 2026.

An older Google page may tell you to create a new Video action campaign. If one does, build the conversion focused version in Demand Gen instead. Budget for production and for refreshing the creative, separately from media.

Video ads versus Display ads

Compare like with like. A video can demonstrate a product or build understanding. A static image can deliver a quick reminder. Judge the two on the same objective, audience temperature, period and attributed outcome. Otherwise, don't compare them at all.

For reach, inspect reach and exposure. For acquisition, inspect qualified leads or paid orders. A view rate can't be ranked against a click to lead conversion rate. A dashboard putting them side by side doesn't change that.

Demand Gen: visual campaigns with channel choices

Google's Demand Gen page describes campaigns that capture engagement and action across:

• YouTube, including Shorts

• Discover

• Gmail

• Maps

• the Google Display Network

Demand Gen campaigns use image, video and carousel ads, and product feed formats on the visual surfaces. They offer lookalike segments for reaching new audiences, and value based and Maximise Clicks bidding.

Demand Gen isn't Display with a new name. It isn't Performance Max either. Google's channel controls page says advertisers can choose specific channels in the ad group settings. Performance Max doesn't offer that choice. Maps serves only when a non affiliated location asset is enabled on the account.

Two limits matter for a small business. The first is that audience settings can widen. Google's optimised targeting page says the feature looks for additional conversions beyond the segments you select. It is on automatically. It is available for Display, Demand Gen and Video campaigns with Sales, Leads or Website traffic goals.

Optimised targeting can be turned off in the ad group settings. It reports its traffic in the "Total: Expansion and optimised targeting" row. A seed list is not a boundary unless you make it one.

The second is that exposure cannot be capped. Google's frequency capping page says frequency capping is not supported in Demand Gen campaigns. A Display era instruction to set a manual cap does not transfer.

Discovery campaigns became Demand Gen. So anyone weighing Discovery against Performance Max is making this comparison.

Performance Max: automate across channels

Performance Max is a conversion led campaign that allocates across Google's inventory from one campaign. It uses goals, assets, signals and a feed where there is one. Search themes and audience signals guide it rather than fence it in. Google's PMax audience signals page says the campaign may show ads to relevant audiences outside the signals.

It needs a primary outcome worth optimising for, values that mean something, usable creative and destinations that fit. There is no universal 30 conversion permission gate.

Performance Max is still less transparent than Search. But its reporting is better than its reputation. Google's PMax search terms report page shows the search terms behind Performance Max ads. Its data goes back to March 2023.

Google's channel performance report page breaks out cost and conversions by channel. The same page says you can't directly control budget allocation per channel. So visibility is not control.

The controls are narrower than Search's, but they exist. Google's Performance Max negative keywords page says negatives can go on all campaigns or one Performance Max campaign. They apply to Search and Shopping inventory only. Google's Performance Max questions page adds brand exclusions, URL rules and content suitability settings. That's because a negative keyword doesn't block a Display or YouTube placement.

Search and Performance Max overlap, on brand demand above all. So report brand, existing customers and qualified outcomes separately where measurement allows. A higher attributed total is not proof of additional sales.

On 29 June 2023, Google announced new brand settings in Search and Performance Max campaigns. Brand exclusions for Performance Max were rolling out to all advertisers. Some accounts in the audits since then ran both Performance Max and Search. About 4 in 5 of those had Performance Max showing for their own brand terms. Search also targeted those terms, with no brand exclusion or brand negative.

The transparent alternative is separate Search, Standard Shopping and visual campaigns. It costs more to manage and still lacks user level visibility. Our Performance Max review for small businesses asks whether Performance Max suits a small business at all.

App, Hotel and other specialist options

App campaigns promote a real mobile app and optimise for installs or in app actions. They do not replace a website lead campaign.

Google's hotel campaigns page says hotel ads appear when travellers search for hotels on Search, Maps or YouTube. They require a hotel list, up to date prices for itineraries and landing pages. All of it is managed in a Hotel Center account linked to Google Ads. That is not ordinary ecommerce Shopping repackaged.

Paying commission per stay is off the table too. Google's notice on commission bid strategies for hotel ads sets out the timeline. Those strategies closed to new campaigns from 30 April 2024. They were sunset on 20 February 2025.

Google's Travel campaigns for Things to do page says those campaigns move to new Search campaigns for travel. The move starts in Q3 2026. Account notifications carry each account's exact dates. The feed is supplied through what is now called the Actions Center.

Smart campaigns are the easy one to misdescribe. Google's Smart campaign comparison page describes a simplified product for small businesses. Smart campaigns can only be created in Smart mode.

Google's developer notice on Smart campaigns sets a date. From 23 September 2026, new Smart campaigns can no longer be created through the Google Ads API. Existing ones can still be updated and continue to serve.

That notice is about the API, not the interface. Verify what your account offers rather than assuming Smart campaigns have vanished. Do not confuse Smart campaigns with Smart Bidding or with Performance Max.

Which type fits your business?

Every row is conditional. The urgent trade starts with Search because the demand is already searching and the phone is the conversion. The same trade with a project led offer might not. The retailer starts with a feed campaign because the format matches the purchase. Even then, the feed, the values and the margins have to hold.

A clinic or a lawyer whose service sits in a restricted category assesses Search first. Any retargeting is a question for the remarketing guide, not a default.

With little search demand and a visual offer, the comparison may not even be between Google campaign types. It may be with paid social. That is the subject of our guide to Google Ads vs Facebook ads for small businesses.

How to split a limited budget

Once you know how much to spend on Google Ads in total, allocate it by:

• attainable demand

• contribution margin

• the acceptable cost of a customer

• what each campaign needs to learn

• the loss the business can tolerate

Not by a percentage table. A small budget usually supports one focused test. Our guide to the minimum Google Ads budget works through that.

An ecommerce budget can reasonably start with a feed campaign. An established account protects the campaign that works and funds one specific expansion question. No budget threshold on its own decides between Search and Performance Max.

The example is a service business with a working Search baseline and one visual follow up question. It puts $2,400 into Search media and $300 into Demand Gen test media. Another $300 goes into the creative the test needs. The media total is $2,700 and the programme total is $3,000.

Nothing about that split proves $300 is enough to answer the question. If the test can't produce useful evidence within the loss allowance, defer it rather than run it badly.

Keep agency fees, production, feed maintenance and GST out of the media line and on their own lines. Then model the test on your own numbers. The estimator works from what you enter rather than forecasting your account.

Compare useful outcomes, not cheap clicks

A cheap click is only cheap if it becomes a lead. The two campaigns below are examples. The click prices and conversion rates were picked to show the arithmetic. They're not a benchmark for either campaign type.

A $2 click converting to a lead at 0.5% costs $400 a lead. A $15 click converting at 8% costs $187.50 a lead.

The next comparison is the one that matters: add qualification and sales outcomes. If the $400 leads close at three times the rate of the $187.50 leads, their customers cost less. So the apparent winner reverses.

Compare one outcome definition, one attribution window, one date basis and a mature period. Separate click, engaged view and view through credit where they apply. Deduplicate customers in the business records and net out returns and cancellations.

A before and after comparison is observational unless an experiment isolates the effect. An awareness test judged only on last click leads in the same month usually looks like a failure. The measurement that makes any of this possible is set up in our Google Ads conversion tracking guide.

A rollout plan with clear decision gates

Define the offer and the useful conversion. Validate the measurement. Launch the smallest viable set of campaigns. Review query or placement quality and lead handling in the first days. Only then add one justified test.

Fix broken tracking immediately. But don't expect to judge any campaign in seven days. Allow 4 to 8 weeks for a first read and about 90 days to judge cost per lead. Allow longer when the sales cycle is long. Our guide to the first 30 days of Google Ads explains the timing.

A record like that is what turns a campaign into evidence. Without it, every test ends in a conversation about what people remember. So if an agency runs the account, ask for the record before it adds a campaign type.

Before the test spends a dollar, check four things:

• A test conversion has recorded for the outcome the test will be judged on.

• The landing page loads on a phone, matches the ad and reaches a person.

• For retail, the feed is approved and its prices and stock are current.

• The spend allowance, the review date and the person who decides are written down.

Common campaign selection mistakes

What we recommend at Elev8d

FAQ: campaign type questions

Next steps

Written by Ajay K.Co-founder, Elev8d

Ajay is the co-founder of Elev8d and writes most of what you will read here. Psychology grad turned marketer, which is a fancy way of saying he cares about why people click, not just where things rank. Every guide is written in plain English for Australian businesses, tested on real campaigns before it earns a spot on this site.