As a Google Premier Partner, WhiteDigital receives Google Ads updates and insights that help us stay informed about upcoming features and developments. This article covers six beta features that could shape the future of Google Ads and help advertisers prepare for potential changes.
Google Ads automation can save advertisers time, but it also raises practical questions. Can a campaign spend more during a seasonal sale without someone changing the settings manually? Can regulated businesses use Performance Max while displaying required disclaimers? And how can Google understand a lead who may take months to become a paying customer?
A Future Google Beta outlines six feature areas designed to address challenges like these. They cover promotional bidding, legal disclaimers, display placement exclusions, longer customer journeys, YouTube video ads, and third-party inventory controls.
These features are described as betas. Their availability may depend on eligibility, account access, and rollout status, so advertisers should confirm availability before planning to use them.
1. Promotion Mode for Seasonal Campaigns
Running a promotion can be stressful for advertisers. A sale may last only a few days, and advertisers want to capture additional demand without permanently changing their normal campaign targets.
Google’s Promotion Mode is a feature designed to help advertisers schedule temporary budget increases and ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) target adjustments for a specific promotional period.
How Promotion Mode Works
Advertisers would configure the promotion dates and target rules directly in campaign settings. They could set an additional budget and choose how much flexibility to allow in the ROAS target, with a reduction allowance ranging from 5% to 90%.
During the promotion, Smart Bidding Exploration would explore a broader pool of search queries to find additional opportunities for conversions. Once the promotional period ends, the campaign would automatically return to its baseline ROAS target and spending settings.
For example, an online retailer running a three-day sale could schedule a temporary budget increase in advance rather than manually adjusting its campaign every day.
What advertisers should consider
Promo Mode is intended to reduce minute manual work and give advertisers more control over temporary campaign changes. But a lower ROAS goal does not guarantee conversions or profitability. Advertisers should decide how much flexibility they can afford and monitor the actual results of a promotion.
2. Performance Max Disclaimer Asset for Regulated Industries
Performance Max uses automation to serve ads across eligible Google inventory. For businesses in regulated industries, however, advertising automation must also account for legal disclosure requirements.
Performance Max Disclaimer Asset feature is intended for advertisers in areas such as finance, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals, where certain disclosures may need to appear with an ad.
How the disclaimer feature works
According to this, advertisers would be able to provide a disclaimer text asset of up to 90 characters. The feature is designed to display that disclaimer across eligible Search and Display placements.
Ad formats that cannot accommodate the required disclaimer would be suppressed. This is intended to prevent ads from serving in formats that cannot meet the disclosure requirement.
Also describes the feature as a way for regulated businesses to access Performance Max’s Smart Bidding, cross-channel query signals, and machine-learning capabilities while maintaining tighter control over disclaimer display.
The trade-off for advertisers
Restricting incompatible formats could reduce campaign volume or change efficiency compared with unrestricted Performance Max campaigns. Advertisers would have to weigh this trade-off when determining if the feature is right for them.
The described serving logic is intended to support compliance, but advertisers would still need to verify that their ads meet the legal requirements that apply to their industry and location.
3. Google Display Ads Expands Web Gaming Exclusion Options
Have you ever reviewed a placement report and found that your ads appeared on websites that were unlikely to attract your intended customers?
Web Gaming Exclusion Solution is designed to help advertisers avoid third-party web inventory classified as browser-based gaming.
Casual HTML5 games can generate accidental clicks when users tap ads while playing. For some advertisers, these interactions may contribute little business value.
What changes with this solution?
Instead of manually finding and excluding thousands of individual gaming placements, the proposed solution would use a backend allowlist to automatically exclude classified web gaming inventory from eligible Display placements.
Identifies three main benefits:
- The solution can help advertisers avoid browser-based gaming sites and keep advertisers’ ads on relevant placements.
- The solution could also help advertisers allocate budgets toward websites that better match advertisers’ brand and advertising goals.
- The exclusion mechanism is designed to support Google Display Network campaigns, including Performance Max and Demand Gen so that advertisers can manage their placements more effectively.
For example, a B2B software company may prefer advertisers’ ads to appear on industry websites rather than casual browser games because users may have little interest in that software.
This solution is about web gaming inventory, not necessarily every gaming app or every website related to games. The real effect would depend on which placements are excluded and how the campaign performs afterward.
4. Journey Aware Bidding for Complete Customer Journeys
Not every customer clicks on an ad and buys immediately. In industries with long sales cycles, a person might visit a website today, submit an enquiry next month, attend a sales meeting later, and become a customer several months after that.
If advertisers focus only on the final sale, bidding systems may receive limited immediate information about the earlier stages of the journey.
Journey Aware Bidding (JAB) is an approach that incorporates early-stage conversion actions to provide a fuller picture of how users progress toward a final sale.
How Journey Aware Bidding is intended to help
JAB is described as modelling the relationships between different milestones across the customer journey. These signals could include website visits, form enquiries, discovery calls, and final customer closures.
The feature is designed to help Smart Bidding use intermediate interactions when the final conversion takes a long time to occur. Highlights businesses with sales cycles exceeding 180 days.
It also describes JAB as a bidding capability that integrates into the bidding system rather than requiring advertisers to manage a separate manual toggle, calibration process, or A/B test.
Which campaigns are covered?
The feature applies to Search campaigns using Target CPA (tCPA) and Maximize Conversions. It also mentions AI Max and Search-based Performance Max.
The stated eligibility does not include Target ROAS (tROAS) or Maximize Conversion Value.
Why lead-generation advertisers should pay attention
Consider a company selling enterprise software. A form submission may be the first meaningful sign of interest, but the actual revenue may arrive six months later.
Using earlier journey signals could help the bidding system understand progression toward the eventual sale. However, this does not mean every page visit should automatically be treated as a valuable conversion. Advertisers still need proper tracking and meaningful definitions of conversions.
5. YouTube Introduces 20-Second Non-Skippable In-Stream Ads
Video advertising is useful for building brand awareness, but advertisers sometimes have to shorten their existing videos to fit a particular ad format.
20-second non-skippable in-stream video ad option intended to let eligible advertisers use longer video creatives through auction-based buying.
What is different about this format?
The feature lets advertisers use those assets without having to re‑edit them to 15 seconds if they own 20‑second TV commercials or digital videos. This helps preserve the message, product explanation, and call to action.
Highlights several potential benefits:
- The 20‑second non‑skippable format lets the entire ad play without viewers skipping it.
- Advertisers can reuse their existing 20‑second videos instead of creating shorter versions.
- These campaigns run on a CPM basis, meaning advertisers pay for every 1,000 impressions.
- The format is available through Google Ads and Display & Video 360 for campaigns.
What does this mean for advertisers?
Brands that are already paying for TV commercials or longer digital video can take those assets and use them in YouTube campaigns. Advertisers can keep more of their storytelling instead of compressing the message into a shorter ad.
However, a non‑skippable format does not automatically guarantee that viewers will remember the message or take action. The creative still has to be relevant, clear, and appropriate for the audience.
Advertisers should also confirm eligibility and account access before adding this format to their media plans.
6. Performance Max Third-Party Inventory Control Pilot
Performance Max automates ad delivery across Google’s advertising inventory. While this can simplify campaign management, some advertisers need more control over third-party placements because of brand-safety policies, legal requirements, or industry restrictions.
Performance Max Third-Party Inventory Control Pilot is designed to give selected advertisers more direct control over third-party network placements.
What controls does the pilot offer?
The pilot provides backend controls to restrict third-party network inventory across campaigns.
At the same time, Google-owned properties remain available. Specifically lists Search, YouTube, Gmail, and Discover as Google-owned inventory that would be preserved.
It also makes an important distinction about YouTube Search. Although it is classified under the Search Partner Network, it identifies it as Google-owned inventory and states that it remains active and unaffected by the third-party exclusion controls.
Who can participate?
This is a restricted pilot rather than a feature presented as generally available to all advertisers.
The feature lists eligibility requirements:
- Advertisers can participate only if their Customer IDs (CIDs) are not already involved in other Performance Max tests, such as Video Tuner or Bid Modifiers.
- Advertisers must provide a business reason for needing third‑party inventory controls.
- Advertisers also need to submit inventory data to support their request.
- Participants must complete a feedback survey after the pilot so Google can evaluate the feature.
- Because the pilot has limited capacity, advertisers must submit all documentation, including audit disclosures, so their applications are considered.
What happens when the pilot ends?
Participation does not guarantee that the feature will become generally available. If the pilot ends without a rollout, participating accounts will automatically return to standard Performance Max settings.
Advertisers must plan for the possibility that third‑party inventory could become available again after the pilot. They must also formally acknowledge the automatic reset before enrolling.
For advertisers with strict inventory governance requirements, this is an important consideration. A temporary exclusion capability may be useful, but campaign strategies should not depend on a pilot becoming a permanent feature.
What These Google Ads Betas Could Mean for Advertisers
Taken together, the six feature areas address different challenges in campaign management.
Promo Mode focuses on temporary changes during promotions. The disclaimer feature addresses the needs of regulated advertisers. Web Gaming Exclusion is intended to improve placement quality, while Journey Aware Bidding focuses on customers whose path to purchase takes longer than usual.
The YouTube format is aimed at advertisers who want to preserve video messages, and the Performance Max inventory pilot is intended for businesses that need more control over third‑party placements.
These features also highlight a point about automation: more automation does not remove the need for good campaign planning. Advertisers still need budgets, clear conversion definitions, suitable creative assets, and an understanding of where their ads appear.
Final Thoughts
Google’s upcoming beta features and pilot programs cover more than bidding automation. They aim to address several challenges advertisers face, including managing seasonal campaigns, meeting disclosure requirements, understanding longer customer journeys, choosing video ad formats, and controlling ad inventory.
These developments are worth watching because they could influence how advertisers plan and manage their campaigns in the future. However, features in beta or pilot stages may not be available to every advertiser, and some may not become generally available.
Before recommending these features to clients, advertisers should check Google’s official announcements, confirm account eligibility, and understand any limitations. This helps them distinguish between features they can use today and those that are still being tested.
Ready to explore new opportunities with Google Ads? Contact us to discuss your advertising goals and find new ways to grow your campaigns with the right strategy.
