Branded Searches no longer covers PMax

Before: when Branded Searches launched in 2025, Performance Max counted toward the metric. Now: Google's updated documentation no longer lists PMax among supported campaign types — only YouTube and Demand Gen remain.

The metric itself tracks how many people searched for your brand on Google or YouTube after being exposed to an ad. In other words, it is a mid-funnel measurement: does an upper-funnel campaign create genuine interest, not just impressions? The documentation change was spotted by Search Engine Land.

What else changed in the docs:

• the conversion window is now 7 days by default, adjustable between 1 and 30 days (it used to be a 30-day view-through window);
• the goal is formally classified under Consideration;
• the metric is reporting-only — you cannot set it as a bidding optimisation target;
• data lands in the Results and All conversions columns;
• brand mapping is still mandatory: without it nothing gets measured at all.

You can pull the numbers in Report Editor at campaign, ad group and even asset level — the last one is useful for working out which creative actually pushes people to google your brand.

Dropping PMax looks logical enough: the campaign blends Search, YouTube, Discover and Display into one bucket, so attributing a brand demand spike to a specific channel never really worked there. For advertisers, though, it removes one more argument for defending a PMax budget in front of a client — this campaign type keeps losing measurable signals.

In practice this means two things. First, if your PMax reporting leaned on branded search lift, line up a replacement: brand traffic now has to be tracked through search terms segments and search campaigns. Second, a 7-day window produces smaller numbers than last year, and that is a methodology change rather than a drop in performance. Comparing before-and-after periods without adjusting for the new window is a fast way to reach a false conclusion and cut budget where it is actually working.