How to Choose Ad Placements on Google Ads in 2026: Every Campaign Type Explained

Key Takeaways

• Campaign type is your first and largest placement decision, since it sets which Google surfaces an ad can reach.
• Google's channel priorities and budget allocation, announced in October 2026, let you limit spend on Search partners and the Display Network. Google calls this a target rather than a guarantee, and rollout is progressive.
• Demand Gen has the most direct placement choice, with ad-group-level options for YouTube in-stream, in-feed, Shorts, Discover, Gmail, Maps and the Display Network.
• You can't target or separately opt out of AI Overviews and AI Mode. Existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are automatically eligible.
• Account-level placement exclusions apply across campaign types including Performance Max, and cover Display, YouTube and Search partner sites.
• Use the channel performance report to see where money goes, then check quality using CRM or revenue data before cutting anything.

The Quick Answer: Which Google Placement Suits Which Goal

Unlike Meta, Google Ads does not offer one long list of placements for every campaign. Your main decision is the campaign type, because that determines which surfaces are available. Everything else refines the choice.

If you want the case for why this matters, see how ad placement decides whether a campaign succeeds or fails. For video, our YouTube placement guide goes much deeper.

Search: The Network Setting Most Advertisers Never Revisit

A Search campaign shows ads around search results. The first placement decision is whether to include the Search Partner Network, which Google describes as search-related sites and apps, including partner sites, placements such as directories and product pages, and YouTube search results and Watch pages. Search partners are included by default when you create a Search campaign.

**How to decide:** segment an existing campaign by network, using the view that separates Google Search from Search partners, and compare cost, conversion rate and qualified outcomes. If you have no data, it can make sense to start on Google Search alone when budget is tight, and then test partners separately. Google's help page gives the path: open campaign settings, find Networks, and untick 'Include Google search partners'.

Also check whether the **Display Network** is switched on in your Search campaign. This setting, often called Display Expansion, can send a Search budget to very different inventory. Google has said that this setup will change in February 2027. PPC Land reports from Google's help content that advertisers wanting similar behaviour will need to set the Display Network to Low priority with a 50% allocation, and that the Display Network will stop serving on Search campaigns using Target Impression Share. If you have this on, review it now rather than waiting.

**On-page position** is also a kind of placement. Top impression share and absolute top impression share show how often you appear above organic results. If those are low on your best terms, improving bid strategy, ad quality or budget may be worth more than any network change.

AI Overviews and AI Mode: A Placement You Can't Select

Advertisers often ask how to place ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode. According to Google's help page, there is no separate campaign or budget for it. Existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are automatically eligible. And you cannot target only these placements, or opt out of them separately from Search. Negative keywords, brand exclusions and asset pinning still apply.

At the time of checking, the UK and the UAE were not on Google's listed countries for ads inside these experiences, so check the current list if you operate there. Because reporting is aggregated, you won't get a clean placement report for this inventory. In practice, keep your search terms and landing pages strong, and use your negative keywords where a match goes wrong.

Performance Max: Controls You Have Now

Performance Max runs across Google Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Maps, Gmail and Search partners from one campaign. For a long time, its major complaint was that advertisers could not see or steer the mix. That has changed quite a bit, although it is still not manual control.

**The channel performance report** is the place to start. Find it under Campaigns, then Insights and reports, then Channel performance. It shows a performance summary, a chart linking channels to goals, and a distribution table with impressions, clicks, conversions, conversion value and cost by channel, with data available for dates after 6 June 2025. It also has channel status labels and diagnostics, such as missing video assets or budget limits, so you can see why a channel may not be serving.

**Channel priorities and budget allocation** are the biggest change in 2026. They were announced on 14 October, and availability was described as progressive from 15 October, so your account may not have them yet. We describe them in the next section.

**Other controls available:**

- **Account-level placement exclusions** apply to Performance Max and cover Display, YouTube and Search partner sites. - **Campaign-level negative keywords** apply only to Search and Shopping inventory. Google's page gives a limit of 1,000 for account-level negatives. Trade sources give different figures for campaign-level negatives, so check your account. - **Brand exclusions** help keep a campaign off brand queries on Search, including misspellings. - **Inventory type and content exclusions** at account level help manage suitability on YouTube and Display. - **Assets.** If you do not supply a video, you limit control over how your campaign appears on video surfaces, so provide your own whenever you can.

A true on-and-off switch for Search partners and Display has been seen in some accounts, labelled as an alpha 'Partners' setting. As of late October 2026, Google described this as a pilot with a limited group of advertisers, and had no public help page for it. Don't plan around having it. For more on setup, see our Performance Max optimization guide and Performance Max for qualified leads.

Channel Priorities and Budget Allocation, Explained

This feature is likely to matter for most Performance Max advertisers once it reaches their accounts. It lets you tell Google which channels to fund first, and how much of a daily budget a low-priority channel may use. The details below come from PPC Land's reporting of Google's help content and from statements by Google's Ads Product Liaison, Ginny Marvin, because we did not read the Google help page directly.

**How it works:** each channel is either High priority, the default, or Low priority. High priority channels are funded first. For a Low priority channel, you can set an allocation as a percentage of the campaign's average daily budget, not of its actual spend. Google's example is that 5% of a $1,000 average daily budget means about $50 a day. It resets daily with no carryover. Setting 0% is meant to stop spend on that channel.

**Four limits to understand:**

- **It is a target, not a promise.** Google says it will aim to stay within the percentage but that this isn't a guarantee, so spend can exceed it at times. - **YouTube and Gmail can't be separated in Performance Max this way.** Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail and Discover count as one 'Google channels' group, so this control won't let you cut YouTube alone. - **Target-based campaigns behave differently.** If a target CPA or ROAS campaign is not limited by budget, priorities generally won't change delivery much, although allocations still apply. - **Where you set it matters.** The setting is reported to live in a Channel Prioritization card in Account settings, with campaign-level overrides, and it can't be managed from a manager account.

A sensible first test is to choose a Performance Max campaign where Search partners or the Display Network take a noticeable share of spend with weak qualified outcomes, set that channel to Low priority with a small allocation, and compare results for several weeks. Avoid changing everything at once. Reducing these channels might raise costs elsewhere, and only your backend numbers will show whether that was a good trade.

Demand Gen: The Most Direct Choice You Get

If you want to say exactly which Google surfaces can run your visual ads, Demand Gen offers the clearest control, and it is set at the ad group level.

Some restrictions apply. Not every channel works with every ad type or audience. Maps needs a non-affiliated location extension. And other settings can limit channels, so a YouTube engagement goal runs only on YouTube, even if you select all channels. Video partners are off by default for Demand Gen, so you have to turn them on if you want them.

You can segment results by channel at campaign, ad group and ad level, and split YouTube traffic into in-stream, in-feed and Shorts. Google warns against judging each channel's cost per conversion alone, which is sensible, because channels work together. To force spend on a channel, it suggests a separate ad group with a higher CPA target, and warns that this may be less efficient.

Learn more in our Demand Gen optimization guide and our comparison of Demand Gen and Performance Max for B2B pipeline.

Display: Where Placement Choice Still Means Literal Sites

Display is the campaign type where you can still choose actual websites and apps by using managed placements. It is also where lack of care can be most expensive. Google says the Display Network reaches over 90% of the global internet population across more than 3 million sites and apps. That is an enormous amount of inventory, with very mixed quality.

**When Display makes sense:** remarketing to your own visitors, building cheap awareness in defined audiences, and reaching people through chosen industry publications. It is rarely the first channel for lead generation on a small budget.

**How to control it:**

- **Open the placement report early.** Review where the ads actually ran, and look for mobile apps, children's content and irrelevant sites. - **Use campaign or ad group exclusions where they're available.** Display supports exclusion at these levels, with a limit reported at 10,000 per campaign. - **Use account-level exclusions for anything you never want.** They apply across the account. - **Consider managed placements** when you know which publications your buyers read, accepting that volume will be lower and costs may be higher. - **Review sensitive-content settings.** Use excluded content categories and digital content labels, which still apply to the Display Network.

For the rest of the campaign setup, see our Google Display optimization guide.

Account-Level Exclusions: Your Safety Net

Almost every Google campaign type respects account-level placement exclusions, which makes them the first thing to set up in a new account. Find them under Tools, then Content suitability, then Advanced settings, then Excluded placements.

PPC Land reported in January 2026 that a single list covering websites, apps and YouTube channels across Display, YouTube, Performance Max and Demand Gen was appearing, possibly in beta for some accounts. It described this as exact matching without wildcards. Check how your account shows it.

Exclusions aren't free, however. Google warns that too many can limit reach and performance, and that content exclusions work 'to the best of our ability'. Audit your list every few months and keep a note of why each major entry was added.

How to Decide Using Your Own Data

A channel report tells you where the money went. Your CRM tells you whether it was worth it. Here is an illustrative example, not a client result, for a B2B software company spending $20,000 a month in Performance Max.

Display looks cheapest at $40 a conversion, and worst per qualified lead. A first move might be to set it to Low priority with a small allocation, if available, and to tighten your conversion goal so that the campaign is rewarded for qualified leads rather than form fills. YouTube looks expensive, but note how few leads it has and that video can influence later search, so don't cut it on this table alone. Search partners has too few leads to judge yet.

**To get to that table:**

- **Pass the click ID (GCLID or its equivalents) into your CRM** and upload outcomes as offline conversions, including qualified and closed statuses. - **Use value-based or qualified conversion goals** so that automated bidding can see the difference. - **Review several weeks of data,** and account for your sales cycle. - **Test large moves with Google Ads experiments or geographic holdouts.** Note that experiments treat all channels as one tier in the priorities feature, according to the reported help content.

Our guide to defining qualified leads helps you decide what should count before you send it back to Google.

Placement Choices by Business Type

**By market:** in India, mobile usage is high and cheap app inventory can attract budget, so reviewing where Display and partner traffic comes from is especially useful. In the US, UK, Canada and Australia, Search clicks in competitive categories can be costly, which makes negatives and qualified goals particularly valuable. In the UAE and other multi-language markets, check that your ads match the language of the page and audience you're reaching.

A Step-by-Step Placement Setup

1. **Set account-level foundations.** Add your placement exclusions, inventory type, sensitive categories and any account-level negative keywords. 2. **Match campaign type to demand.** Use Search or Shopping to capture what exists, and add Demand Gen or YouTube to create more. 3. **Set networks deliberately.** Decide on Search partners and Display Network instead of accepting defaults without review. 4. **Provide assets for every surface you want.** Include horizontal and vertical video, not just images. 5. **Connect outcomes.** Import qualified and sold results from your CRM before you scale any automated campaign. 6. **Launch and leave it.** Allow automated bidding time to learn before you judge channels. 7. **Open the channel report and the placement report.** Check spend, status, diagnostics and quality. 8. **Adjust one thing at a time.** Add exclusions, then adjust priorities, then consider restructuring. 9. **Review monthly.** Look over the exclusions list and channel distribution, particularly when new features arrive.

Common Mistakes on Google Placements

- **Accepting network defaults.** Search partners are on by default, and Display Network settings can be overlooked. Decide on purpose. - **Judging Performance Max by its overall ROAS.** Brand search and remarketing can flatter it. Look at channels and new-customer value. - **Assuming 0% means never.** Google says allocations aren't guaranteed, so check the channel report after changing them. - **Cutting YouTube on last-click numbers.** Video often influences later searches. Measure it with a holdout where possible. - **Letting Google create your video by default.** Supply your own horizontal and vertical versions. - **Optimizing for form fills.** Cheap conversions tend to come from cheap inventory. Import qualified outcomes instead. - **Over-excluding.** Excluding too widely can limit reach and raise costs. Keep exclusions tied to a reason. - **Ignoring the February 2027 change.** If Search campaigns use the Display Network, review how the new setup affects them.

What We Checked, and Where to Confirm It

Google's controls are changing quickly, and the channel priorities rollout was still under way when we checked in November 2026. Your own account is the final reference. Useful sources include Google's help pages on Demand Gen channel controls, the Performance Max channel performance report, account-level placement exclusions, brand suitability in Performance Max, ads in AI experiences and the Search Network, plus PPC Land's reporting on channel priorities and budget allocation and the Partners alpha.