Performance Max Video Assets: Uploaded, Auto-Generated and Sourced, and Where Each Fits

Three ways video gets into an asset group

Google's video specifications allow up to 15 videos per asset group, in horizontal, square and vertical formats, with a minimum ten-second length. Its Shorts guidance recommends a vertical version between 10 and 60 seconds. Start with footage that tells the product's story; an empty format slot is not a reason to upload a poor edit.

When an asset group has no supplied video, Google may generate one from its other assets, including feed material for retail campaigns. Google's documentation describes uploading your own video as the way to prevent generation; its specifications further name all required orientations. Supply the appropriate formats and inspect the actual asset report instead of assuming a single upload settled every automatic path. Enhancement and sourcing have separate controls.

Sourced videos are off by default. When you opt in, Google can select from approved social profiles, the landing page and a linked YouTube channel, adding up to ten crawled videos per asset group. The documented daily-budget condition is more than US$5. Sources refresh periodically, and removing the original removes the sourced video. Approve a source only if its current content is suitable for this campaign.

Video enhancements are another control, not a blanket layer on every generated clip: Google's automation page says enhancements do not apply to auto-generated videos. See the voice-over guide for the narration and editing decisions.

What Google says about where the video serves

Performance Max reaches several channels, but a campaign's channel list does not mean every format appears on every surface. Google's channel documentation describes video formats on YouTube, Discover and the Display Network. Use the account's channel and asset reports to identify actual delivery; eligibility alone is not proof a particular clip ran.

Asset-group video is campaign creative. Merchant Center product video describes a particular product and can support eligible listings and advertising uses. A Shopping-heavy Performance Max campaign may still have generated campaign video on other placements. That is why feed and landing-page consistency matter even when your team has not uploaded footage.

Standard Shopping and Performance Max can also compete for the same products. Google's October 2024 update replaced automatic Performance Max priority with Ad Rank. That auction rule does not tell you which video creative a customer saw.

Keeping the auto-generated version honest

Start by watching the generated version. A category-level asset group may contain products that are absent from its chosen landing page. Google's guidance points to product filters as a way to align the admitted items with the destination; a more appropriate destination can sometimes solve the mismatch instead.

A hypothetical: a homewares retailer runs one asset group for Bedding with a final URL of the bedding category page and no uploaded video. The asset report shows a generated video cycling through duvet covers, pillows and a weighted blanket from the feed. The category page does not list the weighted blanket, which lives under Wellness. The fix is a product filter that excludes it from the Bedding asset group, or a landing page that includes it, once someone has watched the generated video and confirmed it is serving.

If the question is whether video adds value, Google's video-impact experiment compares traffic with video against a control that suppresses both uploaded and auto-generated video. A separate beta compares asset sets within one group. Check account availability, preserve the test conditions and use the reported uncertainty; neither test guarantees a conclusive answer.

What to look at in each asset group

• Whether any active video is uploaded, and, in the asset report, whether auto-generated or enhanced videos exist and are serving.
• For Merchant Center campaigns, whether the product filter matches the final URL's products; a generated video draws from the filtered feed.
• Ratios and lengths of uploaded videos: at least one vertical of 10 to 60 seconds if Shorts matters to you, and all three orientations if you want to prevent auto-generation per the specs page.
• The sourced videos setting and, if it is on, the approved sources; a clip made for a different market is a legitimate candidate the moment its profile is approved.
• The video enhancement setting and the enhanced versions in the asset report.

What a retailer should actually upload

Upload real video to the asset groups that carry the products you most want represented, in the three orientations where you can, so the video on those placements is your footage. Let auto-generation cover asset groups where the feed images and titles already tell the product's story and the filter matches the landing page, and confirm what it produced. Turn on sourced videos only after looking at what the approved sources contain, and re-check after a refresh, since Google picks from whatever the source currently holds.

If an asset group's numbers move after video changes, remember that video placements are a different auction from Search and Shopping ones; the asset report and channel-level reporting in Google Ads show where the change happened.