Summary
Google has quietly narrowed the remit of its Performance Planner tool, removing native planning for Display and Video campaigns and disabling plans that rely on impression share metrics. The change, first reported by Anu Adegbola at Search Engine Land, shifts the tool firmly toward conversion-focused, lower-funnel campaign types and further embeds automation as the default planning path for Google Ads users (see the original report at https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-drops-display-and-video-planning-from-performance-planner-474055). Google’s support documentation confirms the change and explains the updated scope for Performance Planner: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9230124?hl=en
What changed
– Performance Planner no longer allows advertisers to create, view or edit plans that include Display or Video campaigns.
– Plans that used impression share, top impression share or absolute top impression share as planning metrics are likewise removed from the tool.
– The planner remains available for Search, Shopping, App, Demand Gen, Local and Performance Max campaign types, where the focus is explicitly on measurable actions and conversion outcomes.
Why it matters
This is more than a housekeeping change in a Google product. By sidelining impression-based planning inside a primary forecasting tool, Google is signalling that its native planning ecosystem prioritises measurable conversion events over traditional awareness metrics. For advertisers and agencies that still depend on upper-funnel tactics to build brand consideration, the practical consequence is twofold: forecasting and optimisation for Display and Video will become more fragmented, and advertisers will need to look beyond Google’s native tooling to plan awareness spend reliably.
For Irish and European marketers this change is particularly relevant. Many campaigns in brand-sensitive sectors rely on reach and share-of-voice objectives that are not well captured by conversion metrics alone. Losing a single-point forecasting tool for both upper- and mid-funnel activity increases complexity for planning teams and may push smaller advertisers to accept automated, conversion-first defaults rather than bespoke awareness strategies.
The commercial and political angle
The update underscores a broader trend: platforms steering users toward objectives and products that favour measurable outcomes and, frequently, platform-level automation. That has two implications for the market. First, advertisers who shift fully into conversion-led approaches may see short-term gains in efficiency, but risk underinvesting in long-term brand equity. Second, the concentration of planning and measurement within platform ecosystems hands more control to the tech giant, which raises strategic concerns for agencies and publishers dependent on ecosystem openness.
Policy-minded readers should note the competitive dimension. When a dominant ad platform reduces native support for third-party style planning across awareness channels, it effectively nudges ad spend into formats and strategies that align with the platform’s commercial roadmap. That is a market reality advertisers and regulators cannot ignore.
Practical advice for advertisers and agencies
– Rebuild your forecasting stack: With Performance Planner no longer supporting Display and Video, teams should supplement Google’s tooling with independent forecasting solutions – either agency-owned models or third-party planning tools that still handle reach and impression-share metrics.
– Preserve upper-funnel measurement: Use brand lift studies, viewability and third-party verification (for example from measurement providers such as IAS or Moat) and independent surveys to capture awareness and consideration outcomes that conversions miss.
– Model cross-channel impact: Create simple econometric or rule-based models that estimate how upper-funnel spend drives later conversions and offline metrics. That will make bids and budgets defensible even if conversions are the currency Google’s tools prefer.
– Own first-party signals: Accelerate investments in first-party data, server-side tracking and CRM integration so you can attribute downstream performance that platform automation may otherwise obscure.
– Re-evaluate media mix: Consider whether programmatic, publisher-direct or walled-garden inventory offers better reach and planning control for brand objectives. Diversification reduces dependence on any single vendor’s toolset.
What to watch next
– Will Google restore Display and Video planning in a new form, perhaps integrated into Demand Gen or Performance Max workflows, or is this a permanent tightening of scope?
– How quickly will third-party planning products plug the gap, and which vendors will target advertisers seeking impression-share forecasting?
– Whether regulators or large advertisers push back on platform control of planning and measurement as the industry moves further toward automation-driven outcomes.
Bottom line
Google is consolidating planning around conversion-driven, automatable campaign types and away from impression-based forecasting. For many businesses this will force a reassessment of how awareness is planned and measured – and a choice between accepting platform-driven defaults or investing in independent forecasting and measurement. For further reading, see Anu Adegbola’s coverage at Search Engine Land (https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-drops-display-and-video-planning-from-performance-planner-474055) and Google’s official guidance on the change (https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9230124?hl=en).
