Google Expands Waze Ads to 42 Countries, Thailand Not Included

Google has expanded Waze Ads beyond the United States to a total of 42 countries, a change documented through an update to the Performance Max help pages in the Google Ads Help Center and reported by Search Engine Roundtable on 4 September 2026. Thailand is not among the 42 countries listed.

For advertisers in Bangkok the second sentence is the whole story. Malaysia is the only Southeast Asian market on the list, and Australia is the only other entry from the wider Asia Pacific region. Google gave no indication in the updated document of when, or whether, other markets will follow.

What the help document changed

The change is visible in a single paragraph of Google's own documentation. The Performance Max help page previously read: "Waze Ads are currently available only in the United States through Performance Max for store goal campaigns bidding to Store Visits, Store Sales, or Local Actions Directions."

It now reads: "Waze Ads are currently available across select global markets through Performance Max for store goals campaigns bidding on Store Visits, Store Sales, or Local Actions Directions."

Two words carry the change. "Only in the United States" became "across select global markets", and the country list beneath the paragraph grew to 42 entries. Everything else in the sentence held, including the requirement that the campaign be a Performance Max store goals campaign bidding on one of three specific goals.

The 42 countries in full

The table below reproduces the full country list from the updated help document. The regional grouping is ours, added so the distribution is readable at a glance; Google published the countries as a flat list with no grouping.

Europe accounts for 32 of the 42 markets. The Americas account for seven. Everything outside those two blocks amounts to three countries.

Thailand is not on the list

We are stating this plainly because it is the fact that decides what a Thai advertiser should do next. Thailand does not appear among the 42 countries in Google's updated help document. Neither do Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, India or Hong Kong. Malaysia is the single Southeast Asian entry.

The source gives no reason for that distribution and no timetable for additions. We are not going to guess at one. A launch date invented by an agency is worth nothing to a media plan, and the honest position is that Google has said nothing about markets beyond the 42 it named.

The three bidding goals Waze Ads run under

The help document restricts Waze Ads to Performance Max for store goals campaigns bidding on one of three goals. The document names the goals; it does not spell out the setup requirements behind each one, so what follows is a plain description of what the goals are for rather than sourced detail.

Store Visits

Store Visits is the goal for advertisers who want the campaign optimised toward people physically arriving at a location. It depends on Google being able to associate the account with real business locations and on Google's own measurement thresholds, which the company does not publish in full. Smaller location counts and lower traffic volumes are the usual reason an account cannot use it.

Store Sales

Store Sales is the goal for advertisers who can feed transaction data back to Google, so that bidding optimises toward revenue recorded in the shop rather than toward an arrival. It asks more of the advertiser than the other two goals because it requires an offline data pipeline to exist and to keep running.

Local Actions Directions

Local Actions Directions optimises toward the direction request itself, which is the action a Waze user is most likely to take. Of the three goals it is the one that maps most directly onto what a driving navigation app is used for, and it has the lightest measurement prerequisites of the three.

This is a Performance Max surface, not a campaign type

There is no Waze campaign to build. Waze Ads are an inventory surface reached through Performance Max store goals campaigns, in the same way that YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps inventory are reached through Performance Max rather than bought individually.

That has a practical consequence worth understanding before the surface reaches more markets. An advertiser does not switch Waze on and off. Eligibility follows the campaign goal and the market, and Google decides the allocation across surfaces inside the campaign. An advertiser controls assets, location data, goal selection and budget, and reads the outcome afterwards.

How Waze Ads got here

The timeline in the source is short and worth keeping straight, because the expansion is the third step rather than a launch.

• Waze Ads relaunched in the United States in July 2025.
• Waze Ads moved into Google Ads under Performance Max in November 2025.
• Search Engine Roundtable reported on 4 September 2026 that the help document update had taken availability to 42 countries.

Read as a sequence, the pattern is a product being folded into Google's automation stack first and distributed second. The market expansion followed roughly ten months after the move into Performance Max.

What a Thai multi-location advertiser can do in the meantime

Waze inventory is out of reach for a Thai account today, but the campaign structure that would eventually carry it is not. Performance Max store goals campaigns bidding on Store Visits, Store Sales, or Local Actions Directions are the vehicle, and the work of preparing one is the same work whether or not Waze inventory is ever added to the market.

1. Get the location data right first. Business Profile listings that are complete, verified and consistent with the account are the input every store goal depends on. A campaign optimising toward store visits is only as good as the location records behind it.
2. Pick the goal you can actually measure. An account without an offline sales pipeline should not be bidding to Store Sales. Local Actions Directions is the lighter starting point for a business that wants foot traffic and cannot yet close the loop on revenue.
3. Separate store goal campaigns from online conversion campaigns. Mixing an in-store objective with an online purchase or lead objective inside one campaign makes the reporting hard to read and gives the bidding system two targets.
4. Build the local asset set now. Store goals campaigns lean on location assets and branch level imagery. That work has value in Maps and Search regardless of what happens with Waze.
5. Keep the organic side aligned. Paid store goals and unpaid local visibility draw on the same location records, which is why our local SEO team and paid team look at Business Profile data together.

If Waze inventory does reach Thailand later, an account that already runs clean store goals campaigns will pick it up without a rebuild. An account that has never run one will be starting from the beginning at that point.

What the source did not say

Several things are absent from the reporting and from the updated help text, and they matter for anyone planning around this.

• No launch date, or any commitment at all, for markets outside the 42 named countries.
• No performance data. Google published no click, cost or store visit figures for Waze inventory in any market.
• No creative specifications for Waze placements in the updated paragraph.
• No statement on whether Waze inventory is reported separately from other Performance Max surfaces.
• No explanation of how the 42 markets were selected.

What this means for Thai marketers

For now this is a planning input rather than an action item. A Thai advertiser with physical locations gains nothing from Waze inventory today and should not build a media plan that assumes it. What the update does provide is a reasonable signal that Google is distributing store goal inventory more widely, and that store goals campaigns are the container it arrives in.

The sensible position is to have the store goals campaign working properly on the surfaces that are available here. Maps, Search and Display inventory inside a Performance Max store goals campaign are reachable from a Thai account now, and the location data, local assets and goal configuration they need are identical to what a Waze rollout would require. If you want that structure reviewed against your branch network, our Google Ads team works on multi-location accounts of this shape.

FAQ: Waze Ads country expansion

Is Waze Ads available in Thailand?

No. Thailand is not among the 42 countries listed in Google's updated Performance Max help document, as reported on 4 September 2026. Malaysia is the only Southeast Asian country on the list and Australia is the only other Asia Pacific market.

How do I run Waze Ads?

Through a Performance Max for store goals campaign bidding on Store Visits, Store Sales, or Local Actions Directions, in one of the 42 eligible countries. Google's help document describes Waze Ads as available only through that route, so there is no standalone Waze campaign type to create.

When did Waze Ads move into Google Ads?

In November 2025. Waze Ads first relaunched in the United States in July 2025 and moved into Google Ads under Performance Max in November 2025, before the expansion to 42 countries documented on 4 September 2026.

Will Google add more countries?

Google has not said. The updated help document names 42 countries and gives no timetable or commitment regarding any market beyond them, so any specific prediction about a Thai launch would be invention rather than reporting.

What changed in the wording of the help document?

The phrase "only in the United States" was replaced with "across select global markets". The rest of the sentence, including the requirement for a Performance Max store goals campaign bidding on Store Visits, Store Sales, or Local Actions Directions, was left in place.

If you run multiple branches in Thailand and want to know whether your store goals setup is ready for inventory like this when it arrives, Relevant Audience can review the campaign and the location data behind it.