Google is testing a Performance Max control that lets advertisers exclude third-party Search Partners inventory and the Google Display Network from a PMax campaign. Digiday reported on 24 July 2026 that the option shows up as two checkboxes in the Performance Max console, switched on by default, and now selectable so a buyer can switch them off. Access is limited to select advertisers, Google has not promoted the feature publicly, and some buyers found it added to their dashboards with no notification.

Worth being precise about the status: this is a limited test that media buyers spotted, not a general release. There is no announced rollout date, no first-party post promoting it, and no confirmation of which accounts have it.

What the two checkboxes do

Performance Max buys across Google's inventory from a single campaign. Two slices of that inventory have taken most of the criticism since PMax replaced Smart Shopping in 2022: Search Partners, the third-party sites that carry Google search results, and the Display Network. Neither could be turned off from inside a PMax campaign. The test makes both of them optional, with the default left switched on.

Buyers quoted by Digiday described the two networks as "sources of remnant inventory that Google's forced advertisers to opt into." That is the complaint compressed into one sentence. Budget went to those placements whether the advertiser wanted them or not, and what came back in reporting was thin.

It follows earlier PMax concessions

The checkboxes sit in a sequence of controls Google has added to Performance Max under pressure from advertisers. Earlier ones include channel performance reporting, campaign-level negative keywords, and first-party audience exclusions. Each of those made PMax a little easier to inspect or steer.

An inventory-level opt-out is a different kind of concession. Reporting tells you where the money went after the fact. An exclusion decides where it goes in the first place. If the test becomes generally available, it changes what a PMax campaign actually is: less of a single opaque buy, more of a channel mix an advertiser can shape.

How to test it if the checkboxes appear

Nobody should assume the boxes are in an account until they have looked. If they are there, the experiment is straightforward. Leave the campaign as it runs today, record a stable baseline, then switch both off and compare cost per conversion and conversion volume over a comparable window.

Expect impression volume to drop. That is the point of the exclusion, so judge the test on cost per result rather than on reach.
Give the campaign long enough to re-learn. Removing inventory changes what smart bidding is optimising against.
Re-run the PMax versus Standard Shopping comparison afterwards. A lot of those comparisons were unfair because PMax was carrying Display and Search Partner spend the Shopping campaign never touched.
Keep the same conversion action and attribution setup on both sides, or the read is meaningless.

The same logic applies to Google Ads accounts that run PMax alongside a Search campaign. If PMax stops buying Display, the overlap question between the two campaign types gets easier to answer.

Reporting has to keep up

An opt-out is only useful if the measurement around it is trustworthy. Before turning off two networks and reading the result, confirm that conversions are counted once, that the conversion action is the one the business cares about, and that the analytics setup is not double-counting across campaigns. A clean GA4 and conversion tracking setup is the difference between a decision and a guess.

What this means for Thai marketers

Thai accounts tend to run PMax on smaller monthly budgets than the US and European accounts these features are usually discussed around. On a small budget, the share lost to low-intent Display placements and Search Partner clicks is proportionally larger, because there is less spend left over to absorb it. A budget that spreads across everything Google can reach buys very little of anything.

So if the checkboxes turn up in a Thai account, they are worth testing on efficiency grounds alone. Nobody has said the test is available here, and it should not be assumed. What can be done today is preparation: know what share of PMax spend currently sits in Display and Search Partners using the channel performance report, and decide in advance what a good result would look like. For ecommerce accounts with a large product feed, that number is usually the first thing worth checking.

Common questions

Can every advertiser use this now?

No. Digiday describes access as limited to select advertisers, and Google has not made a public announcement. Treat it as a test.

Are the exclusions on or off by default?

Both networks stay switched on by default. The change is that the boxes can now be unticked by advertisers who have them.

Should PMax budgets move back to Standard Shopping?

Not on the strength of a test. But the reason many advertisers wanted to move budget back was inventory they could not control, and that argument weakens if the exclusion becomes standard.

Will excluding Display hurt performance?

Unknown, and it will vary by account. Display and Search Partners do produce conversions in some accounts. The value of an opt-out is that it turns an assumption into something testable.

What to do next

Check whether the two checkboxes exist in your Performance Max campaigns. If they do, plan a test rather than switching them off on impulse. If they do not, pull the channel performance report anyway and find out how much of the budget is going somewhere you never chose.

If you want a second read on how your Performance Max budget is being spent before making that call, Relevant Audience can audit the account and tell you what the channel split actually looks like.