Google is testing a setting called Partners (Alpha) in Performance Max that lets an advertiser opt in or out of Search Partners and the Google Display Network. Both networks are currently bundled into PMax automatically, with no exclusion option at all. The test is in alpha and only a limited number of advertisers can see it. Google has not announced a broader rollout or a timeline, so there is nothing to switch on in your account today, and no guarantee the setting ever ships.
The control was spotted by PPC Growth Strategist Saquib Syed, who shared it on LinkedIn. Search Engine Land covered it on 15 July 2026.
What the Partners setting does
Two toggles, as reported: keep or drop Search Partners, keep or drop the Google Display Network. That is the whole feature. It sounds minor until you remember Performance Max has never given advertisers that choice.
When a PMax campaign spends money, the money moves across Google's inventory on Google's terms. You get channel reporting of a sort. You do not get a switch. If Display is absorbing budget and returning weak conversions, every workaround available today is indirect: brand exclusions, account-level placement exclusions, tighter audience signals, feed-only asset groups, or moving budget back into standard Search and Shopping campaigns. Each of those nudges the mix. None of them turns a network off.
Why an off switch is worth more than it looks
The value here is not the exclusion. It is the test.
Without an off switch you cannot isolate what Search Partners or Display actually contribute to a PMax result. You can read the channel split and build a theory, but you cannot run the campaign with the network, run it again without, hold the budget and the feed and the signals steady, and compare CPA and ROAS. A Partners setting would turn that into something testable rather than something to argue about. That is why advertisers have asked for it for years, and why a screenshot of one alpha toggle is worth a paragraph at all.
Alpha means alpha
Worth being blunt about the status, because a LinkedIn screenshot travels faster than the caveats attached to it.
This is an alpha, visible in a limited number of accounts. Google has not published eligibility criteria, a request process, a rollout plan, or a date. Alpha features get pulled. Some get reworked before general availability and some never arrive at all. Read this as a signal about where Google might be willing to hand control back, not as a change to plan around.
What it would mean for advertisers in Thailand
Thailand is not named in this test and no country or account list has been published, so nobody outside the alpha knows who has it. The relevance is about the shape of an account rather than where it sits.
The accounts that would gain most are the ones where PMax carries a large share of spend and the conversion signal is soft. Catalogue businesses where reported cost per conversion looks tolerable but revenue never quite follows. Lead accounts where cheap Display-sourced form fills sit in the same column as expensive Search-sourced ones and get averaged together until nothing is visible. In those accounts the question "how much of this is Display?" cannot be answered by experiment. A toggle would make it answerable.
That matters for anyone running e-commerce marketing where PMax is doing most of the acquisition work, and for any Google Ads account where PMax was switched on for reach and has been running on trust ever since.
What to do now
Nothing structural. Specifically:
- Do not restructure campaigns in anticipation of a feature that may not exist.
- Keep the channel and placement reporting you already have clean, so that if the toggle does arrive you have a pre-period to compare against.
- Keep account-level placement exclusions and brand exclusion lists current. They are still the only levers on the table.
- Check that conversion values are accurate before blaming a network. Excluding Display cannot fix a measurement problem.
Questions this raises
Can I ask Google for access?
No process has been announced. The setting was seen in a limited alpha, and Google has not said how accounts are selected.
Does it cover YouTube, Gmail or Discover?
Nothing has been reported. As described, the setting applies to Search Partners and the Google Display Network only.
Should I assume it is coming?
No. There is no announced rollout and no timeline, and alpha tests do not always ship.
The short version
If your Performance Max spend is big enough that this alpha caught your eye, the useful work is the part you can do without it: fix the conversion signal, tighten the audience inputs, and know what the campaign is buying. Relevant Audience runs Google Ads campaigns for brands in Thailand, and getting an account to the point where a network toggle would actually tell you something is worth doing whether or not this one ships. See how the Google Ads service is built.
