AI Max for Shopping and Performance Max (its predecessor) served Display Network placements as part of their cross-channel coverage. When Performance Max was the dominant campaign type, many advertisers abandoned standalone Display campaigns entirely. With the transition to AI Max, the question of whether to run dedicated Display campaigns resurfaces.
What AI Max Does With Display Placements
AI Max for Shopping includes Display placements as part of its channel mix — the AI can serve display ads to users across the Google Display Network based on Shopping intent signals. These display placements use your uploaded image assets and Shopping product data.
AI Max for Search does not natively include Display placements — it's focused on Search and Search-adjacent placements.
The display coverage within AI Max for Shopping is optimized toward Shopping conversion goals. The AI allocates display impressions when it predicts those impressions will contribute to Shopping purchases.
When Standalone Display Campaigns Still Make Sense
Brand awareness at scale: If your goal is to reach the maximum number of unique users with brand-building ads (not conversion optimization), a standalone Display campaign optimized for reach (CPM bidding, with brand safety controls) gives you more control than AI Max's conversion-focused display allocation.
Retargeting specific audience segments: AI Max uses remarketing lists as signals, not as hard audience constraints. If you want to guarantee that only past cart abandoners see a specific set of creatives with a specific offer, a standalone Display campaign with audience targeting allows this. AI Max may not show those specific creatives to that exact audience — it mixes assets and audiences according to conversion prediction.
Category exclusions: Display campaigns allow granular category and placement exclusions (e.g., exclude sensitive content categories, specific competitor placements, parked domains). AI Max's audience exclusions exist but are less granular for placement-level control.
Creative testing control: If you need to A/B test specific Display creative variations with clean measurement, standalone Display campaigns with experiment structure give you tighter test control than AI Max's asset mixing.
The June 2026 Deletion and Display Performance History
The June 2026 data deletion (https://yositeup.com/blog/google-ads-reporting-data-deleted-june-2026) affected Google Ads reporting data including Display campaign performance history. For advertisers using Placement reports or Audience Insights from Display campaigns for planning:
- Historical placement performance data for the deletion period is unavailable
- Placement exclusion lists based on pre-deletion "bad placement" data should be reviewed — some placements that looked poor may have been statistical noise in a thin data period
- Audience performance data for Display campaigns covering the deletion period is incomplete
If you're rebuilding Display campaigns post-deletion: start fresh with broad audience targeting and let Google's Display auction data accumulate for 4 weeks before applying placement exclusions based on new data.
Display Campaign Targeting Options vs AI Max
Standalone Display campaigns offer targeting options not fully available in AI Max:
- Specific placement targeting: Choose exactly which websites or apps to appear on
- Topic targeting: Target pages covering specific topics (cooking, home improvement, etc.)
- Keyword contextual targeting: Serve ads on pages containing specific keywords (contextual, not audience-based)
- Demographic targeting with bid modifiers: Explicit age/gender bid modifiers, separate from AI's automated demographic signals
AI Max's display coverage is audience-signal-driven and conversion-optimized, not placement-selection-driven. If your Display strategy requires specific placement control, standalone Display campaigns retain relevance.
Integration Approach: AI Max + Display
For most advertisers, a combination works best:
AI Max for Shopping: Handles conversion-optimized Display placements for Shopping goals. Let the AI manage these.
Standalone Display — Prospecting: Broad reach campaigns for new audience development, separate from AI Max. Use Customer Match exclusions to avoid showing to existing customers (who should see AI Max remarketing).
Standalone Display — Remarketing: For advertisers who want specific creative sequences or offer-based remarketing that AI Max's asset mixing doesn't support.
YouTube Campaigns (separate): YouTube video campaigns handle video placements with creative control — AI Max's video coverage is less controllable.
Under the July 2026 ToS (https://yositeup.com/blog/google-ads-tos-july-2026-ai-automation-what-changed), standalone Display campaigns operate under the standard Display advertising terms, not the AI Max-specific ToS provisions. This is relevant for advertisers who need specific compliance documentation for their ad types.
DSA to AI Max and Display Coverage
When migrating DSA campaigns to AI Max for Search (https://yositeup.com/blog/google-ads-dsa-ai-max-migration-february-2027), note that DSA was a Search-only campaign type. Display coverage from DSA is not something that transfers to AI Max for Search (which is also Search-focused). If your pre-DSA account included Display campaigns that were paused when PMax was launched, those may be worth reactivating as standalone Display campaigns now that the account structure is shifting back toward campaign-type specialization.
For AI Max for Shopping (https://yositeup.com/blog/google-ai-max-shopping-replacing-performance-max-2026), the Display component that was part of Performance Max continues in AI Max for Shopping's cross-channel placement model. If you previously suppressed Display in your PMax campaigns, review whether to re-enable it in AI Max for Shopping or handle Display separately.
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