Sync Merchant Center Videos to PMax

The quick answer

Google Ads now automatically uses videos from your Google Merchant Center product feed in Performance Max campaigns. Here is what you need to know:

1. Automated Video Integration: Google now automatically pulls product-specific videos directly from your Merchant Center account into your Performance Max (PMax) asset groups.
2. Eliminates Manual Uploads: You no longer need to manually upload videos as separate creative assets within each PMax campaign. This streamlines the entire setup process.
3. Improves Ad Performance: This change delivers faster campaign creation, stronger product-to-ad relevance, and helps you scale video advertising across large product catalogs.

What Changed with Performance Max Videos

Google quietly rolled out a significant update for e-commerce advertisers using Performance Max. The platform now automatically syncs videos from your Google Merchant Center feed with your PMax campaigns.

This is a major shift from the previous workflow. Before this update, videos were treated differently than other product assets. While PMax automatically pulled product images, titles, and prices from your feed, video was a manual process.

The Old Way: Manual Asset Group Uploads

Previously, adding video to a PMax campaign required several tedious steps. Advertisers had to manually upload each video file directly into the individual asset groups within Google Ads.

This process created friction, especially for brands with large product inventories. It was a time-consuming task that made it difficult to ensure video coverage across all relevant products. Your team had to manage video assets separately from the product data in Merchant Center, creating a disconnected workflow.

The New Way: Direct Merchant Center Sync

The new integration treats videos just like any other product attribute. By adding a video link to your product data in Merchant Center, that video becomes automatically available to your Performance Max campaigns.

Google's AI can then pull the product-specific video and use it to create ads across its network, including YouTube, Display, and Discover. This single change provides three key benefits: faster setup, stronger relevance, and scalable performance.

Benefit 1: Get Faster Campaign Setup

The most immediate advantage of this integration is speed. Removing the manual video upload step is a significant time-saver for marketing teams and agencies.

Instead of sourcing and uploading videos for dozens or hundreds of asset groups, you now manage them from one central location: your Merchant Center feed. This aligns video with the existing workflow for images and text descriptions, creating a more efficient "plug-and-play" experience.

This streamlined process removes a key bottleneck in PMax campaign creation, allowing you to launch and iterate on your advertising efforts much more quickly.

Benefit 2: Achieve Stronger Product Relevance

Relevance is critical for ad performance. When a user sees an ad, the creative should directly match the product being offered. This update dramatically improves product-to-creative alignment for video.

Because videos are uploaded directly against specific SKUs in your Merchant Center feed, you guarantee that the video ad features the correct product. This eliminates the common problem of generic or auto-generated videos that show products unrelated to the ad's landing page.

This tight link between inventory data and creative assets leads to a better user experience, higher ad quality scores, and ultimately, a better return on ad spend. A highly relevant ad drives qualified traffic, but that traffic still needs a place to convert. Ensuring your website is fast and designed to turn visitors into customers is the final piece of the puzzle. An optimized site is crucial for capitalizing on the traffic from your PMax campaigns. For more on this, review how a professional website can be built to convert.

Benefit 3: Enable Scalable Video Performance

For e-commerce brands with large product catalogs, creating unique videos for every SKU is often impossible. The new Merchant Center integration provides a solution for scalable video coverage.

By associating even a single video with multiple related products in your feed, you can expand your video ad presence without a massive production budget. This ensures more of your products are eligible to show as video ads, increasing your reach across valuable placements like YouTube Shorts.

This expanded creative pipeline gives Google's AI more assets to work with, improving its ability to dynamically serve the best-performing ad to the right user. Better assets lead to better ad strength, which supports bidding strategies like "Maximize conversion value" and improves overall campaign ROI. As the original article from Search Engine Land notes, this helps advertisers achieve scalable performance.

How to Use Merchant Center Videos in Your PMax Campaigns

Getting started with this new feature is straightforward. Your goal is to connect your product videos to the right products inside your Merchant Center feed. Follow these steps to prepare your account.

Step 1: Audit Your Existing Product Videos

First, take inventory of your available video assets. You may have more usable content than you think, including videos from social media, product pages, or past campaigns.

Organize these videos and identify which products they feature. A simple spreadsheet can help you map each video file or YouTube link to its corresponding SKUs. Good content is the foundation of any successful campaign, and creating an inventory of all your assets is a key part of effective SEO content strategy.

Step 2: Ensure Videos Meet Google's Specs

To be used effectively in Performance Max, your videos should meet Google's requirements. The system needs assets in multiple orientations to serve ads across all placements.

While Google's AI can resize assets, providing natively shot video is always better. For maximum reach, aim to have at least one video for each of these orientations:

• Horizontal (16:9): Standard for YouTube.
• Vertical (9:16): Critical for YouTube Shorts and mobile placements.
• Square (1:1): Common for in-feed ads on platforms like Gmail and Discover.

Videos should also be at least 10 seconds long to be eligible for most placements. Keeping your videos brief and engaging is key, as attention spans are short across different platforms. This is a core principle of effective social media management that applies directly to PMax video assets.

Step 3: Add Videos to Your Merchant Center Feed

Once your videos are ready, you need to add them to your product data. In your Google Merchant Center product feed, use the `video_link` attribute to associate a video with a product.

You can add a publicly accessible URL, such as a YouTube link, for each product. If a single video applies to multiple product variants (e.g., different colors of the same shoe), you can use the same video link for each variant.

Step 4: Verify the Sync in Your PMax Asset Groups

After you've updated your Merchant Center feed, Google will automatically begin pulling the videos into your associated PMax campaigns. You can check this by navigating to your campaign's asset group.

In the "Videos" section of the asset group, you should see the videos that were pulled from your feed. They will appear alongside any videos you have manually uploaded. This confirms that the integration is working correctly and your new video assets are ready to be served in ads.