With search themes, you provide words and phrases that describe what your customers are likely to search for. This helps Performance Max’s keywordless targeting reach the right audiences faster, especially for niche products, new offerings, or specific customer needs.
You can use search themes to give Google's AI insights and context about your business that may not be immediately apparent from your website content.
Learn more about how to Use search themes with your Performance Max campaign
How search themes interact with search keywords (on other campaigns)
Unlike traditional keywords, which are specific words or phrases, search themes provide a broader signal to Google’s AI. They give the system more context to discover relevant queries it may not otherwise find from your existing campaign assets, or feeds.
Think of search themes as the unique knowledge you have about your business or product that AI can’t easily know from your landing page, creative assets, or feeds.
If your account is running multiple Performance Max and Search campaigns, specific ads are selected to serve based on several factors, including ad relevance and campaign settings. Learn more about keyword and search theme prioritization.
Best practices for using search themes
You can provide your Performance Max campaign with new signals to help Google's AI find more customers for you. Here are some best practices for adding search themes:
- Provide incremental information: Add search themes that offer new signals to the AI. For example if your page covers "custom t-shirts," include "event apparel printing" as a theme if your site doesn’t already feature that niche.
- Avoid duplicates or close variants: Ensure your search themes are distinct and don't overlap with each other or closely related terms.
- Use broad themes: Instead of using specific, long-tail terms like "red running shoes size 10," use a broader term like "running shoes" to ensure your ad appears for a wider variety of related searches.
- Use specific themes for events: For time-sensitive opportunities, use specific themes like "Christmas decorations" or "back to school supplies". This allows the AI to quickly optimize your campaign for seasonal opportunities.
Usage recommendation: Add up to 50 search themes to provide Google's AI with valuable insights that it can't learn from your website alone. This guides the AI to discover new search queries and audiences, which helps expand your campaign's reach and improve performance.
