Google Ads quietly unlocks Merchant Center videos for Performance Max

Google is rolling out a new Performance Max beta that lets advertisers pull video assets directly from Merchant Center — a small tweak with big implications for retail and e-commerce.

How it works. Google Ads will now:

• Auto-surface product-associated videos from Merchant Center during PMax setup
• Shorten creative workflows for retailers and e-commerce teams
• Improve product-to-creative alignment, increasing ad relevance
• Boost performance, especially for large SKU catalogs

Why we care. This update removes a friction point in PMax: getting high-quality, product-relevant video into campaigns. By auto-pulling videos from Merchant Center, Google is tightening the link between inventory and creative, which typically translates to higher relevance, stronger engagement, and better performance.

For brands with large SKU counts, this dramatically speeds up workflow and ensures video coverage at scale — something that was previously difficult and resource-heavy to achieve.

The big picture. Google has been rapidly expanding PMax’s creative pipeline — from social video imports to this new Merchant Center integration — signaling a broader push to make PMax more plug-and-play for commerce-heavy advertisers.

First seen. This update was first spotted by senior performance marketing executive, Rakshit Shetty who shared his view of the option on LinkedIn.

The bottom line. A subtle update, but a meaningful win for brands running eCommerce at scale.

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