Retailers need a separate Performance Max campaign for Google's new local shopper setting

Retailers who run Performance Max off a Merchant Center product feed can't switch on Google's new Local Customer Optimization inside those campaigns. Search Engine Journal reports that the setting, a campaign-level option Google is adding to Performance Max campaigns built around store goals, is not compatible with online campaign goals or with campaigns advertising products from a linked Merchant Center account. To use it, a retailer needs a separate Performance Max campaign aimed only at offline goals.

That restriction is the detail to read before the announcement itself. Google is shipping two things at once, according to Search Engine Journal: the Local Customer Optimization setting, which Google says is rolling out globally soon, and Store Sales inside Google Ads Data Manager, expected to begin rolling out at the end of September. Search Engine Land also reported the addition of Local customer optimization to Performance Max.

Both arrive as retailers head into the fourth-quarter holiday season, when the link between online research and in-store buying tightens, Search Engine Journal noted. The person on the hook is the retail marketing lead who owns the Performance Max budget and has to decide, this month, whether to carve out a second campaign just for store traffic.

A setting that bids toward the shopper already in the car

With Local Customer Optimization switched on, Performance Max gives priority to people near a business location, or showing interest in one, whose behavior suggests they intend to act right away. Google defines that action as visiting the store, requesting directions or calling the location, per Search Engine Journal. Google Maps, Waze and the local formats on Google Search supply the signals, drawn from people who are navigating, mapping out a trip or looking up a location.

In plain terms, it's a bid toward the shopper who is already moving. Advertisers can enable it when creating a Performance Max campaign focused only on offline goals, or turn it on inside the budget and bidding optimization settings of an existing eligible campaign, Search Engine Journal reports.

Search Engine Journal's assessment is that Performance Max store goals campaigns now have a more specific use case for the kind of business that values walk-in traffic today over wider online demand. For a business whose revenue is mostly walk-in and phone-driven, with no product feed to protect, this is close to a checkbox. For a retailer whose Performance Max is feed-driven end to end, it's a structural decision.

Feed-based campaigns get a second campaign, and a second budget

The Merchant Center exclusion is where the operational work lives. Search Engine Journal, reading Google's support documentation, says a retailer running feed-based Performance Max cannot just flip the setting on inside those campaigns. Instead, it would have to stand up a separate Performance Max campaign, one that is eligible and built around store goals.

Two campaigns means two budgets. Neither Search Engine Journal nor Search Engine Land describes how Google expects advertisers to split spend between a feed-based campaign and a store-goals campaign, or how the two would avoid competing for the same nearby shopper. That is a fair question to put to a Google account team before Q4 budgets lock, because the premise is established: the setting only lives in a campaign the feed-based retailer doesn't yet have.

It also changes what a retail marketing lead should ask internally. If store visits and calls are the goal for a set of locations, is there a Performance Max campaign in the account today with only offline goals? If the answer is no, the new setting has nowhere to go until someone builds one.

Store Sales moves into Data Manager

The second update targets the plumbing rather than the bidding. Search Engine Journal reports that Store Sales in Google Ads Data Manager will let eligible advertisers hook up the sales data they already hold, whether it sits in a CRM or in Google Sheets, without leaving the Google Ads account. Store Sales measurement matches purchases made at physical locations to prior ad interactions.

Once connected, that data does two jobs. Advertisers can use it for reporting, and they can feed it into Smart Bidding, either optimizing toward store sales or counting offline revenue alongside online conversions, according to Search Engine Journal.

Google already offers several routes for getting first-party store sales data in: approved store sales partners, the Google Ads API, Data Manager, and uploads done manually or on a schedule. Its guidance is to upload regularly so reporting stays current. Search Engine Journal reports that the new Data Manager integration aims to strip out some of the technical work involved in keeping that connection running.

Search Engine Journal's read is that of the two changes, Store Sales may matter more for advertisers who have found it technically hard to get offline transaction data back into Google Ads. If the connection between the register and the ad account has been living in a spreadsheet upload someone remembers to do on Fridays, this is the update aimed at that.

Eligibility tiers and the 30-day data window

Access isn't universal. Google limits some Store Sales capabilities to eligible or allowlisted advertisers, and eligibility determines what an advertiser gets, according to Search Engine Journal: a count of store sales, values assigned from defaults, or dynamic values calculated from the transaction data that was uploaded. The sources don't say who decides eligibility or how long allowlisting takes; Search Engine Journal points to Google's Store Sales availability and eligibility documentation for accounts trying to find out where they stand.

The data requirements are specific. Customer information such as email addresses, phone numbers or addresses must be hashed before use, and Google Ads can hash unhashed customer data using SHA-256 during upload. Google recommends uploading transaction data daily or weekly. Dynamic conversion value reporting requires transactions from the previous 30 days, with data from the previous 14 days recommended, Search Engine Journal reports.

Those windows put a clock on the CRM. It follows from the requirements that a retailer whose point-of-sale doesn't capture an email or phone number at checkout has nothing to hash, and one whose CRM syncs monthly falls outside the 30-day requirement for dynamic values. The Data Manager connection removes upload friction; it doesn't manufacture the identifiers.

That is the point where this stops being a media-buying story and becomes a data-operations one. The 14-day recommendation is a useful benchmark for any retail or marketing operations team measuring how fresh its offline sales data is by the time it reaches an ad platform. If the honest answer is 'whenever finance closes the month,' the gap is now quantified.

What the end-of-September rollout settles

Two dates matter. Google says Local Customer Optimization is rolling out globally soon, and the Data Manager version of Store Sales should start its rollout as September closes, per Search Engine Journal. Search Engine Land's coverage confirms the Performance Max addition but the supplied reporting adds no further timing.

For the team that owns retail media spend, the first check is whether the account qualifies for Store Sales at all, and at which tier, using Google's eligibility documentation. The second is whether the Performance Max structure includes a store-goals campaign to hang the new setting on. A retailer with feed-based campaigns and a monthly CRM sync has two builds ahead of it before the holiday traffic arrives; a service business with clean daily CRM data has a checkbox and a Data Manager connection.

The end-of-September date is the next thing to watch, along with how quickly allowlisted access widens once Store Sales in Data Manager is live.