Which Google Channel is Right for Me in 2026?

Your Dream Team at a Glance

*Ready to Buy vs. Reaching New Audiences

When it comes to targeting different audiences, we at Capacity use “the marketing funnel.” At the top of the funnel are folks new to your world. When we say “upper funnel” in this post, it refers to targeting new audiences. “Bottom of funnel” refers to those ready to buy—they’ve been in your orbit for some time, have engaged with your content again and again through various advertising efforts, and are primed for a purchase.

Paid Search

Paid Search is truly the bedrock of Google Ads and is almost always a good bet to have in your Google mix. It is the most user and intent-driven of all the channels, so it’s often the most reliable for achieving strong conversion rates and returns on investments (ROIs). Paid search can also achieve many objectives, from building and maintaining brand visibility in a competitive field to reaching new audiences searching for things to do in their area.

Newest in Paid Search: AI Max. AI Max is a campaign-level opt-in feature that uses Google AI to expand the reach of your search campaigns based on your existing keywords and landing page. You have the option to layer on customized text assets, and another layer lets Google AI expand and customize the final URLs used in your ads. You’ll have insight into the search terms triggered by AI Max, the assets created by AI, and the expanded final URLs, and can remove text assets and add negative keywords and URLs as guide rails. If you’re interested in testing, we’d recommend starting with AI Max alone without text customization and final URL expansion and evaluating performance before testing out the additional layers.

Paid search might be right for your organization now if you want to…

• Appear more frequently and prominently on the SERP (search engine results page), especially if you often compete with third-party ticket sellers.
• Ease the purchase path for users who have seen your ads on other platforms and are ready to take action. Paid search campaigns are an incredibly strong tool in and of themselves, and especially when run in tandem with campaigns on other channels.
• Increase visibility for people looking for more general activities or arts events in your area.
• Increase search impression share over what you can achieve in your Google Grant alone, if it’s consistently low.
• Run a bottom-of-funnel campaign that is likely to result in a high ROI.

You may want to hold off on paid search if…

• …you are seeing seeing little to no competition for your search terms. In that case, a Google Grant account should provide enough coverage. Otherwise, we strongly recommend supplementing Grant efforts with paid search.

Remember

A search ad does not appear unless someone searches for whatever it is you are trying to promote. If you don’t actively build awareness in other channels, a paid search campaign will struggle to serve ads and therefore, drive conversions.

Performance Max

Performance Max (PMax) came on the scene in November of 2021, but has gained greater attention among advertisers more recently—mostly because of Google’s very unsubtle hinting that it really wants us to use it. Regardless of how PMax came to be, it’s a powerful tool that is already seeing promising results among Capacity clients. PMax is goal-based and allows advertisers to access Google Ad’s entire inventory of placements from one campaign facilitated by Google’s AI technology. This includes Search, Google’s Discover Feed, YouTube, Gmail, and the Display network.

Unlike when it launched, Performance Max now gives much more insight into where ads are being served and how they performed on each channel with the channel performance report. Google now also shares which search terms are triggering Search ads, allows for the use of negative keywords as a control, and gives more performance metrics on individual assets.

There is one main trade-off PMax takes in exchange for access to its abundance of placement options and Google AI technology: we have less control over where and to whom our ads are being served. We can still provide audience signals, but they act more as suggestions rather than strict criteria for targeting.

PMax might be right for your organization NOW if you…

• Have a well-defined, conversion-based goal, such as ticket sales.
• Have assets to start your campaign, including images, video, and written copy.
• Don’t mind where and to whom your ads are being served, as long as they drive conversions.
• Are also running a paid search campaign.

You may want to hold off on PMax if you…

• Don’t have the budget to support a concurrent paid search campaign. PMax was designed by Google to complement search, and we often see that if you’re not running search, your PMax ads will be mostly search anyway (but with lower CTR and less ad control).
• Want to maintain a higher level of control over what types of ad placements within the Google landscape are being prioritized and who is being shown your ad. (e.g. search versus display).

Demand Gen

You may have noticed Google now defaults to Demand Gen campaigns over Discovery campaigns. Are you still wondering what Demand Gen actually brings to the table? Demand Gen is similar to Discovery in that it promotes ads across Google-owned placements (YouTube, Gmail, Display network, and the Discover feed on Android devices), but with the upgrade we gained access to video and image carousel placements, as well as the integration of Google Ads AI technology. 

Demand Gen might be right for your organization now if you want to…

• Generate demand (yep, the name says it all). This tool is more acquisition-focused to reach folks in the consideration phase of the buying journey on Google’s most visual placements.
• Take advantage of Google’s dynamic content creation, Smart Bidding AND you want to retain a greater amount of control over where your ads are appearing and how budget is being allocated.
• Control audience targeting more than is possible in PMax, and also leverage AI-powered Lookalike audiences. 
• Run ads on YouTube, but don’t have video content to start off your campaign (you can always add in videos later on, unlike with PMax and YouTube campaigns).
• Get more bang for your buck: i.e. if Performance Max is not an option for you because you don’t have the budget or search volume to support a concurrent paid search campaign. 
• Be selective in where your ad appears—you can choose exactly what channel and placement you want to appear on: YouTube Shorts, YouTube in-feed, YouTube Home feed, YouTube watch next, YouTube Search, Discover, Gmail, and Google Display Network.

You may want to hold off on Demand Gen if you want…

• To primarily focus your campaigns on driving purchases and are NOT interested in having budget also support acquisition efforts.

Video Campaigns

Videos can be incorporated into all Google campaigns except Search—and PMax and Demand Gen serve ads across YouTube placements. However, there are still some valid reasons to consider running a video campaign on its own (sometimes referred to offhand as a “YouTube campaign”). The most compelling reason to run paid campaigns on YouTube is to reach younger audience members. According to a recent study from Archival, over 57% of Gen Z use YouTube to learn about new brands, products, and experiences, followed by search, TV ads, and TikTok.

The “Video Action” objective now lives within Demand Gen, so the options for Video campaigns are Video Views and Video Reach, both of which are geared towards upper funnel audiences and engagements. 

YouTube might be right for your organization now if you want to…

• Build awareness of your brand, especially among younger audiences, without a specific purchase or conversion-based goal. 

You may want to hold off on YouTube if…

• Your primary goal is to drive conversions, particularly purchases. Your YouTube videos are more likely to achieve this goal within a PMax or Demand Gen campaign. 
• You are trying to share timely messaging with your core audience of brand enthusiasts.

Display

Although Display was an old standby for many years, we recommend you consider retiring this channel if you haven’t already done so. 

If you do want to continue to use Display, the current best practice would be to run it through Demand Gen, to take advantage of a more sophisticated campaign type that Google is more focused on investing in.

For a more powerful-top-of-funnel alternative: we highly recommend considering expanded programmatic advertising.

Expand Your Google Dream Team with CAPACITY’s Google Gurus

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