If you regularly manage Google Ads campaigns for your business in Dubai, you know that planning and forecasting are crucial for success. For years, the Google Ads Performance Planner has been a go-to tool for advertisers looking to predict how budget changes might affect their campaign outcomes. However, a significant change has just rolled out, and it’s time to adjust your planning process. Google has removed Display and Video campaigns from the Performance Planner, signaling a major strategic shift that every advertiser needs to understand.
This isn’t just a minor tweak to the user interface. It represents a fundamental change in how Google wants you to think about different campaign types. The platform is drawing a clearer line between campaigns designed for direct conversions and those built for brand awareness. For businesses in the competitive UAE market, adapting to this change quickly is important for maintaining an effective and predictable advertising strategy. Let’s break down what’s happening, why it matters, and how you can adjust your workflow moving forward.
What Exactly is Changing with the Google Ads Performance Planner?
First, let’s clarify what the Google Ads Performance Planner does. It’s a forecasting tool that helps you create plans for your advertising spend. You can see how changes to bids and budgets for your campaigns could impact key metrics like clicks, conversions, and cost. It helps answer critical questions like, “If I increase my budget by 20%, what additional conversions can I expect?” or “What is the optimal budget to maximize my return on ad spend (ROAS)?”
The core change is simple but impactful: the Performance Planner no longer supports planning for Google Display Network (GDN) campaigns or Video campaigns (like those on YouTube). Previously, you could include these campaign types in your overall plan to get a holistic forecast. Now, when you open the tool, you will only be able to add and forecast for Search, Shopping, Performance Max, App, and Local campaigns. Essentially, any campaign type that is not directly and primarily measured by conversions has been removed.
This update, as reported by industry experts, means the Google Ads Performance Planner has become a purely conversion-focused forecasting instrument. It’s no longer an all-in-one planning solution for your entire Google Ads account if you run a full-funnel strategy that includes awareness-building activities. This might seem like a step back, but it’s part of a larger trend within Google’s ecosystem that pushes advertisers toward specific goals for specific campaign types.
Why Did Google Make This Shift? The Push Towards Conversions
Google’s decision wasn’t made in a vacuum. It reflects a deliberate strategy to refine how its tools are used and to encourage advertisers to think more critically about their campaign objectives. The main reason for this change is the separation of impression-based planning from conversion-based planning.
Display and Video campaigns are often used for top-of-funnel marketing goals. Their primary purpose is to build brand awareness, increase reach, and introduce your business to a wide audience. Success for these campaigns is frequently measured in terms of impressions (how many times your ad was shown), views, and reach (how many unique people saw your ad). While they can and do drive conversions, their main value is often in starting the customer conversation, not closing the sale.
On the other hand, Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns are typically bottom-of-funnel activities. Their success is almost always measured by direct actions: clicks that lead to website visits, lead form submissions, online sales, or phone calls. The Google Ads Performance Planner uses historical conversion data and machine learning to make its predictions. Because the connection between spend and conversions is so direct for these campaign types, the tool can provide relatively accurate forecasts. For Display and Video, the path to conversion is often longer and less direct, making conversion forecasting far more complex and less reliable. By removing them, Google is making the Performance Planner a more precise tool for what it does best: forecasting direct-response outcomes.
How This Impacts Your Dubai & UAE Marketing Strategy
So, what does this mean for you, the advertiser trying to plan a comprehensive budget for your campaigns targeting the Dubai and wider UAE market? The immediate consequence is that your planning process just got a bit more fragmented. You can no longer create a single plan in one tool that covers all your Google Ads activities.
The biggest challenge is answering the question: “How do I forecast for my Display and Video campaigns now?” The answer lies in using another one of Google’s tools: the Reach Planner. Google is now steering advertisers to use two separate tools for two distinct purposes:
- Google Ads Performance Planner: For planning and forecasting your conversion-driven campaigns (Search, Shopping, PMax). Use this to optimize for clicks, conversions, and conversion value.
- Reach Planner: For planning your brand awareness campaigns (primarily YouTube/Video). Use this to forecast reach, frequency, impressions, and demographic Clicks for your video ads based on your budget.
This creates a new workflow. Instead of one holistic plan, you now need to create at least two separate ones and then manually combine the results to get a full picture of your expected media spend and outcomes. For marketers in Dubai who need to present a unified budget and strategy to management, this adds an extra administrative step. You’ll have to pull data from the Performance Planner for your conversion campaigns and from the Reach Planner for your video campaigns, then present them together. What about standard Display campaigns? The Reach Planner is video-centric, leaving a gap for planning traditional banner ad campaigns on the GDN. For these, you’ll need to rely more heavily on historical performance data and manual forecasting.
A New Approach to Planning Your Google Ads Budget
Adapting to this change doesn’t have to be difficult. It just requires a more structured approach to your planning. Here is a practical, step-by-step guide to navigating the new landscape of planning within Google Ads.
1. Clearly Define Your Campaign Objectives
Before you open any tool, segment your campaigns based on their primary goal. Which campaigns are designed to drive immediate sales or leads? These are your bottom-funnel, conversion-focused campaigns. Which campaigns are meant to build brand recognition and reach a new audience? These are your top-funnel, awareness-focused campaigns. This separation is now more important than ever.
2. Use the Right Tool for the Right Job
Once your campaigns are segmented, use the appropriate Google planner for each group.
- For your Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns, continue using the Google Ads Performance Planner. Feed it your conversion goals, and let it help you find the sweet spot for your budget to maximize leads or sales.
- For your YouTube and Video campaigns, switch to the Reach Planner. Use it to understand how much budget you need to achieve specific reach and frequency goals within your target audience in the UAE.
3. Manually Forecast for Display Campaigns
Since there is no dedicated forecasting tool for standard Display campaigns anymore, you have to take a more manual approach. Look at your historical data. What was your average Cost Per Mille (CPM) or Cost Per Click (CPC) over the last 3-6 months? Use these benchmarks to create your own simple forecasts. For example, if you want to achieve 1 million impressions and your historical CPM is AED 15, you can budget approximately AED 15,000 for your Display activity.
4. Consolidate Your Plans Manually
This is the final and most critical step. Create a simple spreadsheet to bring all your plans together. You will have a budget and forecast from the Performance Planner (e.g., total cost, expected conversions), a budget and forecast from the Reach Planner (e.g., total cost, expected reach and impressions), and your manual forecast for Display. Summing these up will give you a complete picture of your total planned Google Ads spend and the different outcomes you can expect across the marketing funnel.
While this change adds a few steps to the process, it also encourages a more disciplined and strategic approach. It forces you to be very clear about the purpose of each dirham you spend. The latest update to the Google Ads Performance Planner is a clear sign that Google wants advertisers to treat awareness and conversion as separate, specialized objectives with their own dedicated planning tools. By adapting your strategy and using the right tool for each job, you can continue to plan effectively and drive powerful results for your business in Dubai’s competitive market. If you find these changes confusing or time-consuming, our team of seasoned Google Ads specialists can help you develop a cohesive and results-driven advertising plan. Contact us today to learn more.
Source: Search Engine Land