Smart bidding needs
strong creative.

A sophisticated strategy.
A thin creative toolkit.

The team is debating a new ROAS target. Someone wants to change the campaign mix. Someone else is looking for the bidding strategy that will unlock the next stage of growth.

Meanwhile, the asset group is still running with a limited set of images, a few near-identical headlines and messaging that has not changed since launch.

We see a practical question worth asking earlier: does the campaign have enough useful creative to express the offer in the situations it is trying to reach?

Ad Strength deserves a place in that conversation. It provides feedback that can bring missing creative inputs back into focus. The commercial task is to turn that feedback into better messages and test their effect on the business.

Read Ad Strength as a diagnostic.

For responsive search ads, Google uses Ad Strength to assess the mix of text assets and suggest improvements. In PMax, the diagnostic looks at the breadth and depth of an asset group: the available formats and the variety within them.

It is a useful prompt to ask whether you have left creative opportunities unexplored. It is not a complete assessment of how people experience the ad. A full asset library can still communicate a weak offer, repeat the same idea or lead to an unconvincing landing page.

For PMax, also remember that audience signals guide learning rather than define a fixed audience. Build coherent asset groups around a clear proposition or theme, then examine actual delivery and response. A rating cannot confirm that a message fits every person reached.

Build variety that means something.

In Search, think about the different reasons someone might choose your business. In PMax, add the different visual and video environments in which that message may appear. A product-led image, a short demonstration and a clear value proposition each give you something different to learn from.

Our starting point would be:

• Different reasons to act: product benefits, customer needs, differentiators, credible proof and a clear next step.
• Suitable formats: images and videos that work in their intended orientations, with legible messaging and appropriate framing.
• A coherent promise: assets that make sense together and match the destination page, product availability and current offer.
• Room to learn: a steady flow of new angles and replacements, guided by evidence rather than cosmetic rewrites.

Five headlines repeating “shop our range” with slightly different wording give the system less meaningful choice than five distinct, relevant reasons to consider the brand.

Aim for Excellent where it fits the strategy and brand requirements. Treat the recommendations as a production brief, while checking that every addition earns its place. Mandatory wording and creative approvals remain part of the brief.

Creative belongs in the efficiency conversation.

Relevance can have real commercial implications. For Search, Google explains that higher auction-time ad quality can support stronger positions and lower CPCs. That quality assessment includes factors beyond creative, such as the landing-page experience.

That does not establish a direct chain from an Excellent Ad Strength rating to cheaper clicks or better ROAS. Across PMax's different inventory, the same cost mechanism should not be assumed for every placement.

Our working hypothesis is more practical: better creative can improve the chance that the right person understands the offer and takes a valuable action. Test that hypothesis against conversion rate, qualified leads, conversion value, CPA and ROAS. Use CPC as context, rather than the sole measure of creative success.

A higher CPC can still be worthwhile if the additional traffic converts more profitably. Equally, an improved rating with no improvement in customer response calls for further investigation.

Limited production capacity? Use AI with a clear brief.

Google offers tools to generate assets, and some campaign settings can create or adapt assets automatically. Those are different choices: generating a draft you review is different from allowing ongoing automated changes.

Text customization, for example, can generate additional PMax headlines and descriptions using your site and existing assets. Image and video tools have their own workflows and settings. Review what is enabled in the account rather than treating all automation as one switch.

Keep a clear distinction between having enough assets to launch and having the variety to support your intended strategy. AI can help production capacity; the proposition, boundaries and evaluation still need human ownership.

Give creative a regular seat at the table.

Review Ad Strength alongside delivery and performance. Identify missing formats, repetitive messages or outdated offers. Translate those findings into a short creative backlog, with an owner and a reason for each new variant.

Where volume and tooling allow, use an experiment to compare creative approaches. Otherwise, make changes deliberately and interpret the results in context: bids, budgets, promotions, audiences and demand may have changed too.

Strong bidding, useful signals and relevant creative work together. Give the creative inputs the same strategic attention as the settings, and let business outcomes tell you whether the change was worthwhile.