| name | pmax-asset-automation |
| description | Audit and fix Performance Max campaign asset automation settings. Opts out of Google's auto-generated headlines, descriptions, videos, and image enhancements that often produce off-brand or hallucinated output. Auto-invoke when user says "audit PMAX asset automation", "check auto-created assets", "fix PMAX automatic assets", or "are PMAX campaigns opted out". |
PMax Asset Automation
Purpose: Audit and fix Performance Max campaign settings for Google's automatically created assets.
Type: Settings compliance + optional mutation skill
Why This Exists
Performance Max campaigns ship with five asset automation settings turned ON by default. Google will:
- Generate new text assets (headlines, descriptions) it thinks will perform well
- Expand your final URLs to pages you did not select
- Enhance your YouTube videos (trim, remix, generate new ones)
- Auto-crop images to new aspect ratios
- Extract images from your landing pages into new assets
The upside: Google fills gaps in your asset library automatically. The downside: the generated assets frequently drift off-brand, contradict verified business claims, or pull images from pages the advertiser would never have chosen. There is no per-asset approval — Google just serves what it generated.
For most serious advertisers, the right default is all five settings OPTED_OUT and manual asset management. This skill codifies that standard and gives you a workflow to audit + enforce it across accounts.
Settings Checked
| Setting | What Google Does When ON | Preferred |
|---|
TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION | Generates new headlines and descriptions it predicts will perform | OPTED_OUT |
FINAL_URL_EXPANSION_TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION | Expands final URLs to any page on the domain and generates matching ad copy | OPTED_OUT |
GENERATE_ENHANCED_YOUTUBE_VIDEOS | Edits, trims, or remixes your YouTube videos automatically | OPTED_OUT |
GENERATE_IMAGE_ENHANCEMENT | Auto-crops images to produce new aspect ratios | OPTED_OUT |
GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION | Extracts images from your landing pages into new ad assets | OPTED_OUT |
How to Check in the Google Ads UI
For a single campaign:
- Open the campaign → Settings
- Expand Asset automation
- Verify each of the five toggles is OFF
- Save
For a portfolio-wide view, the UI forces you to click into each campaign one at a time. That is why the API-based audit below exists — it scales to dozens or hundreds of campaigns.
How to Audit via the API
This skill assumes you have working Google Ads API access. See the google-ads-api-setup skill if you do not.
Quick Start — Use the Included Script
A working implementation ships with this skill at scripts/audit_pmax_asset_automation.py. Usage:
python scripts/audit_pmax_asset_automation.py --cid 1234567890
python scripts/audit_pmax_asset_automation.py --cids "1234567890,2345678901"
python scripts/audit_pmax_asset_automation.py --all
Output is a per-account breakdown showing each PMax campaign's asset automation settings with compliance status (all should be OPTED_OUT for full compliance). Uses google-ads.yaml at the project root for credentials.
What the Query Looks Like
The audit query pulls asset automation settings for every active PMax campaign and reports which ones are not at the preferred standard. A typical implementation:
from google.ads.googleads.client import GoogleAdsClient
query = """
SELECT
campaign.id,
campaign.name,
campaign.advertising_channel_type,
campaign.asset_automation_settings
FROM campaign
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'PERFORMANCE_MAX'
AND campaign.status = 'ENABLED'
"""
For each campaign, iterate through asset_automation_settings and flag any setting where asset_automation_status != 'OPTED_OUT' for the five types listed above.
Output a per-campaign report: campaign name, CID, which settings are ON, and recommended action.
How to Fix via the API (Mutation)
Once the audit surfaces non-compliant campaigns, fixing them is a mutation. That means it goes through mutation-safety. No exceptions.
The typical flow:
- Dry run — Show which campaigns will be modified and which specific settings will be set to
OPTED_OUT
- User approves — Explicit confirmation required
- Execute — Apply the mutation using
CampaignService.mutate_campaigns with an update operation on asset_automation_settings
Do not batch this across accounts without a per-account dry run. PMax settings affect serving behavior — a bad mutation at portfolio scale is painful to clean up.
When to Use This Skill
- New account setup — run the audit immediately after creating any PMax campaign
- Portfolio compliance checks — run the audit monthly to catch settings that were changed (by you, by a team member, or by Google's "helpful" defaults reappearing after campaign edits)
- Client handoff — audit all PMax campaigns before taking over a new account
- Post-mutation verification — re-run the audit 24 hours after applying fixes to confirm the settings stuck
Edge Cases and Caveats
- Some industries genuinely benefit from text asset automation. High-volume ecommerce accounts with weak creative teams sometimes see better performance with
TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION ON. Audit first, opt out as default, leave it on only when you have data proving it helps.
- Image extraction from URLs is the riskiest setting. Google will pull images from any page on the landing domain — including pages the advertiser may not want represented in ads. Opt out of this one even if you are OK with other automations.
- Final URL expansion is independently controversial. Some advertisers deliberately use it to widen PMax reach. If you want URL expansion, opt out of
TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION only and leave FINAL_URL_EXPANSION_TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION ON — but be prepared to review the expanded URL set regularly.
- The settings reset silently. Google has been observed flipping automations back on after certain campaign edits. That is why periodic auditing matters — set it and forget it does not work here.
Related Skills
Installation
mkdir -p .claude/skills/pmax-asset-automation
curl -o .claude/skills/pmax-asset-automation/SKILL.md \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fourteenwm/ppc-ai-skills/main/pmax-asset-automation/SKILL.md
No other setup required. The skill loads automatically when Claude Code sees any PMax-related audit, fix, or compliance task.
