As we announced in January, existing and future Smart Shopping campaigns (SSC) will automatically upgrade to Performance Max campaigns between July and September 2022.
As mentioned in the prior blog post, users will be able to self-upgrade in the UI starting April 2022. Developers will be able to self-upgrade in the API before the end of June. We expect the vast majority of accounts managed by the API will opt to wait to self-upgrade once the tool is available in the API in June. However, campaigns may be upgraded manually by advertisers in the UI starting in April. We recommend you implement Performance Max in your application now to ensure support for any new or upgraded Performance Max campaigns.
An upgraded SSC will be marked as REMOVED status (metrics will continue to be available in the legacy campaign for historical purposes). There will also be a mapping from the previous campaign ID to the new Performance Max campaign ID. Budgets, assets, and settings of the existing SSC are preserved.
The prior blog post had April / May 2022 as the estimated availability date for the API's new self-upgrade recommendation type. This will be available before the end of June. There will still be a six week period between availability of the new recommendation type in the API and the start of auto-upgrades.
Note that once a campaign has been upgraded, either by the UI or API, there is no means to revert the upgrade. Metrics will continue to be available in the legacy campaign for historical purposes.
Additional information
If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum.
David Wihl, Google Ads API Team