Google rewrote one Note on its Performance Max for store goals help page on September 4, and turned it into a Waze ads expansion covering Europe. The line above the eligibility list used to read, per Barry Schwartz’s record of the prior text at Search Engine Roundtable: “Waze Ads are currently available only in the United States through Performance Max for store goal campaigns.” It now reads: “Waze Ads are currently available across select global markets through Performance Max for store goals campaigns bidding on Store Visits, Store Sales, or Local Actions Directions.” A 42-country list sits beneath it. Google published no blog post and no changelog entry alongside the edit.
What Changed, and Who Caught It
Barry Schwartz spotted the change and wrote it up on Search Engine Roundtable. The page itself, Google Ads Help answer 12971048, “About Performance Max for store goals,” describes the ad format one sentence above the part that changed: “Performance Max for store goals campaigns include Promoted Places on Waze. This is available when bidding on local actions (directions), either exclusively or alongside store visits or sales.” The page still describes the format as a “branded square pin on a user’s driving route” that reveals “location and directions” when tapped. What moved is the geography: from the United States alone to forty-two countries.
Where Do Waze Ads Run?
Waze ads are available through Performance Max for store goals campaigns in 42 countries, per the Google Ads help page edited on September 4, up from the United States alone. That adds 41 markets, 32 of them European: every one of the 27 EU member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The Americas add six more beyond the US, and Australia, Malaysia and Israel round out the rest.
| Region | Count | Markets |
|---|---|---|
| Europe | 32 | All 27 EU member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom |
| Americas | 7 | United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile |
| Asia-Pacific | 2 | Australia, Malaysia |
| Middle East | 1 | Israel |
Google names none of the following on the list, and gives no reason for the omission: Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, New Zealand, and every country in Africa.
Two Sentences That Disagree
The page contradicts itself on what qualifies a campaign. The sentence describing the ad format requires local actions in the bid, “either exclusively or alongside store visits or sales.” The Note that introduces the country list names campaigns “bidding on Store Visits, Store Sales, or Local Actions Directions,” an “or” that would let a store-visits-only campaign qualify on its own, no directions bid required. Google has not resolved which sentence governs. Both sit on the same page today.
What Google Hasn’t Published
Google publishes no price for Waze inventory, and no minimum spend. The documentation names no opt-out mechanism for advertisers who would rather keep Performance Max off Waze, even as a sibling help page describes the opposite of caution: “No additional setup is required,” and Performance Max will “automatically use your existing assets” to optimize toward Store Visits, Store Sales or Local Actions Directions. Tapping the pin opens business details, not a landing page, so the identity an advertiser still controls sits in the assets and final URLs fed to the campaign. Apple opened Maps ad buying the same way, without publishing a price.
Reporting Lives Inside Maps, Not Waze
Waze performance is not invisible, but it has no channel of its own. Google’s Performance Max channels documentation lists Search, Maps, YouTube, Discover, Gmail and the Google Display Network, and states plainly: “The Maps channel includes ads that run on Google Maps and Waze.” A channel performance report can show the Maps line growing, and Google documents no way to isolate how much of it is Waze.
Two Google Pages Disagree Today
A second Google Ads help page, “Access new inventory and channel performance reporting in Performance Max campaigns,” dated November 6, 2025, is still live and still narrower. It says: “For U.S. advertisers using PMax for store goals, these ads are now fully available,” and: “We are planning to expand Waze inventory to additional markets beyond the U.S. in 2026.” That page, bylined to Teresa Chen and Irem Erkaya of Google’s Local Ads and Performance Max teams, names the format differently too, calling it a “Promoted Places in Navigation” pin rather than answer 12971048’s “branded square pin.” Two Google documents on the same product, and the older one has not been brought in line. The mechanism is the familiar one for Performance Max automation: new inventory folds into campaigns advertisers already run.
For an advertiser running Performance Max for store goals in any of the 41 added markets, the live documentation now says the campaign qualifies, whatever the older page still says. Google’s own Performance Max for store goals documentation is the page to check. Search Engine Roundtable’s report carries the prior wording and the date the change surfaced.
