Most advertisers who open Google Ads head straight to Keyword Planner — and stop there. But if you navigate to Tools → Planning, you'll find two additional planning tools that are frequently overlooked: Performance Planner and Reach Planner. Both tools give advertisers the ability to move from reactive guesswork to proactive, data-backed decision-making. In this guide, we'll break down what each planner does, how to set one up, and when to use each in your workflow.
What Is the Google Ads Performance Planner?
The Performance Planner is a forecasting tool built into Google Ads that lets you model what happens to your key performance indicators (KPIs) when you change your ad budget. Rather than adjusting spend and waiting weeks to see results, you can simulate outcomes in advance — including projected conversions, cost-per-acquisition (CPA), and total spend — before committing a single dollar.
This tool is particularly valuable for agencies and account managers who manage multiple campaigns simultaneously and need to present data-backed growth plans to clients. Forecasts are typically refreshed on a daily basis, drawing on approximately the last 7–10 days of campaign data to generate projections.
A newer addition to the Performance Planner interface is Suggested Plans — a feature where Google surfaces quick recommendations on which campaigns might benefit from a budget or bid adjustment, without requiring you to manually build a full forecast from scratch.
How to Create a Performance Plan Step by Step
Getting started is straightforward. Go to Tools → Planning → Performance Planner, then click Create New Plan. From there, a setup wizard walks you through the following steps:
- Select your desired date range for the forecast period.
- Choose the channel (Search, Display, or both, depending on what's in your account).
- Define your optimization target — this could be a CPA target, a conversion volume goal, or a total ad spend ceiling.
- Pick the specific campaigns you want included in the plan. Only eligible campaigns will appear in the list.
Once the plan is generated, you'll see a chart showing projected performance at different spend levels, making it easy to identify the point of diminishing returns for your budget.
Campaign Eligibility Requirements You Should Know
Not every campaign qualifies for the Performance Planner. Eligibility rules vary by campaign type:
Search Campaigns
- Must use an eligible bid strategy such as manual CPC, enhanced CPC, maximize conversions, target CPA, or target ROAS.
- Must not have had a bid strategy change in the past 7 days.
- Must have been active for at least 72 hours.
- Must have recorded a minimum of 3 clicks and 3 conversions in the last 7 days.
Standard Shopping Campaigns
- Must not be part of a portfolio bid strategy.
- Must have been spending at least $10/day consistently over the past 10 days.
- Must have received at least 100 impressions in the past 7 days.
- Must have at least 10 conversions or conversion values in the last 10 days.
Understanding these requirements upfront saves time — if a campaign doesn't meet the minimum thresholds, it simply won't appear as an option when building your plan.
What Is Reach Planner — and How Is It Different?
While Performance Planner focuses on Search and Display, Reach Planner is designed exclusively for video and YouTube campaigns. Instead of projecting CPA or conversion volume, it estimates three core metrics: unique reach, views, and conversions based on your audience and budget inputs.
Reach Planner is updated on a weekly basis and uses Google's Unique Reach Methodology, which incorporates modeled third-party data to estimate the potential scale of a video campaign before it goes live. For brands planning awareness pushes or launching new YouTube campaigns, this tool provides a level of forecasting clarity that standard campaign setup simply doesn't offer.
You can access Reach Planner from the same Tools → Planning menu. If the option isn't visible in your account, you may need to contact your Google account representative to get it enabled.
How to Build a Reach Planner Forecast
When setting up a new Reach Planner campaign plan, you'll work through a series of targeting and budget inputs:
- Location and currency — set the geographic market you're targeting.
- Campaign type — choose between YouTube only, or YouTube combined with Linear TV.
- Date range — select the flight period for your campaign.
- Demographics — define your age, gender, and parental status targets.
- Audience segments — select from In-Market, Affinity, Remarketing, Custom, or Lookalike audiences.
- Device and frequency caps — control where and how often your ads appear.
- Ad format — choose from skippable in-stream, non-skippable, bumper ads, or a mix via the advanced plan feature.
Once inputs are complete, Reach Planner generates a forecast showing estimated unique reach, views, and conversions alongside demographic and device breakdowns. This gives media planners a clear picture of the potential audience impact before a budget is committed. For additional learning, Google offers free Skillshop modules covering Reach Planner in depth.
When to Use Each Planner in Your Strategy
These two tools serve distinct but complementary purposes. Performance Planner belongs in your workflow whenever you're managing existing Search or Display campaigns and want to model the impact of a budget increase, a seasonal push, or a quarterly scaling plan. It takes the guesswork out of budget conversations with clients or stakeholders.
Reach Planner, on the other hand, shines during the pre-launch phase of YouTube campaigns. Before you invest in video creative and production, it helps you validate whether the target audience is large enough to justify the spend — and how different budget levels translate into reach at scale.
Used together, these planning tools help advertisers move well beyond basic keyword research and make genuinely data-driven decisions about budget allocation across channels. For a deeper dive, the original guide on Search Engine Land and Google's official support documentation are both excellent references.
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- Performance Planner and Reach Planner are both found under Tools → Planning in Google Ads, but are frequently overlooked.
- Performance Planner forecasts conversion volume, CPA, and spend impact for Search and Display — refreshed daily from recent campaign data.
- Reach Planner forecasts unique reach, views, and conversions for YouTube campaigns — updated weekly using Google's Unique Reach Methodology.
- Campaign eligibility requirements must be met before Performance Planner will include a campaign in a plan.
- Using both tools together leads to smarter budget allocation and more confident scaling decisions.
