Performance Max builds a video if you upload none: $1.88 swap

Google's Performance Max page says auto-generated videos are produced from your existing images and text assets only when your asset groups have no active, user-uploaded videos, and that the feature switches off once you upload your own (Google Ads Help, read 2026-10-05). The cheapest way to control what runs in the holiday window is therefore to upload one. A 10-second vertical Gemini Omni Flash 1.1 clip at 1080p is $1.88 on Sume.

What Google does in each case

The same page describes two functions: video enhancements, which make vertical and square versions and shorter cuts from your video, and auto-generated videos, which fill the gap when there is no video. Both go through a quality review before they run. You can turn enhancement off in Campaign settings under Asset optimization, then Video.

The replacement clip

Omni 1080p lists at $0.15 per second, billed at list times 1.25 = $0.1875 per second, so a 10-second clip is $1.875, rounded up to $1.88. Pin aspect_ratio: "9:16", resolution: "1080p", and duration: 10. Ten seconds is also inside Omni's 3 to 10 second range, so one request covers it.

Check the result before the asset group goes live: play the clip on a phone in vertical, muted, and read the first two seconds. If the product is not clear by then, regenerate with a plainer opening shot; at $1.88 a retry is cheap next to a week of a weak holiday asset.

Keep a landscape and a square cut ready too. Omni renders 16:9 and 9:16 only, so a square version comes from the vertical or horizontal master through a crop, not a separate generation. If you would rather Google not make its own crops, uncheck Enhancement as above and upload every shape you want to run.

Upload it with a headline and a call to action baked in as captions ($0.20), so the clip works in a muted autoplay.

Labels are your call

Google's AI label page says assets you designate as AI-generated or edited get labels, and that you manage this in the asset flow with Manage AI label. In the European Union, India, and New York the labels show as overlays on the ad, and elsewhere the disclosure appears in the My Ad Center panel (Google Ads Help, read 2026-10-05). A clip generated on Sume is an AI-generated asset, so set the label on upload rather than leaving it to Google.