AI Max: Should You Fear It & Where To Start?

AI Max for search is the new campaign setting sending the PPC world into thinking this is Google’s making the next move towards a keyword-less world. But, call me crazy, I’m kinda here for it!

AI Max uses keywordless technology to find new searches not currently matched by your keywords. It also text customization to create new ad copy & Final URL expansion to send traffic to URLs on your site. Let’s break those down into the 3 areas:

Keywordless Technology

When you switch AI Max live this is the only part that is not optional. Keywordless technology means Google may show your ad for searches which would not be picked up by your current keywords. If you’ve used broad match or even dynamic search ads before then you have essentially used what Google is now calling Keywordless targeting.

You can see what search terms google has matched by going to Insights and Reports → Search terms on your campaign, any search terms which would not have been matched by your keywords will have the match type “AI Max”. In theory Google should prioritise Exact match in your search campaigns.

So far, my impressions of this side has been good! It’s actually helped me pick up some searches I wouldn’t have appeared on. For me I am utilising this as a way to spot new keywords and then add them in as exact match.

Ad Text Customization

Google can create new headlines and descriptions - it may utilise search query data and information from your landing page to do this. It’s important to note this setting is optional. Text guidlines also exist so you can instruct Google not to mention certain thing as well as excluding terms that don’t align with your brand e.g. you may want to exclude competitor names, avoid pricing based copy or avoid certain promotions Google may find on your website.

Again, you can see the assets Google has created by clicking on “View assets details” under your ad and any assets created by AI max will say “Google AI” in the Added by column.

So, my impression of this setting is not so good. Some of the content was pretty much gibberish, I also noticed a lot of inconsistecy with case and puncuation, though this could potentially be fixed with Text Guidlines. Feel free to give it a go but monitor closely and do utilise text guidlines.

Final URL Expansion

This setting is also optional, though to use this you must have ad text customization live. Google may decide to land the user on a different URL that is in your ad. This could be useful if you have broader adgroups for say a brand - Google could decide to show a product page for specific searches.

Again, you have visibility on what Google has decided. In the landing page report you will see a full list of landing pages and you can see where AI Max has made a decision in the come “Selected by”.

If you have a lot of pages on your website, in particularly if your pages are updated regularly e.g. if you have products going in and out of stock frequently. I think AI Max could be really useful for this in a similar way DSA has always been useful for this type of client. However, because this can only be utilised along side ad text custimization it is important to ensure you are happy with that side of things. Additionally, you can utilise URL inclusions to ensure Google only sends traffic to landing pages you believe are relevant for your ad group.

Where to Start

If you’ve been on the fence about AI Max for search I’d challenge you to give it go. Personally don’t believe it is as scary as it sounds. If you are already utilising broad match the I don’t believe you will see much difference but if you are reliant on exact match you could see quite a large change in traffic - so be careful about your budgets!!

As always, testing is key - put it as an experiment and see what happens. It might surprise you!