Time-Sensitive Offers in Google Ads

Time-sensitive promos on Google Ads can be a challenge. Advertisers submit text and assets, but the platform’s algorithm determines what actually shows. Moreover, AI Max for Search creates its own assets.

A date-specific ad message does not automatically show, but the following tactics can increase its chances.

Countdown Customizers

Years ago I explained how scripts can add a countdown to ads. The process is now much easier. The countdown customizer adds the feature directly in ad copy. It dynamically shows the remaining time until the promotion ends, adding a sense of urgency.

Countdown customizers, such as “Ends In 10 Days,” appear directly in ads.

Advertisers enter the countdown ending date and time, when it starts, and the relevant time zone.

Enter the countdown ending date and time, when it starts, and the relevant time zone.

A countdown heightens the urgency for potential customers. Plus, it switches to hours and minutes on the final day.

I typically use pinned headlines to show the offer in headline one and the countdown in headline two.

This one-two punch instructs Google to show the message in that order whenever headlines one and two show concurrently. Plus, it ensures the offer always shows since Google sometimes only shows one pinned headline.

Pinned headlines obstruct Google Ads’ algorithm, which presumably means they show less, though I’ve seen little impact on conversion metrics. A non-pinned ad in an ad group will likely show more, and pausing a non-pinned ad can result in fewer impressions for a pinned version.

Promotion Asset

Google Ads now calls extensions “assets.” A promotion asset is an additional 25-character line that highlights the offer and can include dates. Advertisers submit:

• Promotion type (monetary or percent discount),
• Promo code (if needed),
• Displayed promotion dates (either the start and end dates, or just the end),
• Item(s) on sale,
• URL of the sale page (or site).

The promotion dates are optional, but I prefer them for urgency. Advertisers can schedule the promotions to start and end, eliminating the need to turn them on and off manually.

Promotion assets can include end dates, such as “Mar 13” in this example.

Callout Asset

Callouts are non-clickable highlights alongside the ad. They can address benefits, features, and promotions. Callouts cannot exceed 25 characters, requiring succinct messaging, such as:

• “25% off Winter Jackets”
• “Winter Jackets Sale”
• “Winter Jackets – 25% off”

Advertisers can schedule callouts, like promotions. Up to 10 callouts can show, though it’s usually two to four. The more callouts, the fewer chances promo messaging shows. Consider pausing other callouts if running an offer-specific one.

Sitelink Asset

As with promos and callouts, sitelinks are additional text in an ad. Sitelinks are clickable, schedulable, include description lines, and can focus on a promotion. Like callouts, many sitelinks can show at once, which could lessen the impact of time-sensitive offers.

Many sitelinks can appear at once, such as this example from Allbirds.

3 Performance Max Updates for 2026

Performance Max campaigns are a priority for Google Ads and thus for advertisers. Here are three new features for the Performance Max campaign type.

Experiments

Experiments are a great feature of the Ads platform. For example, you can run a bid strategy experiment wherein the “control” bids toward a cost-per-lead target (CPL) and the “treatment” toward return-on-ad-sales (ROAS).

The ability to run Performance Max experiments is new and very helpful. There are three types. Advertisers can test a control setting against:

• Another campaign type (Shopping, Search, or Display),
• Final URL expansion,
• Uplift of including Performance Max in other campaign types.

The first two test Performance Max campaigns against existing entities. For example, an advertiser running a Shopping campaign can test it against Performance Max via a 50/50 split — half the traffic goes to the Shopping campaign and half to Performance Max.

Testing the final URL expansion exposes half of the traffic to the optimization feature. The test determines if advertiser-selected URLs perform better than Google’s.

The final experiment type, Uplift, is the most interesting as it shows the incremental gains of using new or existing Performance Max campaigns alongside other types. The control and the treatment will each receive 50% of the traffic. The treatment includes the Performance Max and comparable campaigns. Google defines “comparable campaigns” (which are editable) as having the same domain, one or more overlapping conversion goals, or overlapping locations.

For example, if a Performance Max campaign targets winter jackets, comparable campaigns could be Search targeting jackets and Demand Gen with a winter theme.

An Uplift experiment tests the results of including Performance Max in other campaign types.

Data Exclusions

The next update is handy for excluding traffic segments. For years Google has allowed advertisers to exclude keywords and placements, but not customer match and remarketing lists. A new feature allows advertisers to exclude audiences from seeing ads.

An option in campaign settings called “Your data exclusions” now includes customer match and remarketing audiences.

Be careful, however, as the need to exclude audiences varies by advertiser. What works for one may not apply to another, in my experience.

Advertisers can now exclude audiences, such as remarketing lists, from seeing ads.

Product Overlap

The final feature identifies Shopping overlap across your account. It’s not unique to Performance Max.

To start, click “Products” in the left-hand “Campaigns” section. You’ll see the complete list of your products with associated data. Clicking an individual product displays its attributes and a dropdown menu of the campaigns that include it.

Advertisers can view the results by campaign and exclude underperformers. The strategy is similar to applying negative keywords to queries to trigger the correct ads.

Acquiring Customers via Google Ads

Acquiring new customers versus targeting existing ones is a common goal of advertisers. Google Ads offers account and bid settings to help. It starts with a feature called “New Customer Acquisition” in customer lifecycle optimization, located in the account-level goals section.

Advertisers can set an incremental conversion value for new customers. For example, if converting a repeat customer is worth $20, an incremental value could be $10, elevating new customers to $30.

Google provides a tool to calculate an incremental value based on average order value. To use, set a target return on ad spend for new customers. Say an advertiser wants a 100% customer acquisition ROAS — a 1:1 return. In the screen capture below, Google suggested a $46.27 value for new customers based on a given AOV and a $10 current value.

Google suggests a $46.27 value for new customers based on a given AOV, 100% ROAS, and a $10 current value.

The next step is to provide existing audience segments via Customer Match lists, either by specific category or overall. Google uses the lists (of at least 1,000 customers) to identify new prospects, much like how it uses first-party data to build lookalike audiences in Demand Gen campaigns.

Advertisers can deviate from Google’s suggested new-customer value and assign a higher amount. The option is often relevant for an audience segment of high-ticket buyers, provided there are 1,000 members. But a higher value is not critical in my experience, especially if the goal is to acquire any customer.

Having assigned an incremental value and uploaded a match list(s), the New Customer Acquisition feature is complete at the account level. Implement for each campaign by selecting the box labeled “Adjust your bidding to help acquire new customers.”

For each campaign, implement account-level acquisition settings by selecting the box labeled “Adjust your bidding to help acquire new customers.”

Google Ads will now bid higher within the target ROAS to acquire new customers, with lower bids for existing ones.

Yet advertisers can opt to bid only for new customers, such as for free trials or samples. Be careful, however, as this option will limit traffic. An alternative tactic is uploading an audience exclusion list of consumers who signed up for the free offer.

To activate New Customer Acquisition, advertisers must first set up value-based bidding. The system can’t bid higher for new customers without a base conversion value. Use a maximize conversion value bid strategy (with or without a target ROAS). Additionally, confirm the conversion classification is “purchase.”

Reporting

It’s worthwhile for reporting purposes to set a nominal new-customer conversion value (even $0.01) regardless of the bid strategy. Absent an incremental value, you can’t see the number of conversions from new vs. returning customers in the segment option view of “Conversions > New vs. returning customers.”

Even a nominal incremental value is worthwhile for distinguishing conversions between new and returning customers.

Notes on Google Ads New Strategy Tool

Google Ads quietly unveiled a tool in October called “Investment Strategy” that suggests short-term tactics to improve performance. Located in the Recommendations tab, the feature shows all campaigns and the impact of various budget changes.

Investment Strategy is akin to Google’s existing budget simulators, with two main differences. First, it focuses on the next seven days rather than a long-term forecast.

Second, it’s centralized at the account level; bid simulators apply to specific campaigns or portfolios. It displays all budget-restricted campaigns in one view and can run projections accordingly.

To launch Investment Strategy, first choose your primary campaign metric:

• Conversions,
• Conversion value [revenue],
• Clicks.

You’ll then see the projected impact on your account if all campaigns are unrestricted by budget.

The new Investment Strategy tool projects the performance impact assuming campaigns have unlimited budgets.

Choose which campaign changes are appropriate, as many likely won’t apply. The example below showcases the projected changes to “Avg. ROAS” and “Weekly conversion value” from Google’s recommendations.

Choose which campaign changes are appropriate, as many likely won’t apply.

I may or may not implement Google’s suggestions. I could instead toggle for the impact of varying budgets.

For example, say a client allocates an extra $10,000 for the remainder of the month. I can revise Google’s recommended budgets to determine which campaigns receive the spend.

Projection Tools

Google has long offered Performance Planner to recommend spending for a long-term outcome. Advertisers can view performance projections up to one year and optionally simulate the impact of custom conversion rates.

Thus Performance Planner is worthwhile for extended planning, while Investment Strategy recommendations are immediate and highly beneficial during, for instance, Cyber Week or back-to-school promotions.

Here’s an overview of Google Ads budget and strategy tools:

• Campaign budget and bid strategy. On-demand recommendations in individual campaigns.

• Performance Planner. Projections up to one year of performance by spend.

• Investment Strategy. The seven-day performance impact of budget changes to a campaign based on an advertiser’s primary goal.

I’m encouraged by the Investment Strategy tool because it’s quick and easy to understand. It projects the metrics that matter most: spend vs. performance. What’s missing are fields for target cost per conversion (tCPA) and target return on ad spend (tROAS). Both would help advertisers project incremental gains within their goals.

Google will likely consolidate all budgeting and bid strategy recommendations under Investment Strategy, resulting in a single portal for tactical and budgeting guidance.

Nonetheless, I advise caution. Google’s projections may not apply to your products, budget, or goals. Carefully determine which, if any, to implement and then monitor closely.

Merge Google Ads Campaigns for Better ROAS

Google Ads AI-driven optimization works best with abundant data. A single entity with 10,000 impressions is better than 10 with 1,000 each — whether a campaign, ad group, keyword, or ad copy.

Thus I always recommend that clients condense their campaigns (or ad groups, keywords, ad copy). But which to condense, and how, is not typically obvious. Common questions include:

• What campaigns should I condense?
• How do I know when a campaign has enough data, or too little?
• Which keywords need their own ad groups, regardless of performance?

AI Optimization

There is no set threshold for condensing campaigns. For instance, should 10 ad groups condense to five or two or one? The answer is subjective based on experience and intuition.

It could depend on the keyword theme. For years, aligning keywords with ad copy drove performance. An advertiser created separate ad groups for, say, gym bags, hiking bags, and running bags.

Searching Google for “gym bags” produced gym-bag-specific ad copy and, presumably, linked to a page dedicated to gym bags. Before smart bidding and AI, this breakout was common. Each ad group received relatively less traffic and conversions due to manual bidding.

Fast forward to 2025, and a manual setup won’t collect enough data for meaningful AI optimizations. A better option is to condense the three ad groups into one for “athletic bags.” The ad copy might be less aligned to each keyword, but Google’s Responsive Search Ads and keyword-level URLs will show the ad combination most likely to convert. Grouping keywords by theme rather than product type yields more data.

Condensing Campaigns

Consider the hypothetical laptop-computer campaign below with eight ad groups and 90 days of performance data.

The only ad group with at least 50 clicks and 10 conversions is “Laptop Bags.” Three of the ad groups haven’t generated more than 10 clicks, and half the groups have seen just one conversion or none. I would condense the campaign into three ad groups, using the best-performing groups as the anchors.

To start, the “Laptop Bags” ad group has the most conversions and the highest ROAS. I won’t change this group, as that could disrupt performance. I’ll pause the “Covers,” “Cases,” and “Sleeves” groups and move their keywords into the “Laptop Bags” anchor ad group. Each of those, to me, has a common theme of “laptop protection.”

Similarly, I’ll use “Laptop Stands” as an anchor group combined with keywords from “Docking Stations” and “Mounts.”

Lastly, I’ll leave “Laptop Accessories” as is in the final group.

Each of those decisions is subjective; other practitioners could have combined differently.

Monitor Performance

I always monitor condensed campaigns closely. The performance typically improves, or at least stays consistent, although it might decline temporarily. If the decline persists, I’ll revert to the legacy structure for further analysis.

Better Audience Targeting in Google Ads

Google Ads continues to shift its focus from keywords to campaign types, such as Performance Max and Demand Gen, making audiences more critical than ever. Google has enhanced its audience targeting capabilities in Display campaigns to resemble those on Meta, LinkedIn, and other social channels.

Custom audiences

Search and Shopping campaigns take advertisers only so far. Display campaigns can help by building top-of-funnel prospects via custom audiences.

A “custom audience” is any group of consumers chosen by an advertiser, such as:

• Visitors to a contact-us page who don’t convert,
• Email newsletter subscribers,
• Searchers with specific needs, such as queries for “electrician services” or “wireless headphones,”
• Shoppers who browse a category of websites, such as those similar to ESPN,
• Searchers who query “wireless headphone” terms but don’t browse ESPN-like sites.

Depending on the campaign type, Google either targets these audiences or uses them as a signal. For example, a Display campaign would target prospects in “electrician services” for an in-market audience. A Performance Max campaign would use “electrician services” as a signal and show ads to prospects inferred by Google.

Custom audiences are limitless, which is why advertisers should continually test to identify the top performers.

Creating custom audiences

The most common custom audience is visitors to a website — individual pages or combinations. For instance, here are visitors to a product page who did not convert. They viewed the “/products” URL but not the “/thank-you.”

This custom audience is visitors who viewed the “/products” URL but not the “/thank-you.” Click image to enlarge.

Yet targeting is more creative with custom segments, which, like website audiences, are located in the Audience Manager. There are two types of custom segments:

• “People with any of these interests or purchase intentions,”
• “People who search for any of these terms on Google.”

The options are similar, but “interests” includes websites visited, apps used, and content consumed, versus searchers who query specific terms. Thus “interests” are macro targeting while searches are micro.

Here is a custom interest segment for wireless headphones. I’ve included a few headphone terms and sites that prospects visit.

This custom interest segment includes prospects’ headphone terms and related websites. Click image to enlarge.

I could narrow the segment by excluding prospects interested in Apple AirPods. I could then create a separate segment targeting “AirPod” terms, and even combine the two for a new segment.

Segments can exclude other segments or interests. This example excludes prospects who are interested in AirPods. Click image to enlarge.

Combined segments can include “Interests & detailed demographics,” not just other custom segments. Hence I could add Google-defined headphone users to my combined segment.

Combined segments can include “Interests & detailed demographics,” not just other custom segments. Click image to enlarge.

The result is seemingly endless potential audiences, general and specific, to test across campaign types. Perhaps one custom segment works better as a signal in Performance Max than as a target in Display.

Be creative! That’s the takeaway. Targeting in Google Ads may not be as granular as Meta or LinkedIn, but it is essential for scaling your account.

Google-Criteo Deal Unlocks Retail Media

Google is about to give agencies and advertisers access to prime retail media placements on ecommerce sites such as Best Buy, Costco, and Target.

The deal, announced on September 10, 2025, connects Google’s Search Ads 360 (SA360) platform with a network of more than 200 enterprise-level retailers via Criteo’s advertising and commerce platform.

“With Criteo’s expansive network of retailer partners, we’re helping advertisers connect with customers at a critical moment in their shopping journey,” said Bill Reardon, general manager, enterprise platform at Google, via a press release.

Digital Retail Media

Retail media is exploding. Adtelligent estimated that worldwide retail media spend would reach $145 to $165 billion in 2025, up from $59 billion in 2019.

In the United States, the market is valued at more than $60 billion and is growing at roughly 20% per year, according to various sources.

Advertisers use digital retail media primarily to promote products sold on the given retailer’s website. Thus many retail media advertisers are actually the store’s suppliers, boosting sales via the retail channel.

Digital retail media has taken off, in part, because it relies on first-party customer data and does not require intrusive cookies or complex privacy protocols.

Walled Gardens

A few “walled gardens,” i.e., closed platforms or ecosystems operated by a single company, dominate the market. Of these, Amazon is far and away the leader.

In Q2 2025, Amazon’s ad revenue reached $15.69 billion, a 23% year-over-year increase, hitting a record 9.36% of the company’s total revenue and marking it as the fastest-growing segment.

Amazon has leveraged its massive ecommerce marketplace and best-in-class shopping data. Together, these create a self-reinforcing advertising flywheel that drives conversions for advertisers and revenue for Amazon.

Good Data

Amazon’s retail media flywheel works because the company controls the entire process, from initial customer acquisition to final purchase, collecting all the behavioral data along the way. It has first-party data that is real, recent, and relevant.

Compared to third-party data, Amazon and nearly any walled-garden advertising solution will be much more effective at targeting shoppers and producing sales.

These closed ecosystems also help with measurement. Since the ads are running and converting in a walled garden, advertising attribution is easy.

Enter Google

While Amazon is the undisputed leader in digital retail media, Google is the king of digital advertising generally. The company generated approximately $71.3 billion in advertising revenue during Q2 2025, representing a 10.4% year-over-year increase.

Some $54 billion of that Q2 revenue was specific to search advertising. A significant portion of that revenue passes through the company’s SA360 platform. That demand will now connect to Criteo and its retail media network.

This deal is a significant shift for the market. In the past, Google’s retail-related advertising products, such as AI-assisted PMax or Shopping Ads, have focused on driving traffic to retail websites. The idea was that someone would query on Google search, see an ad for a relevant product, and go to the retailer to buy it.

With Criteo’s help, Google can now offer a more complete way to advertise to consumers. Its platform not only guides advertisers to retail sites, but also shoppers on those sites to specific sponsored products.

Google vs. Amazon

In a sense, the Google and Criteo deal targets Amazon’s dominance in digital retail media and walled gardens generally.

Google gains a foothold in the digital retail media market, providing SA360 advertisers with the opportunity to extend search campaigns into high-intent shopping environments, all with unified measurement and attribution.

Brands that had been using retail media now have an alternative. Rather than concentrating advertising spend in a few dominant ecosystems, the Google-Criteo integration opens access to a broader range of retail ad placements.

It opens some access to some of those walled gardens, and, as several pundits have put it, fosters competition and “democratizes” retail media.

Antitrust

While Criteo and Google had been in discussions for some time, the deal’s announcement came just days after Google survived what could have been a devastating antitrust ruling. It was also less than two weeks before a second remedy hearing.

In August 2024, a U.S. District Court found Google guilty of maintaining an illegal monopoly over the general online search and text advertising markets.

Leading up to the September 2025 remedy hearing, some observers thought that Google would be required to divest some of its products, such as the Chrome browser.

No Breakup

Instead, the court, on September 2, 2025, ruled that Google change its behavior, including:

• Refraining from entering into exclusive search engine contracts,
• Sharing some search data with qualified competitors.

In a separate April 2025 case, a federal judge found Google guilty of illegally monopolizing key segments of the digital advertising market. The remedy hearing for this case is scheduled for September 22, 2025.

Google’s “democratizing” deal with Criteo could be an indication to the courts that the company aims to encourage competition.

Google PMax Unveils Optimization Tools

Google’s Performance Max campaigns place responsive ads across all Google channels based on audience signals. The search giant automatically determines an ad’s headlines, descriptions, and images across, say, Search, Display, and YouTube to deliver top results.

Yet PMax campaigns lack transparency and restrict options.

The encouraging news is that Google is listening to advertisers and has rolled out PMax reporting and flexibility updates in the past year. These include reports for asset-level conversions and Search category theme volume and conversions, as well as the ability to exclude devices where your ads can appear.

More recently, Google has provided new PMax optimization features. I’ll address those in this post.

Channel performance

At a Performance Max campaign level, advertisers can now see which channels drive traffic and conversions. In the example below, traffic from Google Discover accounts for 5.36% of total spend and one conversion.

Performance Max advertisers can now see, at the campaign level, which channels drive traffic and conversions. Click image to enlarge.

Performance Max ads can show in these Google channels:

• Discover
• Display
• Gmail
• Maps
• Search
• YouTube

Advertisers cannot exclude specific channels, but the new visibility is helpful and may determine PMax’s overall viability. Advertisers can exclude non-converting ads and keywords to assess further whether PMax is the right option.

Final URL expansion

By default, new Performance Max campaigns turn on Final URL expansion. This means that Google can send searchers to a different landing page for better conversions. Expanding the Final URL can be worthwhile, but it’s important to see which pages are converting. An option in the “Assets” tab provides the Final URL expansion assets.

Advertisers can exclude irrelevant URLs in “Asset Optimization” within the campaign settings. Click on the “Customization” option to activate “Final URL expansion.”

Advertisers can exclude irrelevant URLs in “Asset Optimization” within the campaign settings. Click image to enlarge.

Asset Optimization

Speaking of Asset Optimization, advertisers can see the asset source for the many components of Performance Max data. For example, a Google-created headline may convert at twice the rate of an advertiser’s version. Advertisers can pause automatically created assets, similar to pausing keywords.

Advertisers can disable automated assets at the account level, but not for campaigns. Turn off the option, for example, if you don’t want Google-created sitelinks to show. Remember that turning off an automated asset impacts the entire account.

Negative keywords

Performance Max campaigns have always allowed negative keywords. However, the setup was cumbersome, requiring either implementation by a Google rep or the creation of an account-level negative keyword list.

Now, adding negative keywords is easy. Discovering the keywords is also easy, as search queries are available as a separate option in the “Insights and reports” tab to view the data and select terms to exclude.

Search Themes

Google introduced Search Themes in 2023 to help guide its AI. The Themes work similarly to keywords. For example, a retailer selling winter jackets could provide Search Themes of:

• “Winter jackets,”
• “Men’s winter jackets,”
• “Women’s winter jackets,”

Searchers don’t need to type these keywords for ads to show. Instead, the ads show if an advertiser’s site content or the searcher’s query history indicates relevance. Along with audience signals, Search Themes helps Google know a searcher’s profile.

Google now allows up to 50 Search Themes per asset group, an increase from 10.

Google Ads Unveils RSA Asset Stats

A helpful reporting update is rolling out in Google Ads accounts. Advertisers can now view click and conversion data for each headline and description line of Responsive Search Ads, as well as aggregate RSA performance.

More Control

Advertisers have generally responded positively to RSAs. The ads allow up to 15 headlines and four description lines that rotate interchangeably for, potentially, thousands of combinations. With smart bidding, artificial intelligence, and personalization signals, Google shows the most likely-to-convert combination for each searcher.

Until now, however, advertisers could only see the overall RSA performance and total impressions of each asset and combination.

But click and conversion metrics for each asset now appear in the interface. The example below ranks the number of conversions from highest to lowest, along with their conversion rates and cost per conversion. Advertisers can easily identify which assets are meeting goals.

Google Ads now reports click and conversion metrics for each RSA asset. This example ranks the number of conversions from highest to lowest.

With the data, advertisers regain some control, although it’s essential to consider the bigger picture. More data doesn’t necessarily mean more changes.

Google’s AI optimizes for advertisers’ goals. A lower-performing asset could result from Google testing combinations. For instance, a headline could perform poorly for group A but well for group B when combined with description line C. Unfortunately, impressions remain the only available metric to advertisers when viewing RSA combinations.

Using the Data

Nonetheless, advertisers should not entirely defer to Google’s AI. Here are my typical action items.

Remove underperforming assets. I apply a filter to highlight poor performers, such as any asset with at least 100 clicks and zero conversions. It’s a quick rundown of headlines and descriptions to remove, as the message or landing page isn’t resonating with searchers.

Advertisers can view asset-level performance at the ad, ad group, and campaign levels. The ad level provides the most detail, but ad groups and campaigns are sufficient if the assets are identical. Regardless, ensure you have enough data for informed decisions — I aim for at least 50 clicks.

Pin the best performers. Conversely, identify the most productive assets through pinning — locking specific headlines and descriptions, such as a headline with a better-than-average conversion rate or a description with a low cost per lead.

Creating a new RSA for the top three to seven assets is another option. For example, if headlines A, D, F, and description lines M and N perform well, create an RSA with only those assets.

Keep in mind that pinning assets will reduce an ad’s strength. To be sure, “ad strength” is a novelty metric, but it roughly aligns with the number of likely impressions. Thus pin assets selectively to ensure consistent traffic.

Find new messaging from AI Max. When turned on, AI Max ads reveal performance for its automated assets.

Recall that AI Max campaigns create assets from copy on an advertiser’s website, landing page, and other ads. If an automatically created asset performs well, consider creating a new RSA ad or adding it to an existing one.

AI Max’s automatic headlines and descriptions are a source for new or existing RSAs.

Caution

More data can lead to bad decisions. Exercise caution. Google Ads AI algorithm considers many variables to determine the best message for each searcher. Knowing the clicks and conversions for each headline and description is helpful, but part of the bigger picture.

Google, Microsoft Clarify Ad Bidding

Google and Microsoft are rolling out updates to improve transparency while removing redundant (and confusing) bidding features. The first Google update concerns AI Max for Search, a focus of the company’s recent Marketing Live event.

AI Max Transparency

Google launched AI Max for Search in May. It is now available in all accounts. Using AI, Google displays ads for more queries and customizes them based on the user. The idea is to reach more potential customers.

My initial impressions of AI Max for Search are positive. I haven’t experienced many conversions in my client’s accounts, perhaps because the additional traffic is low. But I’m receiving complementary traffic instead of cannibalizing the keywords I’ve bid on. In other words, it’s not driving traffic merely to generate clicks and spend, and moreover, the ancillary traffic appears qualified.

Two new segments provide AI Max clarity. First, advertisers can segment the Keyword report by search term match type. The report displays data from AI Max as well as standard exact, phrase, and broad match.

Second, advertisers can view the AI Max search terms and associated landing pages. It’s beneficial for discovering landing pages to test elsewhere in the account or exclude altogether.

Advertisers can view the AI Max search terms and associated landing pages in the search terms report.

For example, a landing page that converts well in AI Max is worth testing as the standard version. Conversely, advertisers could exclude a poor-converting page.

When launched in 2021, Performance Max campaigns did not provide this level of detail. Google added the transparency to AI Max from the start.

Advertisers can exclude poor-converting landing pages.

Combined Campaign Metrics

Google introduced Brand Reports late last year to show reach and frequency metrics across campaigns. Advertisers could always view the metrics for individual campaigns but not in aggregate. For example, Video and Demand Gen campaigns provided metrics separately, but not for consumers who viewed ads in both campaigns.

Brand Reports include filters by age range, gender, or both. The “co-viewed” metric shows the number of unique consumers who viewed the ad, even if they watched together on connected TV. It’s a good start for displaying the combined reach and frequency of multiple campaigns.

Unfortunately, the report does not provide conversion metrics to reveal how non-search campaigns contribute to overall conversions.

Microsoft Drops tCPA, tROAS

Microsoft is moving away from tCPA and tROAS bid strategies.

Google removed tCPA and tROAS bidding a couple of years ago because they were redundant: Both told Google to optimize for conversions.

Google renamed the strategy to “Maximize conversions with an optional tCPA.” By default, the “Maximize conversions” strategy strives to, well, maximize conversions, but advertisers can still set an optional acquisition target.

For example, advertisers unconcerned about tCPA can instruct Google to generate as many conversions as possible within the budget. But they can check the option to set a target CPA that does not exceed, say, $50.

Microsoft is adopting the same tactic. Beginning August 4, new Microsoft Ad campaigns will provide only the “maximize conversions” and “maximize conversion values” counterparts. Microsoft says it will automatically transition tCPA and tROAS campaigns.

No action is required by Microsoft advertisers. The update removes redundancies and simplifies bidding.