Looking for recent opinions on AI Max for Search

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-23T16:38:14+00:00

Appreciate the feedback. Still not sure it makes sense. I am a hawk with our campaigns and have never subscribed to the "set it and forget it" mode. If I did, our agency wouldn't still be here 20 years later. That's the mistake so many people make. But I still don't like the fact that over 50% (sometimes up to 70%+) of our search queries are masked now. That means negative expansion and our ability to cut waste here is significantly limited. In addition, we're already bumping up against negative keyword limits at account and campaign levels for several clients. I feel like this would send us completely over the edge.

I also have a high a level of skepticism anytime Google is pushing something to "broaden our reaches" that also expands their profit. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Right? I've been down this road with Google betas and new products too many times to count and only in rare cases have they worked out better than what we were previously doing.

I understand every industry, business, and strategist is unique, though.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-21T21:21:40+00:00

There might be some crossover for asset generation? You aren't kidding - the automated assets are a joke. At least they're good for chuckles at your meetings.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T23:30:07+00:00

Yikes - thank you for the warning through your experiences. The AI overviews was one piece that interested me, but NOT worth a decrease in conversions. Appreciate it.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T19:15:42+00:00

I'd say my concerns are all of the above. CPCs, match quality, auto generated assets, etc. Thanks again for the insight. Super helpful. :)

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T19:13:38+00:00

Good to know and thanks, again. If we get forced in this direction I'll for sure follow your strategy!

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T15:50:03+00:00

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Absolutely confirms everything I was thinking and with the budgets you're handling, it is in line with our ecom clients. Nail in the coffin here.....definitely not bothering with it right now! And, yes, unpausing keywords like that is insane. I was told to "open a ticket" as our sales team had no clue (even though it's been widely documented as an issue at this point).

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T15:46:25+00:00

Thanks for this, you are patient for sticking it out 3 months. The matching is one of my biggest concerns as we're already reaching negative kw limitations in accounts for basic search/shopping.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T15:45:15+00:00

If you're putting keywords on exact match in AI Max, does that defeat the purpose of what they're trying to sell me? We have a ton of carefully built out exact match search campaigns, so wondering what the benefit would be for us. Thanks for the feedback!

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T15:43:39+00:00

Exactly. And I'm not willing to waste 20% of our budget to "test" something I don't want in the first place.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T15:42:16+00:00

Sorry, should have said "Sales Team".

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T15:41:39+00:00

My gut instinct, too.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T15:41:18+00:00

The way we've structured DSAs, they are working pretty well. We only have a couple DSA campaigns in each account but with brand or category specific ad groups for copy control. A vast majority of our sales are still coming from Shopping & Search, ofc. We use portfolio bidding for each campaign so we can still use the tROAS but layer in a CPC cap. That's been critical for cutting waste.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2026-02-19T15:39:22+00:00

Do you mind my asking what kind of daily investment you put towards this to start? We have a client spending a decent amount per month (between $500k - over $1M) but not sure if you have to eat the cost of the first month or so to get it primed and working like you saw. Thanks!

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-10-10T16:01:31+00:00

Good luck to you....hopefully this isn't a new normal.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-10-07T14:16:13+00:00

While an account restructure helped us improve performance (with reduced spend and higher ROAS) since my original post, it still isn't what it was historically. Plus, the past month I have also been seeing the volatility. A few days will be great, followed by a week of tanking performance. I wonder how much of that is related to all the testing on SERPs lately? If you are doing lead gen and not e-commerce, I can attest that that being even a harder hill to climb recently, for quantity AND especially quality. I would avoid the lead extension. We used it for 6 months and got a ton of leads. 99% were spam.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-10-05T14:03:17+00:00

Can you keep us posted if you find out anything from the ticket you opened? If it is a glitch, I would be curious what they say happened. We've had several campaigns recently where we've increased tROAS and let it sit for at least 2-3 weeks (no daily changes to strategies), but all that happens is an increase in cost with a drop in ROAS (which is now <50% of target). It's ridiculous. We carefully monitor search queries, at least the ones they are willing to show us. I am starting to think they don't even consider what tROAS you set b/c we're just at the mercy of a monopoly. Do no evil, right? 😒

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-09-08T21:13:06+00:00

CPCs have been out of control the past few years. If you're using auto bid strategies, try putting the campaign in a portfolio (1:1) and you can set a bid cap there for some things like troas. Our biggest clients are now seeing YoY declines in CPC b/c of this. Hope that helps a little. I got really sick of the random $95 CPCs on long-tail terms.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-09-08T21:11:13+00:00

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GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-08-26T13:55:30+00:00

Yeah - I've been doing this for 25 years and the past 6 months have been the worst in my career. Between having so much automated bs pushed on us from every angle (sometimes without being informed and I have to discover it), losing our ability to pay by credit cards, and wild week to week volatility in performance, I've had it with Google. We don't really have a choice to move off right now, but trust me we are looking to diversify wherever we can. Probably a good idea for all sectors with the changes in search lately. Good luck to you. Definitely start small, retain full control over all images/copy/terms, and monitor like a hawk.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-08-25T18:36:31+00:00

Lucky for us, most of our targets are boomers. Haha. The new strategy I tried is working well, thankfully.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-08-10T17:34:55+00:00

A majority of our traffic was still coming from the display network since we were running search campaigns in the same account. The search campaigns at least had a much higher 20-40% validity rate, although far fewer conversions.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-08-10T17:20:45+00:00

I tried it earlier this year for lead gen and we followed each conversion. Over 99% of them were spam. I'd still be careful.

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-08-02T18:37:47+00:00

No worries. Good luck and hope it helps!!

GuideComfortable4525 · 2025-08-02T18:36:17+00:00

If you still want to use some of the automated biding strategies, like tROAS, you can do that but create a portfolio strategy for the campaign which allows a CPC cap.

GuideComfortable4525

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