Is your account ready for Google AI Max? A pre-test checklist

AI Max is Google’s latest foray into semi-keywordless targeting. 

While you need keywords for the system to have a starting place, Google uses signals beyond keywords in deciding how to show ads to searchers.

In accounts with a strong history of broad match success, AI Max can be highly effective at finding new conversions. 

If accounts are not well-optimized or have not been successful with broad match, AI Max can be a huge money pit.

To clear up a rumor before we get into the data: you do not have to use AI Max to have ads appear in AI Overviews. 

Broad match keywords can show ads in AI Overviews regardless of your AI Max usage. 

We’re looking at AI Max as a conversion expansion option, not just an option to show in AI Overviews.

This article examines the review steps you should take before you decide to test AI Max.

What to check before enabling AI Max

Accurate conversion tracking 

Your conversion tracking must be accurate, deduplicated, and focused on business outcomes. AI Max optimizes toward what you have defined as success. 

If you aren’t tracking all your conversions, or if your conversions are inflated, AI Max will be working from inaccurate data and making poor decisions.

Automated bidding with a conversion-focused strategy 

Broad match only works well when you have a bid strategy that is focused on conversions, such as:

Our experiments with AI Max have shown that it is much more predictable with one of the target options (Target CPA or Target ROAS) than with the max bid options (Maximize conversion value or Maximize conversions). 

Since the Max conversion options are meant to get you the most possible, regardless of the CPA or ROAS, they will often continue to spend your budget when the next set of conversions could have exceptionally high CPAs or very low ROAS.

If you use AI Max with one of the max bid options, pay close attention to your budget and the AI Max data.

Conversion volume

Technically, you can enable AI Max without any conversions for a campaign. 

However, with under 30 conversions per month, AI Max has been highly erratic. 

At over 100 conversions per month, it has done well more often than not, assuming you have had success with broad match in the past. 

In general, you will want to test AI Max in campaigns that have at least 30 conversions per month.

If you are going to test AI Max, starting with non-brand campaigns that have a high conversion volume will usually give you a better introduction to AI Max’s possibilities for your account.

No impression share lost due to budget

If you’re already losing impressions due to your budget, your handpicked keywords will receive even less budget if you enable AI Max. 

The goal is to spend as much as you can on your top keywords, and then have AI Max experiment with the budget we can’t spend. 

If you are already losing impressions due to your budget, then enabling AI Max usually results in poorer performance.

Have proven broad match success

AI Max will treat all of your keywords as broad match, and then expand even further than your broad match keywords. 

If you haven’t successfully used broad match, then enabling AI Max will be a waste of money.

You should first ensure that broad match can work for you, which might require reorganizing ad groups, testing new ads, and optimizing your landing pages. 

Only after you have consistently seen good results with broad match should you try AI Max.

Dig deeper: How to tell if Google’s AI Max for search is actually working

Should you use URL expansion? 

When you enable AI Max, you can expand URLs to other pages on your website. 

This means that Google can pick any page of your website to use as a landing page when AI Max triggers an ad.

Google allows you to exclude URLs. Most sites should exclude:

• Help files and support pages.
• Pages not built for conversions.
• Pages that do not have conversion tracking enabled.
• FAQs.
• Blogs.
• Old landing page tests that are still live.
• Old website designs that are still live.

A few people have found success with using AI Max with blogs and support pages. However, these seem to be exceptions more often than the standard result.

AI Max has struggled when there are many geographic landing pages. 

We’ve seen accounts that target different geographies by campaign, and each campaign has its own set of landing pages. 

AI Max has routinely mismatched the campaign’s geographic target with landing pages intended for other geographies. 

For example, your California campaigns are sending all of their traffic to landing pages dedicated to Texas traffic.

If you want to use AI Max URL expansion, and you have landing pages dedicated to various geographies, you will need to exclude all the landing pages that are irrelevant to the geography of your campaign.

For companies that create dedicated landing pages for each campaign or ad group, I have yet to see an example of AI Max finding better landing pages.

In every example, AI Max’s URL expansion has needed to be turned off. Eventually, this option might work for advertisers, but I have yet to see that happen.

You can review the URLs that Google is using and exclude them. If you turn on URL expansion, you will want to regularly review these URLs.

Dig deeper: AI Max in action: What early case studies and a new analysis script reveal

Should you try automatically created assets? 

My great hope for AI Max is the automatically created assets. 

I wish I could enable this only for extensions. AI Max can help you scale messaging tremendously. 

It can go through all of your ad groups and automatically create sitelinks and callouts at the ad group level. 

This level of customization is one that many advertisers never have time to fully explore.

We had a client who enabled this feature, and suddenly, all their sitelinks linked to pages that were irrelevant to the keywords. 

We’ve seen other clients use this feature, and their callouts improved dramatically. 

Google still has a ways to go in how they auto-create assets, but this is a feature I have high hopes for.

Unfortunately, you can’t enable this feature for only ad assets (extensions). If you enable automatically created assets, Google will create additional RSA assets for you.

These assets can cause customer confusion by:

• Making promises your brand doesn’t meet.
• Using messaging that isn’t compliant with the law for regulated industries or doesn’t follow your brand guidelines.

You can write guidelines for how you want your ads to appear and rules on what shouldn’t be used. 

If you’re going to have Google automatically create assets, you’ll want to add guidance on how the ads should be created.

Note that term exclusions and text guidelines (Google’s official names for these features) don’t appear to be enabled in all accounts right now and may still be rolling out to advertisers.

Overall, Google’s auto-generated RSA assets have a poor track record, and if you enable them, you will want to regularly review what Google is creating on your behalf.

How to test AI Max

Since Google has a history of matching broad match keywords to other brands and generic keywords, AI Max has been very inconsistent with brand keywords.

I’d suggest starting with your top non-brand keywords to test AI Max. 

For most brands, there are more conversions to be had in non-brand expansion than in finding more people who are already searching for your brand.

AI Max can be enabled at the campaign or ad group level. 

One of the best ways to run a limited test with AI Max is to enable it only in a few ad groups that have a lot of conversion data and a successful history with broad match.

In the interface, enabling AI Max for only a few ad groups is painfully slow. 

You have to enable AI Max at the campaign level, then go into every ad group and turn it off where you don’t want it enabled.

The Google Ads Editor lets you turn AI Max on or off at the ad group level.

If you want to test AI Max in only a few ad groups, then use the editor for your initial setup.

Dig deeper: When to trust Google Ads AI and when you shouldn’t

Is your account ready to test AI Max?

Google has long sought a keywordless targeting option for search. Its first step was Performance Max. 

AI Max is another foray to introduce advertisers to the idea that they don’t have to choose every keyword in their search campaigns.

Like all Google Ads products, they usually perform poorly when first launched. 

After a few years of data gathering, refinement, and additional advertiser controls, these products often prove successful.

AI Max is still a new product. Some accounts have had success with it. Others have only found failure. 

As with everything Google Ads-related, you should test it before widely adopting it.

The best way to test AI Max is to find non-brand ad groups with high conversion volume and a successful history with broad match keywords. 

Perform limited tests in these ad groups. If you find success, you can expand the ad groups that use AI Max.

During your tests, you must review your search terms, URLs, and auto-created assets. 

If you are not going to add these tasks to your workflow, then you are not ready to test every AI Max feature.

AI Max’s potential is enormous. However, it isn’t a good solution for everyone. Its ad writing can be quite poor. 

The new search terms can be hit-or-miss. You must babysit it. However, the time savings and potential are undeniable.

While I believe there is a bright future for AI Max, you must first ensure you complete all steps to verify that your account is ready to test it. 

If you follow the steps outlined in this article, you’ll know if you’re ready to test AI Max and see what these new campaign options can do for you.