Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming pervasive in search engine results. In Google search, users often see AI Overviews from Gemini, Google’s proprietary AI tool, summarized in the prime real estate at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Paid search ads, once displayed in the top position, now sit below the AI Overview panel on the SERP, leading many marketers and agencies to wonder if AI is negatively impacting paid search campaign results.
Beyond the search results page, Google is also building and expanding AI and Machine Learning (ML)-based performance ad products across formats, bidding, and creatives. While these are major shifts affecting the planning, buying, and reporting of paid search media, AI can offer key advantages and insights to marketers.
As AI becomes further integrated into the search experience for both users and advertisers, brands can leverage cutting-edge tools to stay competitive in search. Read on for our tips to get the most out of Google Ads and Search Ads 360’s latest AI features.
Google’s generative AI offers a powerful solution to elevate search and Performance Max (PMax) campaigns, driving results, and streamlining workflows within the Google Marketing Platform. According to case studies from Google, advertisers using PMax campaigns saw revenue increases of up to 40%.
Generative AI empowers advertisers to optimize search ads with efficiency. Within Google ads or SA360, advertisers can leverage generative AI tools by providing key information about their offerings. Imagine a specialty coffee retailer that wants to generate relevant brand assets using this function. By inputting “Organic fair-trade coffee beans, Single-origin, small-batch roasted for optimal freshness. Sustainable farming practices and direct trade with Colombian farmers” into the prompt, the AI might generate a headline like “Experience the richness of Colombian Organic Coffee” and suggest image assets like a close-up of dark roasted coffee beans or a photo of Colombian coffee farmers.
By providing text prompts or uploading images into Google’s AI tools in Google Ads or SA360, advertisers can generate diverse, high quality headlines, descriptions and image assets for Google PMax and search campaign ads in seconds. This includes visually-compelling assets tailored to various formats and placements, helping to ensure campaigns resonate across a diverse audience. Previous campaign management and ad formats followed a manual process, with advertisers being held responsible for supplying a majority of the ad copy, images, and videos for Smart Shopping or other similar campaign types.
Asset variety is crucial for a successful ad campaign. According to Kantar, 50% of media impact is attributed to creative quality. Generative AI allows for hyper-personalization at scale, driving deeper engagement with target customers. While AI is a powerful tool, it augments, not replaces, creative control. Advertisers still provide the prompts, refine the outputs, and ensure brand consistency.
Currently, only U.S. advertisers can access Google’s generative AI tool for Performance Max in Google Ads or SA360. However, these features are expected to expand soon, giving global advertisers a competitive edge in the evolving search landscape.
AI driven formats in Search Ads 360 and Google Ads enable advertisers to increase search ad creative relevancy and personalization, without the heavy lifting of traditional text ads and extensive copy testing.
Google’s Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) use AI to dynamically serve the most effective ad combinations to users. RSA generates multiple creative variations to users based on their search queries, demographics, and interests. These ads reduce the time needed to test creative variations and how they resonate with users.
Dynamic search ads (DSA) on SA360 use Google AI to crawl an advertiser’s website, extract themes, topics, and relevant keywords and match search queries to the most relevant pages within the site. DSA ads significantly reduce manual processes for search advertisers by negating the need to develop extensive keyword lists and individual ads for keyword variations. By ensuring that each ad variation is dynamically matched to the most relevant search queries, the quality of each impression is enhanced which can translate into higher conversions and return on ad spend.
SA360’s Smart Bidding analyzes countless signals, including user behavior, context, and cross-channel performance data, to refine bids in real-time and achieve specific campaign goals. According to case studies from Google, AI driven strategies like Target CPA and Target ROAS can boost conversions on average by 25% and 12% respectively.
Advertisers can choose from a variety of AI powered strategies in Google Ads or SA360 and pair it with Google’s proprietary auction time bidding, boosting AI signals even further:
Unique to SA360 is AI-powered budget bid strategies (BBS) which empower advertisers to go beyond manual bidding by analyzing performance data across multiple search engines and automatically adjusting bids towards high-performing channels and keywords.
Budget-based bid strategies generate efficiencies and performance gains in three main ways. This bid strategy type minimizes manual budget and bid strategy processes, simplifying campaign management and frees up paid search marketers time for strategic planning. Second, BBS enables for quick enhanced campaign optimization across channels with predictive modeling which accounts for seasonality and other fluctuations. Lastly, this bid strategy allows for centralized budget management across multiple engines and tailor bid strategies for specific campaign goals.
To remain competitive in the new era of paid search, advertisers should take advantage of the AI-focused solutions now available in Google Ads and SA360. Since AI in the SERP results and ad formats are now the norm, testing and having an AI-inclusive paid media strategy and tactics is key to adapting to the changing search experience and standing out in the auction.
That said, strategy is still the primary driver of success. AI formats in paid search tools like Performance Max, and machine learning-driven bidding strategies are only as good as the data and assets advertisers provide the tools with. Leveraging data-driven experimentation and measurement is key to optimizing AI tactics, and marketers should continue to strategically test and evolve AI-based strategies.
Want to maximize AI-driven search performance? Connect with us to explore SA360’s AI features and how they can transform your campaigns.
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