Google Marketing Live Recap: AI Overviews, PMax reporting, AI Max, and more

Growing Ecommerce – The Retail Growth Podcast

Google is positioning AI at the center of its advertising ecosystem with substantial changes to search, shopping, and campaign management. The new "PowerPack" approach combines Performance Max, Demand Gen, and AI Max for search campaigns, though questions remain about how these components will work together without cannibalizing each other.
• AI Overviews and AI Mode represent massive shifts in search, with Google generating answers directly and using "query fanning" to search multiple queries behind the scenes
• Ads will be integrated directly into AI Overviews and AI Mode conversations, changing how users interact with advertising
• "Agentic" shopping experiences allow Google's AI to make purchases without users visiting websites, potentially transforming e-commerce
• Smart Bidding Exploration allows Google to miss ROAS targets by 10-30% to explore new queries, though the benefit to advertisers remains unclear
• New channel-level performance reporting for PMAX provides visibility into which channels and ad types drive results
• Enhanced New Customer Acquisition features offer more granular exclusion options for existing and warm traffic
• Asset Studio and Product Studio provide new creative tools for building and managing assets
• Commerce Media Suite introduces retail media network capabilities, allowing retailers to make first-party audiences available
• Three new AI Experts (Ads, Analytics, and Marketing Advisor) aim to provide conversational assistance for campaign management
Visit smarter-ecommerce.com to access resources like our State of PMax report, our brand versus non-brand PMax script, and our new PMax script to help understand channel performance reports.

Chapters

1. Google Marketing Live Overview (00:00:00)

2. The PowerPack: PMAX and AI Max (00:08:40)

3. Future of Search: AI Overviews & AI Mode (00:13:00)

4. Ads in AI and Shopping Agents (00:22:10)

5. Smart Bidding Exploration Concerns (00:25:30)

6. Future of Video and Creative Features (00:35:00)

7. Data Management and AI Experts (00:42:30)

8. Final Thoughts on Google's AI Direction (00:49:30)