I spent a week in Mountain View brainstorming with a lot of smart people who are hands-on in Google Ads every single day. One question kept coming back up, no matter who I was talking to: should AI Max be its own campaign type? And what exactly is the advantage of enabling it inside existing […]

A common scenario I run into constantly is the specialist who calls themselves “advanced” and then applies advanced tactics to an account that can’t support them. No matter how sophisticated the tactic is, if it’s applied in the wrong circumstance, it’s the wrong tactic (and I’ll challenge you being advanced). Automation becomes more valuable the

This is the biggest shift in Google Ads history. The move to mobile, the launch of Performance Max, the removal of average position, and the shift to Smart Bidding all dwarf what’s happening with AI in search. Thinking you can go about things the way you’ve always done them is a mistake. This doesn’t mean

My biggest takeaways from spending a week in Mountain View is that we are seeing the biggest shift in how you should work with Google Ads — ever. Search ads were built for a world where: The search query was short The answer was a list of links The ad was a few headlines, descriptions

Assessing your Google Ads agency is hard. Experts disagree on tactics all the time. Some love PMax; some hate it. But if you grade your agency on tactics, you’re focusing on the wrong thing. In my opinion, the tactical side is the least important part of the partnership. I’ve audited dozens of agencies and sat

I see it constantly. While we’ve embraced new approaches for Performance Max and Demand Gen, Search campaigns in most accounts are still built on a foundation of over-segmentation that reminds me of the early 2010s. It’s a relic from a different era, and it’s hurting performance today. These complex structures were born from a need

It feels like case study season at Google. My feeds are flooded with PDFs and carousels from massive brands touting incredible results from the latest Google Ads features. We’re seeing huge numbers from names like Nissan and L’Oreal, and with Q4 on the horizon, it’s designed to make you think you’re missing out. I recently

Ah, Google reps. The very words can make a seasoned PPC manager’s blood boil or a new advertiser feel like they’ve finally made it. The experience is all over the map, but if you’re reading this, you probably want to know how to stop them from wasting your time. Here’s the trap: if you flat-out

After managing millions in Google Ads spend, I see the same Performance Max mistake over and over again. Brands are sold on the idea that PMax is a full-funnel campaign, that they should consolidate everything into a single campaign and just let Google’s “advanced AI” figure it out. The pitch is always the same. First,

If you’re managing Google Ads accounts, you know the drill. A hundred different tasks are flying at you every week. You’re constantly feeling like you’re reacting to fires, and when you look back at your week, you’re left wondering where the time actually went. Sound familiar? What if I told you the secret to Google