← The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
Google AI Max & AI Mode (Episode 518)
00:31:07
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Transcript3 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hello and welcome to the paid search podcast. My name is Chris and today I have everyone's favorite guest, Joey Bidner. Joey's going to jump in and talk about AI Max and then at the end of the show, I'm going to give my thoughts on AI Max, AI Mode, and you're going to get not, I wouldn't say conflicting opinions here, but just two different sides of a coin. Let's call it that. Because I value all aspects of Google Ads. I think that everything in Google Ads is worth testing, experimenting, and Joey lays out some really good information how you can possibly use AI Max in a more efficient, more refined way. And I'm going to lay out some ideas a little bit later about how I feel about the whole thing. So stick around for that because it's a very different episode and you're gonna want to hear the amazing suggestions and tips and discoveries that Joey is going to share with us. So before I jump into Joey's discussion, I want to remind you about what makes this podcast possible. It is the generous sponsorship of Optio that makes me come back here every day because I'm a busy guy. You know, I don't just do podcasting for a living. I actually manage my clients accounts and, and I'm pretty busy. And you are too. And the reality is, is you can't just get more done because you want to get more done. You can't just get things finished because you try harder. Sometimes it doesn't happen. Sometimes you need a boost. Sometimes you need to get more done quickly with a power tool, with something beyond just your capabilities. And that's where Opteo comes in. Opteo is an online tool that can help you to boost your Google Ads, your meta, your LinkedIn, your Microsoft, your TikTok. It can boost your online marketing to a new level with its new launch of features that it's giving my listeners exclusive access to. So this is a new tool that you can try for free for 28 days. This is a very generous offer. It will not be on the table forever as has happened in the past. It will be gone. There's been offers that I've mentioned here and they have disappeared. So try this tool for free and you will find new ways to make your Google Ads and other marketing sources soar beyond what you've ever done before. That's optio.com PSP that's the URL O P-T E O.com PSP that's optio.com PSP PSP for that special 28 day free trial and try them out. You're gonna like it. All right, so let's move on to topic number one. Joey is going to discuss his results, his experiences with AI Max. He's going to mention something at the, at the top of his discussion, and I just want to make sure you understand what it is that he's saying. Because Joey's a smart guy. Sometimes he forgets not everyone is super young, smart and snappy as much as he is. So he's gonna say something called dsa. Okay. DSA is a dynamic search ad. And I don't, I think I mentioned it here in previous podcasts, but I will mention it again. DSA is a dynamic search ad that Google is sunsetting, as they call it. I call it. They killed it. I mean it, not beautify it. They killed it. It was an amazing, great little feature that we could use and Google is killing it. It's gone. So DSA is what he's referring to, and we're being given instead AI Max as a, you know, as a replacement for dsa. I won't get into it, but that's what Joey's referring to in his video and I wanted to give context on that. So without further ado, Joey.
- [04:48]
B
Hey, what's up, Chris? So today I'm going to be talking about aimax. And this is particularly important right now for two reasons. One, the depreciation of dynamic search ads. AI Max is taking over, but also what Google officially announced at Google Marketing Live not too long ago, where they said the only way for your ads to appear in AI related searches is through either PMAX or aimax. So I've gone through a series of rigorous tests with AI Max, and when I first tested it, it was pretty terrible. I was getting pretty bad results, especially in comparison to dsa. I love dsa, especially for Ecom. I've done a whole episode on it. I think it's the only way to run search ads for E commerce is with DSA because it gives you that granular, you know, product level search term that will match to a product page without some bloated structure. And when I first tested AI Max, I was not getting those results and I was extremely frustrated that they were sunsetting such a great product like DSA for this lesser than AI Max. Where the results I was getting was great searches, actually I was getting good quality search terms, but they just weren't matching to granular or appropriate pages. I was getting a product level search term, going to a homepage, going to a generic collection page. I wasn't getting that specific search term matching to the products or higher funnel brand searches matching to the collection of the brand just wasn't there until a couple weeks ago. Google released two new features in a IMAX that in my opinion have changed the game and I have results to prove it. They have given us brand inclusions and exclusions as well as URL inclusions. Now, brand inclusions and exclusions are pretty obvious. It's you can exclude your brand name, which sounds okay, which sounds good if you have an issue with your aimax campaign going after too much of your brand traffic. But what really piqued my interest was brand inclusions. And this is specifically useful for situations where you're an E commerce store that sells a brand that other E commerce stores sell, right? If you sell Nike shoes and you only want to appear for searches that are related to Nike shoes, not just high funnel shoe searches, then having a brand inclusion for Nike shoes is great. And I'll remind you why this is important. Because in AI max, yes, we still have keywords and you can put these keywords in exact match if you want, but by turning on that toggle switch for just turn your campaign into an AI max to turn on all the features for it, all your keywords get put into essentially broad match. Now, not visually, if you look at your keywords, they're still going to show exact match, but they're matching like broad match. So your exact match brand specific keyword can and will match to non brand terms unless you use something like the brand inclusion feature. Now I'll be honest, it's not perfect, but I will say with, you know, proven results that when I turned on brand inclusion, the search term report got way better in terms of focusing on the brand I'm trying to target. And I tried this on two different accounts. I tried this on an account that a fashion account that carries two specific fashion brands. And then I also tried it on an account that sells kitchen appliances, right? So fridges, dishwashers and think it's a massive industry. Broad match would go absolutely nuts if it was without a brand inclusion. But when I set the brand inclusions, I got a lot more targeted. Now the other feature that I absolutely love that really changed the game here was URL inclusions. Now what I do here is I take let's say a brand, let's say it's like Bosch fridges or you know, and I find the piece of the URL that is related to all my Bosch products that are consistent through all the bosh product pages. So for example, it was Bosch Fridge and I put that as a URL rule in this brand inclusion feature. And what it does is it tells the system that These are the URLs to go scrape for DSA. Because the dangerous part before without this was you were giving Google all these keywords, they were in broad match. And then when you turned on aimax, it just said, scrape my website and find me stuff with URL expansion that match to my users and, and that match to my search intent based off of these broad match keywords. And it was trash. But now that we have URL inclusions, we can get specific, we can give specific collection pages or, or again specific product pages that are rule based. Because if I have a 2000 products, I don't necessarily want to put 2000 URLs. I'll find the commonality between the URLs and put that as my URL exclusion. And I will mention the best part of all of this is that is both these settings are at the ad group level. So what does my structure look like? My structure is pretty simple. In this aimax campaign for I'll use the example of the home appliance store, I've got one campaign and an ad group for every brand. So I'll use the example of Bosch. Again, we sell Bosch fridges, dishwashers and stoves. So I've got those as keywords in the ad group. All those keywords mixed into this one ad group and only about five to 10 keywords. You don't need to go very crazy because they're broad match after all. And then at the ad group level, I've got my brand inclusion for Bosh and then I have that URL inclusion for the commonality of all the Bosch products. And again, the search term report looks excellent. And I'll remind everybody as well. In your search term report for an aimax campaign, it's different than your general search term report because you can switch this toggle that gives you what they call the term and ad combinations, which gives you the search term, the headline that is used, and the landing page. So this allows you to see, okay, what did somebody search, what did they see in the ad and where did they land? The important part that I'm looking at is the search term in the landing page and making sure that they correlate. And in this case, you know, I had some extremely granular searches where somebody would search for a specific model number and they would be taken to the model number product page. And that's because the this brand has the model number in the product page, details, you know, in the descriptions and titles and stuff. So that's how it matches. But, you know, this system so far is working well for me. Now, the other point of contention with AI Max is yes, they will be adjusting your ad copy, but it is something you can review and they gave us a few things to do to steer the ship. They're not great, but they help. And what we have is text guidelines. So we have term exclusions and message restrictions. I'm still not 100% sure how to leverage this with like full confidence, but the way I'm using it right now is I will look through my headlines and if something jumps out at me as bad, I'll put it as a term exclusion. So I'll give you an example. This account advertises in a few specific geographies and I was seeing some headlines for some towns that are close to the geo, but not quite the geo that we're targeting and part of. So I just use a term exclusion for that town that I saw in my ad copy. So in this case I'm not necessarily being proactive where I'm. I'm going to list out all the things I don't want. I'm. No, I'm being reactive. I'm going to use these to react to things I don't like, at least until I start getting a bit more understanding of how to use it because the message restrictions is a little bit confusing. But in the meantime, I'm just using it for, for my observational reactions. So I want to give you one more tip on how to test out AI Max and it is to remind you that you can use the experiment feature for an AI Max split test. But there is a huge caveat to consider here. If you look in your search campaign, you will notice that there is a button to Test AI Max. They kind of put it all over inside the campaign. If you, if you click into your campaign and you click Experiments, there will be a button even there that says Test AI Max and you click it and it'll take you through the same procedure as an experiment would if you were to go to the Experiments tab from the account level. But for whatever reason, when you do this through the campaign and you click that Test AI Max button, it creates a test without a control arm. By that, what I mean is when you create an experiment, usually it duplicates the campaign and splits. You can choose to split the budget 5050 and you have this control arm where you've got the duplicated campaign with the change, you know, it's got a little different icon and you can see the search terms that pertain to it, you can see the results that pertain to it, but that does not exist. When you apply this test AI max button in the campaign, even in the campaign through the experiments tab, it just gives you an experiment results line that says, oh, your experiment got X amount more conversions and all this stuff, but you can't validate it through the control arm. It's completely insane. And when I first tested this, it said that the con that the test arm or the AI max that I was testing, it said that it had these wildly good results, like 700% return on ad spend, all this stuff. And I was like, okay, well is it just getting all brand traffic? Like what's it doing? And I couldn't see it because there was no test and control arm. It was just my campaign, the search campaign and this results line. So if you want to do an experiment, which that's what I'm doing, I'm using the AB function experiment, go to the account level and make your experiment and start it from scratch. Don't be tempted by that click button of Test AI Max. And before I go, I want to talk a little bit about what's coming with AI Max to shopping because I have some speculation on what it might, what it might bring, as I. As I hope it's a little bit different. So aimax for shopping is likely just going to be your shopping campaign with DSA bolted onto it. Right? Which I'm all for because I love DSA for E commerce. But I hope, I hope that instead of the DSA system simply scraping the content on the page of the URL of the product that it is using, I hope that they are going to use the product feed as the data source for dsa. Because the one problem DSA has when it comes to E commerce is that it scrapes the content on the page for its search term matching. But page content is not always optimized for search term matching. And I'll give you an example. If we look at how we optimize our product fields in Google Shopping, you know, you've got 150 characters with all the different things in it that you want to match for. But a product title on a product page is never a long string. Big optimized thing, big optimized headline. It's usually just the name of the product, which often maybe has nothing to do with how people search. It's just what the brand names the product. So if Aimax for Shopping uses the product feed for its DSA component, I'm sold and I'm stoked. But we can only hope. We don't know. They have just said it's going to be DSA more or less. But if it's just typical DSA scraping the URL, then I think it's a bit lazy. I think it's Google just bolting on something from another campaign type without giving much actual thought into what would truly be unique and benefit us. But maybe that'll come down the line and I don't know. But I can hope. I am hoping we get DSA using the product feed. Anyways, that's it for me. Happy testing. I hope it goes well. And back to you Chris. See you next time.
- [19:30]
A
Okay, thank you Joey. I appreciate it. Really good information. And I would now like to not contrast so much, but just share the other side of the coin of how I see AI Max and how I see things on my end. So there's a link wherever you're listening or watching this podcast to a PDF that comes from Google so you can read this PDF. It's called AI Mode US Insights and it shares a ton of information about AI Mode. Okay. If you don't know what AI mode is, it's just the term for that little pop up thing that sometimes shows up on Google when you do a search. You can swap over to AI mode to essentially become, you know, to essentially engage with Google in a way that you maybe have never engaged with it before. It's more of a conversational search rather than a search query, you know, with a, with a traditional list of ranked websites and links. Now instead, AI mode is a conversational experience where you can gather information, research things and find out all kinds of stuff that you know, you would not necessarily get in a typical Google traditional search. So let me share a few things that you're not going to hear other places you're not going to hear this perspective because I'll tell you what, people really sing the praises of AI and I am not a conspiracy theorist. I actually really don't like conspiracies. I feel like it's a huge drain on, you know, one's energy to worry about where you're being cheated and lied to about things. I, I do not waste my time and energy with that kind of stuff. So don't think that I am a conspiracy theorist who feels that AI is evil, awful, you know, everything about it that is not at all how I feel. I use AI in my own life. But I draw the line whenever AI tries to bring about change just because it comes in as AI, just because it's AI, somehow it's better. And I'm going to lay out why. I am still not convinced that AI mode, AI max, that these things in Google can really provide the value and the success for everyday businesses that listen to this podcast. I know who listens to podcasts. I talk to these people all the time. You guys send me emails. You're my clients. You're people that book me for coaching sessions. I mean, I know exactly who you guys are. So that's who I speak to. I'm not speaking to that many of you out there that have millions and millions that are spent in Google Ads a year. Not a whole lot of you do that. I know some do. But most of the time I'm speaking to those that are spending tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands on Google Ads a year. And the reality is, the practical aspect of AI mode is an AI max doesn't fit with what you need to accomplish day to day. So let me say it this way. First of all, AI mode is about 1 billion monthly users, and that is pretty small compared to the 6 billion plus monthly users that are using Google search. So let's not assume that AI mode is in any way obliterating Google search. Traditional Google search is by far, and we're talking users here, not just searches, but actual users per month. Still, many, many more are using just regular Google search. They're typing short little searches, short little phrases, not interacting with a AI bot or AI mode to get conversational information. Okay? And so it's not as popular and not as widely used as you might think. And here's the part where I really deviate. More than one in six AI mode searches are non text. I'm going to say that again because I know a lot of you are probably working or driving or sometimes I've heard, sleeping while you listen to this podcast. So let me say that again. More than one in six AI mode searches are non text searches. So they are images, they are maybe voice searches. They are things that can in no way be targeted with precision in Google Ads. Okay, so searches with images are actually one of the fastest growing query types in AI mode. So how do you create a keyword? How do you target for an image for someone picking up their phone and just talking to AI mode on Google? How do you do that? You can't, you can't do it with any real precision. The only way that you can do it is by casting a wide net for extremely broad ideas. Furthermore, in AI mode, you can only really find certain types of queries because most of them incorporate informational data gathering types of things. In fact, the top searches in AI mode include these words. Find information, identify, explain and summarize. That is from the PDF that I referenced. AI mode us insights. That is directly from Google. Those are the most common words used in AI mode. Find information, identify, explain, summarize. How many of your converting searches out there have those words in them? Find, explain. No, no, they don't. They don't. And it is great that people can ask AI mode to summarize something or identify something. That's not how I sell garage door repair. That's not how I sell dog training services. That's not how I sell photography classes. That's not how I sell headshots. This is ridiculous to think that I could somehow throw a net over these extremely expansive searches and provide precise value. No, I don't think so. I do not think so. In fact, the most common first words in AI mode searches are what, how I is and can. I mean, I couldn't be less interested in searches that sound like this. Absolutely not. I mean, look at the quote from the Google CEO. The Google CEO. I'm going to read this straight from a blog post that he put out. He said, I'm quoting here, 10 years since we pivoted the company to be AI first. We still see AI as the most profound way to advance our mission and improve people's lives at scale. I don't freaking care. I don't care. You can improve people's lives and you can say all these kinds of PR things, but help me sell widgets, how does that help? You're improving people's lives by helping them to, you know, figure out how to diet better or what kind of shoes they should buy. I'm trying to sell photography classes. I'm trying to. I'm trying to sell, you know, certain widgets. I'm trying to get quotes for new roof repair. I mean, this is largely impractical. There is a huge opportunity in Google AI for expansion, but it's unlikely. Most of you are listening. Most of you that are listening are concerned with expansion. That's not the first word in your mind. Optimization is what's on your mind. You want to optimize. You don't want more searches, you want better searches, you don't want new ideas. You want to get phone calls, sales quotes, leads. Until we're offered more tools of optimization, AI mode, AI max are limited to only the accounts that are already hitting their goals and are now ready to expand. That is where AI max AI mode. I think those are where those real opportunities lie. And at this time I don't see that most of you listening would find value in it. Would find it to be a a an add on that would provide a lift to your campaign. Instead, I, in my experience for most campaigns have found it to be a drag. This is not a final verdict. This is a verdict for now. This is a verdict that I I find is temporary until things get better. I'm always willing to reassess and reevaluate, but for now these tools are expansive and not concerned with optimization. Remind you again optio.com PSP to get a free trial of their tool. I appreciate you guys considering that tool and therefore helping me to keep this podcast going. If you'd like to take another step to reach out to me, I am Chris Schaefer@chris schaefer.com. you can find me Reach out to me on my website, get help with coaching and management, whatever you'd like. Specifically with Google Ads. I work with small companies. I promise most companies I work with are not too small to work with me. I've had people be quite surprised. I'm quite willing to work with a lot of different companies as long as it's something that fits within my scope. And otherwise you'll find me right here every Monday at the paid search podcast. I'll see you then.