Growing Ecommerce – The Retail Growth Podcast

The end of Dynamic Search Ads is here! Insights from 200+ AI Max campaigns

• Smarter Ecommerce • Season 4 • Episode 26

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In this episode of Growing E-commerce, Mike Ryan and Chris from Smarter Ecommerce (smec) tackle the massive news that DSA's time on Earth is limited. With DSA going the way of the dinosaurs, Google is pushing advertisers toward AI Max for Search. But is it actually a worthy replacement?

To find out, Mike breaks down the findings from his brand-new 18-page report, The Ultimate Guide to AI Max. After analyzing 1 year of data across more than 600 Google Ads search campaigns, the numbers tell a nuanced story about incrementality versus efficiency.

We cover exactly what AI Max is, how it overlaps with PMax and Broad Match, and the real cost of those "incremental" conversions. If you are a heavy DSA user, this is the exact data you need to start planning your migration strategy!

📊 Key Takeaways from the 600-Campaign Study:

  • The DSA Sunset: Google confirmed DSA will eventually be retired, making AI Max the logical testing ground for future-proofing your search strategy.
  • The Incrementality Reality: AI Max does generate more conversions (about 13% more on average), but it comes at a cost.
  • The Efficiency Trade-Off: Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) is typically 16% higher.
  • ROAS Volatility: While Google claims AI Max maintains similar efficiency, the data shows a very broad, flat distribution of ROAS outcomes—meaning active management is required.
  • Cannibalization Risks: 48% of AI Max users are also running DSA and PMax, leading to potential account bloat and self-competition.

🔗 Resources & Links:

About Mike Ryan:

Based in Austria and originally from Boston, Mike Ryan is the Head of Ecommerce Insights at Smarter Ecommerce (smec) with over ten years of experience in retail and PPC landscape. With a robust background spanning retail operations, product management, and digital ads, Mike leverages his multidisciplinary expertise to drive data-informed strategies that help online retailers optimize their performance in an increasingly competitive market.

About Christian Scharmueller:

As a seasoned veteran in the PPC and Ecommerce space, Christian Scharmüller serves as the CCO & Managing Director of Smarter Ecommerce. With over 12 years of

About Smarter Ecommerce (smec):

Smarter Ecommerce (smec) empowers e-commerce brands with AI-driven PPC automation that optimizes for profit and business outcomes while maintaining strategic control.

The platform activates first-party data - profit margins, customer lifetime value, and key business metrics - to automate campaign optimization toward goals like profitability and efficient growth, while detailed campaign insights provide full transparency and enable PPC teams to focus on strategic oversight rather than manual execution.

As a Google Premier Partner and three-time Microsoft Retail Partner of the Year, smec manages over €500 million in ad spend and drives €5B+ in annual e-commerce revenue for 350+ global retail clients including THG, Snipes, REWE, and Intersport.

Make sure to follow smec - Smarter Ecommerce for more performance marketing insights:

smec - Smarter Ecommerce: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/smarter-ecommerce-gmbh
Newsletter: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/newsletter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smarterecommerce/



Intro & The 18-Page "Ultimate Guide to AI Max"

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to another episode of Growing E-Commerce. I am one of your hosts, Mike Ryan, and with me today is Chris. The other one. It's a good one, Chris. There was a rare departure. And uh yeah. I won't say you let us down, but I let you down.

SPEAKER_00

And I I felt bad for it. That's why I'm back. Yes. But Mike, we have a massive topic at our hands today. Yeah. AI Max for search. Exactly. And you did it again. You you broke the internet. Yeah. What what did you publish?

SPEAKER_01

In our small small little bubble of the internet, yeah. Yeah, I mean we've talked about AI Max um on this uh podcast before, and I believe I teased that I'd be working on a larger report about it. So that's what I published. I published an 18-page report about um AI Max. Um we're calling it the ultimate guide to AI Max, which it is. If you see the PDF though, will tell you one year of AI Max for Google search. That's the title on there. But um don't undersell yourself, man.

SPEAKER_00

You're prone to that. Don't undersell this. Is a mess, it's the ultimate guide. I I really believe it.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you. I just feel like ultimate guide anyway reminds me a bit of like, you know, what everyone's calling their blog posts in like 10 years ago for SEO purposes. But yeah. So it has been, believe it or not, one year or longer since AI Max has been around. It's it doesn't feel like that long because it was in a very small pilot phase at that point, and it was called Search Max um back then. And so most advertisers have started to just get in touch with this um starting from like June last year or even October of last year, I think is when it really went general availability. Um, but it's been with us for a while now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Man, uh to the listeners, maybe you explain uh Eli5 mode. What what what is the IMAX for search? What's what's the what's the special things about it? Just just to set the stage and then go into some, from my perspective, super interesting findings.

Explain it Like I'm 5: What is AI Max for Search?

SPEAKER_01

Sure. Um so explain it like I'm five. Um AIMAX is basically it is not a new campaign type. It is a expansion layer. It's a combination of features that you can activate um on your classic keyword search campaigns. Um and the intention is, as I said, expansion. It's to get broader. Literally, there's a lot of broad match in there. Um and overall to increase your your query coverage and all that kind of stuff. Google says that the goal of that, of course, is to generate incremental conversions. And we don't mean in a term of marketing incrementality like MMM or any of that stuff, but rather just additional on top to what your campaign was doing before.

SPEAKER_00

We'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think there's plenty to talk about there. Um and they also promise it'll happen at a similar efficiency. Yes. That that's a very standard uh Google claim? Yeah. Their claims are almost always structured like this. They'll give you um a percentage uplift number, and then they'll say at a similar cost per acquisition or return on that spot.

SPEAKER_00

So Google has to has the key to solve probably one of the most underlying business issues, which is uh the curve of diminishing returns. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably the reason why Google is the best company in the world.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, well, let's get into that. We can challenge that claim a bit in a bit too. Uh we have some time here, but first, I mean you asked about um what uh what characteristics stand out. Well characteristics stand out, yeah. And I I I've made a table which we can throw on screen here too, and it's on page two of the report, um, which is it's just a tabular overview of all of AIMAX's features. And then we see um also PMAX, dynamic search ads, and broadmatch. We see um which of those technologies have dissimilar features or others. So in the end, um the goal there is to help you really understand everything that's inside of AIMAX and where are the overlaps or differences from the other technologies that might already and probably are running in your account.

SPEAKER_00

Maybe this leads me to one one of the criticisms. I don't know. I think it's it's fair to to look at a technology such as Amex or Search and to have an objective view in it. And not everything is gold, right? Yeah. I I I that uh that we want to put on Front Street by no mean means we want to shit on this campaign that yeah. I think there are advantages to it and there are certain things you have to consider. Yeah. One thing is the overlap with existing technologies, right? I think this is one of the major statements you made. Yeah, yeah. Uh, which made a lot of sense. Can you can you shed some light on it? Um what do you mean by that?

The Overlap Issue: Broad Match, DSA, and PMax

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for sure. Um I mean AI Max is in some ways just a repackaging of existing features. Even Google says this, they say yes, and that's their kind of official answer to this, is like, yes, it's a repackaging of broadmatch, DSA, some things we know from PMAX as well. Um, but it's also they make a case that's that it's more than that, and that kind of the um it's more than the sum of its parts. Um But yeah, I mean, if we look at uh like I found that so far, I mean, it's it's early, and so there could be a selection bias here, but um of the people who are using AI Max, many of them, in fact, almost all of them, are already using broad match. Yes. Um and and the biggest kind of value proposition should be more for advertisers who are using exact match and phrase match because there's more for Google to do there. There's more expansion for them to deliver. Um and then there's also a very high overlap with DSA users and PMAX users. So actually, of the advertisers that we see using AI Max, about 50% of them, 48%, half of them, are using DSA and PMAX. And PMAX. And AI Max.

SPEAKER_00

Now let's elaborate on that. Uh what what what does that mean in in general? We we we had this discussion before, right? Um is there because if there's an overlap and and Google handles this perfectly for you, um I would say, okay, fine. I I I I could care less. But there's this theory that it does something to your CPC dynamic. Yeah. Is this still still something you you're concerned about? Is this still something or is this something which came out doing the analysis? Because I think this is one of the most urgent questions, right? If I have three technologies running in parallel, which have basically the same core, yeah, am I driving my CPC? Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

What's your take on that? Um it's tricky to know, and I I actually I'm slightly less concerned about that here than I am with um with like, for example, when we talk about PMAX and shopping overlapping, because um there are very few building blocks that go into a shopping unit. Uh there's d PMAX and shopping are are building from the exact same feed, they're targeting the exact same landing page, the title will be the same, everything's gonna be pretty much identical. And so um, you know, these kind of conflicts in all of Google's technology, when this happens, it gets solved by ad rank. And that looks at stuff like your the predicted click-through rate, your um ad quality, the landing page quality, all of this stuff. And in that case, it's that stuff is all very identical. And so almost the the only other different differentiating factor at that point is the bid. The bid. Yeah. And that does certainly come up here once again, because we're we're looking at the same conflict and stuff like that. But with these campaign types, they are doing a lot more stuff dynamically and on the fly. Um, there's the ability to customize text, there's landing page selection that can go on and stuff like that. And so um these campaigns can be targeting the same query, but they can be having different kinds of outcomes and ultimately what they're gonna serve against that query. And so I think that this slightly gets mitigated. Yeah, because there are more facets that really could get weighed against. So on that side, um, I think it's a it's a positive, but the risk is still there. Remains. Um Google denies this. They say that self-competition will never happen, but I I'm just I'm just not 100% sure about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What worries you more than uh regarding this? Regarding this overlap?

SPEAKER_01

Um well, it's at this, these are very AI forward or let's say automation forward uh technologies. And so you don't you do have multiple paths into the same auctions, which could result in some bidding problems, but in general, um you don't know which campaign is going to serve and why. Uh because they they could they can reach different decisions for some reason that we that we won't understand, that might not be understandable. Um and you know, the result is that you can be serving for the same search term, you can be serving from this campaign today and another campaign tomorrow, and this tech technology today and another technology tomorrow, and that in some cases could be up to three different technologies. And so I think that's just bad on account hygiene. I think that makes it hard to um to do your reporting and to analyze. There's an element of predictability that's lost. Um and furthermore, you know, these campaigns run on smart bidding, which thrives on conversion volumes. The more conversions consolidated in one place, the better it is. And so there could be places, uh cases where you are um because of the sort of lottery that's occurring about which campaign is going to serve, uh, you're potentially splitting up your conversion volume between these different places unnecessarily.

The Big Question: Does AI Max Drive Incremental Revenue?

SPEAKER_00

Unnecessarily, because it's a similar technology, yeah. But you're limiting the the velocity and the volume smart being takes decisions on. Which is ultimately not the best practice. Yeah. Alright. And the other thing uh makes a lot of sense, Mike. I mean, the other thing which which was um kind of stunning to me. I mean, we we talked about that several times. By the way, a fun story. Uh I had a think tank session at uh uh uh an event uh two weeks ago uh in London, and I was allowed to talk to um C level. They let you talk to C. They let me talk to C level, and I was very, very proud of uh standing in front of them. So we and we talked uh one one topic was also the future of search, and we talked about the power pack of Google, demand chain, PMEX, and AI Max Search. And sure. We briefly uh showed them what each campaign type is good at. Yeah. And AI Max of Search, and you tackled this in your your great content piece here, is is designed to to drive incremental revenue. Yeah. Yeah. I pitched that, we talked about that. And man, for the C level, it was a no-brainer, right? In terms of hell, I hope we already use this technology. Yeah, what what is there any downside to it? And then we started the discussion, right? Yes, incrementality, but incrementality costs you. Uh because the Google claim is, and maybe we can jump uh to to to this topic now, is AI max search drives incremental revenue for uh at the same return adsman levels.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Is that true? Because again, if this is the case, it's an it's a fucking no-brainer to activate that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um well, yeah. I mean, so their specific claim is that it generates uh 14% more conversions or conversion value.

SPEAKER_00

This is also funny to me.

SPEAKER_01

It's a little bit of a red flag to me because those two those the mechanics of those are different from each other. Highly different. Yeah. Um, so it's funny that they use that they kind of suggest they're interchangeable somehow.

SPEAKER_00

Um there have been uh marketing claims for other campaign types which were separate, uh right differentiation.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, if you look at exactly if you look at broad match, which is one of the core technologies here, they make a different claim there. And I don't remember the exact numbers, but they say like it will deliver like, let's say, 12% more conversions and whatever more conversion value because you know there are average order of value effects and stuff like that. Which kind of customers are you acquiring um with these incremental which is interesting in itself that they are not differentiating and yeah. And then they say that your that your ROS or CPA will will be flat basically or similar. Which is also interesting. Yeah, and uh similar is a kind of a cushion word because what who are we to say what is similar or not?

SPEAKER_00

Um and Mike, to make this clear, I mean if if this is the case, then it's a no-brainer, right? This this this is a this is a campaign time everyone should activate right away.

SPEAKER_01

If you can get the the you know 13 or excuse me, 14% more conversions at the same efficiency.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I I mean, where's the party? But how do you see it? How do we see it? How what's the what what what what is the number?

The Hard Data: 600 Campaigns Analyzed (13% Conversions vs 16% CPA)

SPEAKER_01

So you know, I I I was suspicious of this claim from the start because it doesn't really make sense. You know, it doesn't know follow what we know about um saturation curves, which is the you know the marketing jargon for the law of diminishing returns. Um every time you throw another euro or dollar a pound of cost in, you'll get something back, but it's gonna be less than the dollar before. Exactly, at a certain point. Keyword search is a very, very mature technology. So it's not like it's just waiting to be fixed or something. People have been using this for a long time. Um and I don't believe that most advertisers have these huge unmet pockets of demand that can be efficiently tapped just like that. Uh but uh I that's just me and my feelings. Um so I looked at the data and um, you know, just to help quantify that, we we looked at over 600 search accounts, but the AI max adoption is is still only about 16%. So we're talking about like a hundred of these accounts or so. Um and it's not the world's largest sample, to be fair. And it can be biased because our advertisers are more mature. Um they have us. But but uh anyway, what I found is that um indeed uh it it's it's generating more conversions, and um, you know, the number that I arrived at is 13%, very comparable to Google's claim. And so that's great.

SPEAKER_00

Shout out to Google. Yes. I would be interested in where where this incrementality is coming from. Yeah, but that's another layer. That's the next layer. Let's get to the next. But let's stick to it. So there are there are more conversions.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, there are more conversions. Now let's talk about efficiency. And I was unfortunately unsurprised to learn that the efficiency was not given. Um, you know, the there's a range of outcomes, and I highlight that in the report. You can see the ranges because I I think I hate when people put out these singular monolithic numbers because that doesn't represent reality. And and we'll see that especially when it comes to ROAS. Um so cost per acquisition is typically 16% higher. Um and that's not nothing, and it's it's not nothing.

SPEAKER_00

But at the same time, if if I were to run an online shop and I'm I'm in dire need of top line growth, I think there are worse cases, right, to be made. I mean 16%, 14% more revenue at 15, 16% more costs.

SPEAKER_01

I I don't want to demonize um I don't want to demonize AI max here because I think we're all grown-ups in the room. We know that more conversions cost more. For sure. Um and I just wish that Google wouldn't make these claims like they don't. I think that's the point here. Yeah. And so it's a that at that point, it's a trade-off. And we know the volume efficiency trade-offs. That is the name of marketing. Yes. Um and so there are gonna be advertisers where that trade-off makes sense, or they're gonna experiment and see where they can push us, how can it be optimized? AI Max is probably still not the most optimized uh yet at this point. So let's see where we can go with it. But um it does cost more port per new conversion.

SPEAKER_00

And uh then the the next thing is that maybe may I just jump jump in here with with with uh one one thing, which is which is which is real and it's happening on a daily basis. Yeah, we talk to clients a lot, and of course, AI Max Search is one of the campaign types we we talk about uh as an option, yeah, to drive growth. The issue is that of course a lot of clients ask that question. Okay, what what's the promise here? Yeah, uh, and I I think, and this might be a message to Google. Uh the question is what what is the message here? Because if if we play, if we execute the playbook of Google, yeah, it's like 16% more revenue at the same revenue uh or raw levels, these expectation levels are mostly not met. And it creates unnecessary friction. That's what I don't get, right? Sure. You frame it differently, more closer to reality, and and this campaign will be fine.

SPEAKER_01

I know. I mean that you know the saying it's uh happiness is expectations minus reality. Absolutely. And this is a per like why set that expectation? Expectation spot um yeah, and then we get to ROAS, and uh and in fairness, you know, um most of these advertisers are not using target CPA bidding. They're using they they want to maximize their conversion value or the revenue, and then you're applying a ROAS target to that. Um so if we look at ROAS, it's interesting because um at face value, you know, it's 0% difference um from the campaign average, which is what Google is kind of claiming. But again, I could leave it at that, you know, and say Google's case study came true. It's beautiful, it works perfectly, but then I have to deal with the shattered expectations. Yes, that's um because these these singular numbers like that, it again it hides the range of outcomes. And there's a very broad range. There are people who have they're they're getting higher than average um campaign row like their AI max rose is higher than their campaign average. And there's many advertisers who are way below. And the distribution, like it's a broad range. The distribution is rather flat. It's not like everyone's in a bell curve right around 0%. It looks like you have pretty equal odds of having a good outcome or a bad outcome. And I might add that probably varies month per month. Yes. There's probably a level of volatility in here.

SPEAKER_00

And because it's not the perfect bell curve, I think it's it it would be a smart move uh for Google to just be closer to reality. Yes. And again, the campaign type, and I think the technology is good and it drives incrementality, which every retailer is looking for.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00

And at good efficiency levels. It's just um I think this is the challenge we run into to to frame this correctly, because the reality is is not precisely the claim of Google gear.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes, exactly. And it's a nuanced message. It's a nuanced message. Yeah, but it nuances matter in my own. Yeah. Like, you know, it you can it's fine to put out that uh that slide for AI Max from like, you know, the Google sales numbers with no nuance. But then six months down the line, the nuance is gonna suddenly materialize. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And by the way, ladies and gents, this is coming from a former sales guy, right? So I I would be perfectly happy with that claim. Uh but now since I'm I'm also more responsible for for client development in general, I think this claim uh puts pressure on this campaign. And it it's it's not necessary.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00

Mike, uh another question because I think it this is of course now uh another nuance we should we should have an eye on. Um the incrementality. So it drives incremental revenue, which is great. Um it at at at efficiency levels which are good, but not precisely the claim of of meeting the claim of Google. Let's jump on uh the the incrementality. Because my question would be as a client, and you're selling this to me now, okay, where is this incrementality coming from? Mike, help me out here.

Where Are the Incremental Conversions Coming From?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly. Um well let's first off mention that um it's very possible for AI Max to find these new queries in high-intent pockets of demand, specifically your brand traffic or your competitor brand traffic. We've seen that coming up um more often. But you know, they have really great uh ad group level, so quite granular brand controls. Like that's mu that's more granular than what you've got in um in performance max, or you can only do these things at the campaign level. So there are controls in there in their credit. So that you can yeah. I mean, I think every problem that comes up for A for AI Max can largely be mitigated, which is something, again, speaking for it. But uh a concern that I have that's really hard to get to the bottom of, too, is it goes back to the technological overlap we talked about before. Um like these these new conversions, like I mentioned that the traffic could just shift between campaigns with very little oversight or control. Um you know, is it possible that some of the stuff that's bubbling up in AI in AI Max was previously being captured through P Max or through DSA or you know, like so that is a concern that I think. Is hard to put to bed.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. And I mean here the question would be w were these conversions maybe covered by PMEX at the better efficiency level? That's uh yeah, it's another um uh I I think these concerns concerns are real, yeah. Yeah. Um maybe Mike, just just uh for for my understanding that the untap high-intent search careers with regards to your brand with regards to brand-related uh uh search careers, um competitor-related search careers. What is your take on that in general? Because I I mean I I I I think if if if it drives incrementality for me as an online shop responsible, I I I I think I would be fine, but is it really is it really that easy? Um or are there things to consider?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um I mean with your own brand, it it just depends an awful lot on your setup and stuff like that. Um you know, a reason that it might do that is is because it does have a broad match component. And so if you're um maybe you're not targeting your brand terms with broad match, you might only be using some exact match or phrase match things um because you're trying to control that a bit more, whatever. Um AI Max is gonna jump in on that and offer this broad match targeting right on top of those. So you can, of course, you can control that if you don't like it. Yeah. Um, but that is is one of the clearest kind of ways for that to happen. Um because you might, you know, it's always some people are very resentful of having to pay for brand traffic and stuff like this, like all the Google tax and so on. Uh, we've probably talked about on here before. I I like to keep brand traffic um just isolated so that it can be measured separately and not mixed in so that it can be budgeted separately, whatever the case, you'll you'll probably have your own strategy for that. Um, and so you just need to understand that if you're activating AI Max, you that's something you need to watch out for to understand the in interactions there. Um and then when it comes to competitor brand terms, this is again, it's it's a very strategic question. And um it could be that you are not targeting any competitor terms in your in your in a given campaign or ag group or whatever. And it is um, you know, it is somehow treating a competitor term as synonymous with your brand, or it's or it's finding different things. Like it's just digging up that competitor traffic because it's not being met. Um and this is again like some people, they there's kind of a gentleman's agreement with competitors. Exactly. I'm not gonna bid against you, you know, because they don't want to start a bidding war. Um, or they might have a dedicated competitor campaign, it could be totally different. But again, they they have very specific controls and targeting things in place there. And so the question is, is that the appropriate place for AI Max to be? Is that where you want to lay a run expansion? So you if you're gonna apply AI Max to some of these highly strategic, more targeted campaigns, you need to think about that. Yes. And also even if you don't, you need to verify is AI Max doing this kind of activity? Yes. Um, because it it's it's all manageable, it just needs to be managed.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. And this is I think this is one of the most the yeah, most positive things about AI Max. All all the potential shortcomings we're talking about here are mm-mitigable, right? You you can you can do something about it. And uh this this is the positive thing here, for sure.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um I I think it's it's not a perfect technology, but uh it's you know, it's it's at a very good starting point compared to the way PMAX started, for example. Um and it's not gonna be it'll be a moving target just like all of Google's technology, they'll improve it. So I, you know, I have mixed feelings about it. There's stuff that I don't love about it, there's things that make me unsure. Um especially these cross-campaign interactions and effects that are really hard to know. Um but but ultimately I think it's worth experimenting with.

SPEAKER_00

I think this is the statement. Uh we we have to also with with and to our clients that it's it's a a good campaign type. Uh the core is is good. You you have controls, you can mitigate a lot of the risks we laid out today. And again, there is there is a potential that it really drives incrementality for you. Yes. Um and I think this should also be the message, right, to our listeners. It's certainly worth uh exploring. Yeah. But it's not the one-click like experiment and just activate it and let it run. Yeah. This is not the way to go.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, we've been talking from the perspective of, you know, we have mature search practices in place, our clients do. Um, but there's also there are going to be advertisers um that have more primitive search builds, which is okay, uh, no judgment. But and it, you know, Google's claim is that you'll get a much stronger effect here. And it's probably true. I mean, we saw with PMAX search, you know, we had um we had uh clients who don't have the most advanced search setup, and they're you know, it's a question of effort, do they want to do it, whatever? And PMAX was doing a lot for the like against that more primitive setup, not to uh put it in negative terms, but uh a more basic starting point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

No makes sense.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Mike, given given the time is flying, one last thing, and I think we we kind of broke the news in one of our last episodes anyway, but it's also I think part of of um of uh this uh document you published. We talked about this overlap with basically two very similar uh technologies, which is PMAX and DSAs. Yes. DSAs are are going to be the dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I said yeah, exactly. They're going the way of the dinos, I said. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00

Which is again, uh we're happy that the dinosaurs exist exactly. So it was good for for our species. No, but again, this this this is this will happen. Uh and I think this is is a big message, right? It's especially for for AIMAX for search.

BREAKING: Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) are Officially Sunsetting

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes. Yeah, to reiterate that if you haven't listened to the last episode or you're joining us the first time or anything, um yeah, dynamic search ads will be sunset. And we don't know exactly when, but um that Google has has confirmed this to us in public so we can talk about it not violating any NDAs or anything. But um uh the implication of that is of course that um you should start uh when you're thinking about testing or experimenting with AI Max. If you are a heavy DSA user, that is the perfect place to start. Yes, yes, yes. Big news. It is.

SPEAKER_00

But there's no timeline, right? It it can be 2026, end of 2026, RATA 2027.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, Google Google describes it as a long-term goal, which is fascinating. I I think they've taken that stance with um like because DSA has had already for two years or or maybe longer, you've been able to my voluntarily migrate DSA to PMAX. Yes. And so I think it's long-term in that sense. They're they might not ever force an upgrade. We don't know yet how they're gonna approach it.

SPEAKER_00

But maybe the change priorities So I I mean, yeah. Again, if i if if they really want to push the power pack and the power pack consists of PMAX, and the IMAX or search, yeah. I think DSAs they will do something about it. Even if if it's not the ultimate sunset. But yeah, there are other ways for Google to just make it a less of of an important campaign type.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for sure. And uh one place I always listen, I I well, I always get the earnings transcripts from Google Alphabet, and uh I have some keywords that I do a command F on to go find them. Yeah, and I I look for AI Max, of course, and uh you know from the last earnings call, it was it was not very present at all. The one before it was highly present. Um, but so you know, when you see the execs talking about a Wall Street, uh there's a sign there. There is a sign. There is a sign.

SPEAKER_00

No, for sure. And uh by the way, when when we uh were at Dublin uh a couple of months ago, we talked to high level XX, and yeah, yeah, this is the future. Uh so it's here to stay anyway, that's for sure. Um yeah. Any any any last message to listeners?

Outro: Download the Free AI Max Report

SPEAKER_01

Uh well the last message is to please go read the full report. Yeah, it's it's worth it. Yeah. Um it's it exists in two forms. There's uh the long form article that I wrote, um and which you'll need a coffee for maybe, but uh if you if you um want something more skimmable, we have a PDF that is super nice looking. And I actually consider it like the the canonical version of the report. Um it's very nice looking. It's it's uh really to the point, so it's a great way to read the report. And I also published um a script that helps you get more from your AI max reports. Um so it's it's three pieces of content all wrapped together and it's all free. We tried to add a lot of value with this. We work hard on this stuff, so please check it out.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, ladies and gents. And I read it, I read the long copy, so to speak, after a very, very long day back from London, uh lying in my bed, and I didn't I didn't fall asleep at all. I wasn't I wasn't even close to bottom. That's the greatest. Can you imagine that? Read no, I'm I'm not kidding. I mean, uh reading a long copy text about the Amex was served. That is it it it kept me, it really it's a great article, a lot of findings. Yeah, yeah. Mike, uh a shout out to you and to the team. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01

Uh yeah, yeah. The team worked worked super hard on this, and I I really try I reject the philosophy of writing at a fifth grade reading level or whatever. I keep your sentences as short and dumb as possible. I do not believe in that at all. Um, I think people like to read real sentences.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes, even late night in bed. No, no, really. Great content piece. Uh and this is what what makes me proud of being part of this company. This is this is really uh uh next level. Uh great job.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thanks very much, and we'll leave it on a high note because we usually struggle to finish. Make it better than this, right? That's right. Then thank you, Chris. Um and thanks everyone for listening. This has been another episode of Growing Ecommerce brought to you by Smarter Ecommerce, also known as SMEC. You can learn more at smarter e commerce.com. And as always, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or rating, give us a shout out on social media, and definitely check out the ultimate guide to AI Max. Thank you. We'll see you next time.