Google AI Max is a comprehensive suite of targeting and creative features that leverages AI for Google Ads to optimise your ads in real time, tailor your creative message to reach your customers and drive more value to your business.
AI Max serves as a continuous optimisation layer for your search campaigns. By processing real-time signals, it automatically refines your targeting and creative delivery, ensuring that your account achieves peak optimisation with less manual effort. This systemic approach to Google Ads optimisation helps you capture high-intent traffic while maintaining strict brand and geographical controls.
This article explains how the two main features of AI Max – search term matching and asset optimisation – work and lists all available features in AI Max.
For subtitles in your language, turn on YouTube captions. Select the Settings icon found in the video player, then select Subtitles/CC and choose your language.
On this page
- Search term matching
- Asset optimisation
- Features available in AI Max
- Upgrading existing campaign settings to AI Max
- Tracking parameters and AI Max: Best practices
- Troubleshooting dynamic landing pages
- Frequently asked questions
Search term matching
Turning on AI Max will turn on search term matching for your campaign to enhance reach and optimisation. You can toggle it off in the ad group settings.
Benefits
| Incremental reach, performance and optimisation: With search term matching, you can expand upon your existing keywords using broad match and keywordless technology to find more relevant and high-performing search queries. AI for Google Ads will learn from your current keywords, creatives and URLs to optimise which relevant searches your ads appear on, capturing queries and conversions that you might otherwise miss. | |
| More control: AI Max comes with new controls that give you the precision that you previously used keywords for. Exclusively in AI Max for Search campaigns, locations of interest help you reach specific customers based on their geographical intent at the ad group level. With brand controls at both the campaign and ad group level, you can specify the exact brands that you want your ads to be associated with or prevent your ads from appearing alongside specific brands. | |
| More transparency: Headlines and URLs in the search terms report give you a clearer view into customer ad journeys. The optimised asset reports show you how your assets are performing against KPIs like spend and conversions, not just impressions. You'll have the option to remove any generated assets or specify where you'd like to send your customers with URL controls. New match type values for AI Max and 'source' columns provide insights into why your ads matched. |
Asset optimisation
Asset optimisation is a panel of campaign-level settings that delivers more tailored creative messaging at scale. It includes text customisation (formerly known as automatically created assets) and Final URL expansion settings. Turning on AI Max will turn on text customisation and Final URL expansions for the campaign to optimise the user experience. You can toggle them off individually in the campaign settings.
Benefits
| Optimised performance: Google automatically sends users to the landing page from your domain that is predicted to perform best and serves relevant ad copy customised to user intent. This unlocks new user journeys that can drive incremental performance. | |
| More relevant ads: Asset optimisation helps to optimise your ad to better tailor your creative message to the user and drive more value for your business. | |
| Drive efficiency: Optimise your efficiency with automatically created ads with just a few clicks. Enabling these settings can drive better results with less time and less manual effort. | |
| More transparency: Gain deeper insights into performance metrics with optimised performance and contextual reporting for your assets. |
Text customisation
Final URL expansion
Features available in AI Max
With AI Max, you'll be able to balance driving better performance and improving flexibility with AI, all while gaining new, precise controls for your campaigns. The following features and settings are included in AI Max:
| Search term matching |
Search term matching uses broad match, asset-based and landing page-based technology to optimise campaign reach. Ad group-level control (on by default when AI Max is turned on for the campaign) |
| Text customisation (formerly known as automatically created assets) |
Uses text from your existing ads, landing page copy and assets along with generative AI for Google Ads to create customised ad copy that's more relevant to specific user searches. Campaign-level control |
| Final URL expansion |
Send traffic to the most relevant URLs on your website when it's likely to result in better performance. Final URL expansion will only send traffic to the URLs that are query-relevant and themed to your ad group. Requires text customisation to be turned on to ensure that ad copy matches the landing page. When Final URL expansion is turned on for your campaign, pinned assets aren't used if a more relevant URL is chosen because they may not match the customer's intent. Learn more about asset optimisation. Campaign-level control |
| Locations of interest |
Reach specific customers based on their geographical intent even in keywordless matches. Ad group-level control |
| Brand settings |
Specify the exact brands that you want your ads to be associated with (brand inclusions) or prevent your ads from appearing alongside specific brands (brand exclusions). Brand inclusions: Campaign- and ad group-level control Brand exclusions: Campaign-level control |
| URL inclusions |
Utilise URL inclusions to include URLs that were not captured by Final URL expansion. Learn more about using URL inclusions. When 'URL inclusions' is turned on for your campaign, pinned assets won't be used if a more relevant URL is chosen. Learn more about asset optimisation. Ad group-level control |
| URL exclusions |
Exclude specific URLs from serving as landing pages in your campaign. Campaign-level control |
| Updates to reporting | AI Max includes reporting optimisation to help track your campaign's performance.
|
Upgrading existing campaign settings to AI Max
Campaigns that have enabled the following features prior to adopting AI Max will notice a change in how these settings can be managed. To learn more, go to the dedicated feature page linked below:
- Text customisation (formerly known as automatically created assets): Upgraded into AI Max
- Brand settings: Upgraded into AI Max
- Broad match campaign setting: Upgraded into AI Max
After AI Max has been activated for a campaign, these settings will be fully upgraded.
AI Max keyword prioritisation
When disabling the broad match campaign setting or moving to AI Max, broad keywords are not treated as exact-matched keywords in prioritisation. To maintain this keyword prioritisation without the broad match campaign setting enabled, add copies of exact-matched keywords in your new AI Max campaign (broad can be converted to exact, but that will remove historical keyword stats). If the standard prioritisation of exact-matched keywords in AI Max is preferred, no action is required.
Tracking parameters and AI Max: Best practices
For advertisers
AI Max helps you optimise how your ads match search terms, optimising ad content, and Final URL expansion (FUE), which includes using dynamic landing pages that are more relevant to search queries. However, when combined with existing tracking templates, these dynamic URLs can sometimes lead to broken expanded landing pages with a 404 error if the tracking templates aren't configured in a compatible way.
Best practices for LPURL tags
Tracking templates define how tracking information is appended to your landing page URLs, enabling you to get additional tracking data. AI Max introduces landing page automation, which substitutes advertiser-provided URLs with dynamic landing pages.
If your campaign currently uses a tracking template, verify that a dynamic landing page from AI Max's Final URL expansion (FUE) works on your landing page before enabling AI Max.
To avoid landing page errors, ensure that tracking parameters are correctly set from the dynamic landing page. This is particularly important when LPURL tags follow specific common patterns if there are tracking parameters following the landing page:
- {lpurl}?
- {lpurl}&
- {lpurl}#
- {lpurl} (Used if there are no tracking parameters. Using the LPURL tag will ensure that AI Max can use the dynamic landing page)
Troubleshooting dynamic landing pages
In some cases, when dynamic landing pages from the AI Max FUE may not function correctly with tracking templates, these may be the reason:
- Static tracking URLs: If your tracking template specifies a static URL without any {lpurl} tag (for example, https://www.domain.com/), users may be directed to this static URL instead of a dynamic landing page.
- Non-standard LPURL tag usage: Some less common forms of LPURL tags, other than the recommended ones, can cause 404 errors. For example, if the LPURL tag is only a portion of a URL parameter (like 'foo={lpurl}value)'), dynamic landing pages may not work as intended.
Requirements to implement Search campaigns for travel
Before you can access Search campaigns for travel, you'll need to link your Google Ads account to either Hotel Centre or Action Centre, depending on the vertical. Additionally, AI Max must be enabled and have a data feed selected at the campaign level.
Review the implementation requirements below to get started.
Step 1: Update the campaign settings and feed management
After turning on AI Max, you can select a specific data feed at the campaign level. Search campaigns for travel use the default account-level feed. If you'd like to use a specific feed, manually select a different feed in your campaign settings.
Tips on the feed selection and feed changes:
- If a new default feed is added at the account level or if the account's default feed is changed, all Search campaigns for travel using the default feed will automatically update to use the new default feed.
- However, Search campaigns for travel with an explicitly selected feed or those where feed usage has been specifically disabled will not be affected by changes to the account-level default feed.
- If a feed that is explicitly linked to a Search campaign for travel is deleted at the account level, the campaign will trigger an error. Feed-based formats and enhancements within that campaign will pause until the issue has been resolved, likely by selecting a different valid feed.
Step 2: Update ad group controls
Ad format
You can choose any combination of text ads (including Travel Feeds in Search ads), Travel Promotion Ads and/or booking link ads in an ad group, depending on your vertical. To maximise performance and leverage AI optimisation, it's recommended that you keep all relevant ad formats on within a single ad group.
In Search campaigns for travel, you can create item groups within your ad groups to enable precise, feed-based targeting. Item group targeting is a feed-centric approach to finding relevant searches. While distinct from traditional keyword targeting, it complements AI Max's search term matching, using feed data to enhance reach. These groups allow you to segment your data feed using filters, in order to target specific subsets of your inventory.
Frequently asked questions
What is AI Max?
Why should I use AI Max?
AI Max helps you achieve peak optimisation with less manual effort by processing real-time signals to automatically refine targeting and creative delivery. It provides several key benefits:
- Incremental reach, performance and optimisation: Search term matching uses broad match and keywordless technology to find relevant, high-performing queries and conversions that you might otherwise miss.
- More control: It offers precise controls previously only available using keywords, such as locations of interest and brand controls at both the campaign and ad group levels.
- Optimised transparency: You gain clearer views into customer ad journeys through headlines and URLs in search term reports, along with optimised asset reports that track performance against KPIs like spend and conversions.
- Increased efficiency: Asset optimisation settings like text customisation and Final URL expansion (FUE) help you drive better results more quickly through automatically created ads.
Is AI Max a new campaign type?
How does AI Max differ from Performance Max?
What happens to my existing campaign settings when I upgrade?
See more frequently asked questions about AI Max for Search campaigns.
