About AI Max experiments

AI Max for Search (or "AI Max") makes your Search ads better. It uses Google AI to reach more customers in real time. It has 2 main features: search term matching and asset optimization. An AI Max experiment acts as a test run. It lets you try these AI tools on your ads before you apply them to your whole campaign. Learn more About AI Max for Search campaigns.

AI Max experiments deliver faster results and reduce some of the common experimentation errors. It diverts traffic and budget within an existing campaign instead of creating a copy of the campaign to experiment on. This article shows how these tests work.

On this page

Benefits
How it works
Steps to implement
Setup limitations
Reporting
Applying the feature
Differences between new AI Max experiments and AI Max experiments through custom experiments

Benefits

Unlike custom experiments, AI Max experiments offer the following benefits:

Faster results: By using a single campaign, you can likely get results and insights more quickly.
Minimal setup errors: Updating both control and treatment arms in the same campaign prevents setup errors and sync issues.
Shorter learning period: This approach is likely to have a reduced learning period, since the traffic remains in the same campaign.

How it works

Search feature experiments enable advertisers to easily test key Search ads features like Broad Match keywords and AI Max settings.

Control: A % of your existing Search campaign with AI Max toggle turned off.
Trial: The remaining % of your existing Search campaign with AI Max toggle on.

After completing an experiment, advertisers can evaluate performance and choose if they want to “apply the experiment”, which turns on the AI Max setting for the campaign.

Steps to implement

Go to Experiments within the Campaigns menu .
Select the plus button , and select Campaign features and settings.
Select AI Max for Search campaigns.

The experiment, by default, activates both AI Max features, Search Term Matching and Asset Optimization, at the campaign level. However, you have the flexibility to disable Search Term Matching at the ad group level and disable Asset Optimization at the campaign level, if you prefer. Your chosen settings will only apply to the treatment arm of the experiment.

Similarly, you'll have the flexibility of using other features that are available with AI Max, like adding URL exclusions at the campaign level and URL inclusions at the ad group level.

Note: You can continue to use Custom experiments to set up AI Max experiments, if you prefer or require an experimentation setup that leverages a distinct control and treatment campaign (through campaign copying).

Setup limitations

You cannot create an AI Max experiment through this flow if:

The campaign has enabled Legacy features like text customization (formerly known as automatically created assets), brand inclusions and exclusions, ad group location inclusion
The campaign targets Display network
The campaign is a part of a Portfolio Bidding Strategy
The campaign uses Shared Budgets
The campaign uses Bidding exploration
The campaign has any active experiments

These limitations, with the exception of "targeting Display Network," also apply to AI Max experiments you create using the Custom experiments flow.

Note:

Turn off the "Optimize your campaign with AI" setting if you can't select that specific campaign for the AI Max test.
Some Search campaigns may have legacy features that limit experiment features. For example, the addition of a brand list exclusion on a non-branded campaign. When this happens, create a new campaign without all the legacy features. You can then use that campaign for your experiment.

Reporting

You can find Experiment results under the “Experiments” tab, with an expanded view of the “Experiment summary” page when you select the experiment campaign.

Applying the feature

You have a few different options of how to apply results:

When creating the experiment, there's an option to “Apply your experiment changes if results are favorable”. You can select this during setup if you want the experiment to automatically apply if the results are favorable at the end of the experiment.
After the experiment ends, you can select Apply from the Experiments table.
After the experiment ends, you can enable AI Max from the Campaign settings page.

Differences between new AI Max experiments and AI Max experiments through Custom experiments

You can choose between the new AI Max experiments or a custom experiment. Custom experiments require you to copy your campaign. This creates a separate "trial" campaign and a "control" campaign. The new AI Max experiments keep everything in one place.

	New AI Max Experiments	Custom AI Max Experiments
Setup	The test automatically starts	You have to manually start the experiment
Availability for Search campaigns targeting Display network	No	Yes
Reporting	You can access reports in: Experiments platform Keywords Page Ads Page	You can access reports in: Experiments platform Campaigns Page Reports through report editor Keywords Page Ads Page
Ramp up time	Reduced ramp up time, therefore results can be obtained faster	Trial campaigns may need a ramp up time, therefore experiments might need to run longer

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