Mantica: Google AI Max is worse than other match types

Key Takeaways:

• Mantica shows data from running Google Ads AI Max for 4 month: AI Max lost against all match types, doubled costs for conversions

• Google responds to criticism on X (AdsLiaison):

  • [AI Max is] designed to help you capture incremental conversions or conversion value, depending on your objective. It does this by expanding your reach to additional relevant traffic using broad match and keywordless matching in the backend. It pairs this reach with optimizing your ads for existing and new matches—using text customization and Final URL expansion to ensure the right ad and landing page match the user’s intent.

  • AI Max is additive - it does not “compete” with your existing keyword setup and match types. Capturing that next marginal conversion might cost more than the average from your highly-curated baseline keywords. Instead of comparing match types in isolation, evaluate whether AI Max is helping the entire campaign deliver more conversions/conversion value within your specified average target CPA or ROAS.

  • What to expect then? According to Google:

    • If you use mostly Phrase/Exact match:  This is where you’ll likely see the biggest impact. AI Max will use search term matching to expand your reach (via broad match logic) and keywordless technology (like DSA) to match content from your landing pages + assets to relevant searches you’re missing.

    • If you already use a lot of Broad Match: The expansion impact will be smaller compared to a phrase/exact campaign, since you are already capturing much of that reach.

    • If you already use DSA: Similarly, you’ll see less expansion from the keywordless side, though AI Max benefits from signals that come from your ad assets (which are not available in standard DSA) in addition to your landing pages.

    • If you already have PMax campaigns:  AI Max brings the keywordless matching of PMax to Search campaigns. If you're currently using PMax extensively, you may be already reaching a significant portion of this audience. However, this depends on the number of assets, bidding goals and budget settings in your PMax campaigns. Our tests show that a large share of PMax users still see an uplift from turning on AI Max in their Search campaigns.

• smec shares their experience with 600 accounts using AI Max:

  • AI Max delivers some additional conversions, typically at a 𝟯𝟱% lower ROAS (vs. broad match).

  • This contradicts Google's claim of additional conversions at same efficiency - BUT for "next marginal conversions" that is also expected in well optimized campaigns

  • They criticize:

    • AI Max is pushed toward ALL advertisers, even those with mature Search campaigns

    • AI Max often targets traffic that was purposely not targeted before (e.g. competitor terms)

    • AI Max technology is redundant with DSA and PMax, complicating account hygiene

    • AI Max is marketed as the gateway toward AI placements (e.g. AI Mode), even though it affects the whole campaign, and these placements can be served with Broad Match

• While AI Max theoretically optimizes campaigns within the defined boundaries of the Ads customer, it practically first of all helps Google achieve its own business growth targets by being able to spend everything a client would be willing to spend. (similar to PMAX)

Mantica's AI Max performance: all types are cheaper

Match Type	Cost per Conversion	Delta vs. AI Max
Exact match	$52.69	-47.5%
Phrase match	$43.97	-56.2%
Exact match (close variants)	$61.65	-38.6%
Phrase match (close variants)	$97.67	-2.7%
AI Max	$100.37	-

Sources:

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/xavier-mantica_im-done-with-ai-max-after-4-months-of-share-7391962307142201344-jO0h/

• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7392205372549148672/

• https://x.com/adsliaison/status/1991163354786693132

• https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/15910187?hl=en

• https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/google-ai-max-for-search-campaigns/#reach