There have been a number of threads on LinkedIn over the past week about how poorly Google Ads AI Max is performing compared to other match types. The conversions or conversion value is greatly below other match types, in early tests, despite Google saying it should deliver 14% more.
A post by Xavier Mantica on LinkedIn said his AI Max campaigns are showing 90% higher cost per conversion than phrase match. He broke it down after 4 months of testing, saying AI Max lost in every category:
- Exact match: $52.69 per conversion
- Phrase match: $43.97 per conversion
- Exact match (close variants): $61.65 per conversion
- Phrase match (close variants): $97.67 per conversion
- AI Max: $100.37 per conversion
Mike Ryan replied saying he "looked at over 250 campaigns and found it’s also the worst match type by the numbers." He shared this summary on LinkedIn:
Andrew Goodman replied saying:
Similar take here. I'll wait to be proven wrong by any credible case study (that doesn't involve just luck or a very poorly-run account getting a lift). I suspect that in a perfect world, if it were a credible project, some large enterprises might benefit because of the sheer power of learning at huge scale. Smaller data pools never get there.
Mark Shenouda replied saying:
Same here!I am becoming more and more suspicious of the reps recommendations, i.e. pmax, Broadmatch, Demand Gen, Ai Max, etc.
The list never ends
There are tons of responses on his LinkedIn post, it is worth reading.
What are you all noticing?
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
