Inside a high-performing dealership AI social strategy.

How AI is reshaping organic and paid social, and why people still matter.

Social media for dealerships has changed dramatically. AI now influences everything from how ads find the right shoppers to how content is created, tested, and optimized. But despite all of these advancements, one thing remains true:

AI doesn’t replace your social strategy; it strengthens it.

And the dealerships seeing the biggest lift today are the ones blending AI-driven tools with human creativity and judgment.

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AI in paid social: Smarter, faster, more predictive.

The biggest shift in Paid Social isn’t just automation — it’s intelligence. Platforms like Meta Andromeda analyze signals across creative, engagement patterns, and outcomes to predict who’s most likely to take action. Instead of relying on tight audience filters, AI now determines the best delivery moments and placements to match your goals.

For dealerships, this means broader audiences often perform better, creative variety matters more than ever, and your own first-party data plays a major role in helping the algorithm “learn” what a qualified shopper looks like.

AI handles the heavy lifting of optimization, but your strategic direction still guides what the system tests, prioritizes, and scales.

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AI in organic social: Insights + Efficiency = Better Content.

On the organic side, AI tools are speeding up how dealerships create, analyze, and refine content. They surface what’s resonating, recommend improvements, and help repurpose posts across channels.

But AI can’t define your personality, tone, or point of view.
Organic social still thrives on human connection, your team’s stories, your humor, your culture, your commitment to your community. AI helps you work faster, but people help you stand out.

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Where AI + Human Strategy meet.

The most effective dealership social strategies today pair AI’s precision with human intuition.

AI supports: trend analysis, creative variations, predictive delivery, performance insights, and pattern recognition.
Humans bring: brand identity, local nuance, storytelling, customer engagement, and strategic thinking.

The result is a social approach that’s modern, efficient, and deeply authentic.

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What this looks like for a high-performing dealership.

Dealerships winning with AI aren’t relying on it blindly. They’re using it to amplify what they already do well. Their paid social benefits from smarter delivery and a wider creative mix. Their organic social becomes more consistent, more thoughtful, and more informed by real data. Across both sides, AI becomes a partner that accelerates performance while humans stay in the driver’s seat.

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The bottom line.

AI is transforming both organic and paid social, but the dealerships seeing the strongest ROI are the ones using AI to enhance their strategy, not replace it. When you pair AI’s scale and intelligence with human creativity and authentic connection, you build a social presence that performs today and evolves with tomorrow’s platforms.

Organic vs. Paid Social for Auto Dealers:
What’s the difference, and how do you balance both?

In today’s dealership marketing landscape, “social media” isn’t one thing. It’s two distinct engines, organic and paid, working together to move shoppers from awareness to loyalty.

Here’s what each channel does, why dealers need both, and exactly how to balance them for long-term growth.

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Organic Social: Your community builder & loyalty engine.

Organic social is where you nurture customer relationships, build loyalty, and show the personality behind your dealership. It’s not about instant leads; It’s about belonging, trust, and long-term retention.

Dealerships use organic social to:

• Build an engaged community of repeat and loyal customers.
• Humanize the dealership through staff highlights and behind-the-scenes content.
• Celebrate customer stories, community involvement, and dealership culture.
• Maintain daily presence and conversation with followers.
• Reinforce brand values beyond price and inventory.

Organic social builds affinity—not just impressions. Over time, that loyalty drives repeat service visits, second-vehicle purchases, and referrals.

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Paid Social: Your always-on, strategic growth driver.

Paid social expands your reach beyond existing followers and actively drives traffic, leads, and conversions. It’s the engine that keeps your pipeline full.

Dealerships rely on paid social to:

• Reach in-market shoppers at scale.
• Drive consistent VDP views, form fills, and store visits.
• Promote model launches, incentives, and monthly offers.
• Capture high-intent audiences during active shopping windows.
• Maintain a steady flow of performance data for platform algorithms.

Paid social must be constant and strategic, not used in bursts. Consistency improves learning phases, audience signals, and ROI.

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How auto dealers should balance organic + paid social.

Most dealerships invest in both, but not all combine them effectively. Here’s the practical breakdown for creating a balanced strategy:

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1. Let organic define your identity. Let paid amplify it.

Organic social is where you create your brand narrative: who you are, what you believe in, and why customers love you.
Paid social is how you get that story in front of more of the right shoppers.

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2. Keep paid social always on, But keep organic always engaging.

Paid social should run 365 days a year.
Organic should publish consistently, but only with content that sparks connection—not filler posts.

Ideal balance for dealerships:

• Organic: 3–5 meaningful posts/week.
• Paid: Always-on foundational campaigns + strategic promotions.

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3. Use organic insights to strengthen paid creative.

Your highest-performing organic posts often reveal:

• What stories resonate.
• What visuals get attention.
• What tone drives engagement.

Use those patterns to shape paid creative. This builds platform-friendly creative that performs faster and more efficiently.

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4. Measure them separately—but analyze their combined impact.

Organic metrics reflect community strength.
Paid metrics reflect performance efficiency.

Dealers should track them independently but ask combined questions:

• Are paid shoppers also engaging organically?
• Are organic followers converting in paid campaigns?
• Does our community content improve ad creative performance?

Together, they paint a full picture of brand health and actual results.

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5. Use paid to accelerate growth. Use organic to sustain it.

Paid social:

• Increases visibility.
• Drives conversions.
• Supports sales goals.

Organic social:

• Keeps customers connected.
• Improves retention.
• Strengthens reputation.

When paid brings new shoppers in the door, organic keeps them around.

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The bottom line.

Organic and paid social aren’t competing strategies. They’re complementary forces that drive different parts of the shopper journey. Organic social deepens trust and builds a loyal community that keeps choosing your dealership long after the first purchase. Paid social brings in fresh audiences, fuels consistent traffic, and supports sales momentum with predictable reach and performance.

When auto dealers treat these channels as partners, not substitutes, they create a marketing engine that attracts new shoppers, keeps past customers engaged, and strengthens brand presence across every stage of the buying cycle. The smartest strategies are the ones where organic defines the story, paid amplifies it, and both work together to move customers from discovery to lifelong loyalty.

How AI is Reshaping
Paid Social for Dealerships.

How is AI shaping Paid Social?

Paid Social advertising for dealerships is evolving fast, and AI is leading the way. Tools like Meta Andromeda are enhancing how dealerships produce ads at scale, optimize campaigns, and reach the right audiences.

Instead of relying on narrow audience filters, Andromeda flips the playbook by utilizing deep learning to decide who sees each ad based on engagement, creative cues, and outcomes. In other words, your ad creative now does the targeting.

For dealerships, that means:

• Broad audiences often outperform hyper-segmented ones
• Creative diversity is important in order to speed up the learning process
  • E.g. different formats, tones, compositions

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Strengthening AI Signals with First-Party Data

While creative is the primary driver of relevance, data fuels performance. Integrating clean, high-quality customer information (CRM & first-party data) with the algorithm helps it recognize your best prospects faster with stronger optimization signals and better retargeting. Establishing this training feedback loop is critical for the long consideration cycle of automotive.

Platforms like Green Line Digital’s CDP make this effortless by connecting dealership CRMs, DMS systems, and ad platforms to deliver real-time, secure data that enhances Meta’s AI learning.

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AI-Driven Creative Enhancements

AI tools are also streamlining creative production. Dealerships can now:

• Generate new vehicle images, backdrops, and ad concepts instantly
• Auto-write headlines, hooks, and ad copy variations for rapid testing
• Animate stills into Reels or TikTok style short-form videos which are perfect for top-of-funnel awareness
• Automatically translate ad copy into different languages
• Display a variety of ad styles that combine elements based on individual users’ predilections

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Takeaways

Understanding that discovery, consideration, and purchase can all happen in multiple sources and in non-linear ways, this system is a shift towards connected, multi-objective campaigns. With stronger data signals and more creative variety, Andromeda finds better matches, improves performance, and reduces fatigue.

Success in today’s AI-driven paid social landscape comes from integrating clean data and quality creative options with the system:

• Refresh creative often
• Embrace predictive broad targeting
• Connect CRM and CDP data for richer optimization
• Focus on your brand/story and what you want to achieve rather than who you want to achieve it with and let AI handle delivery

AI isn’t replacing social media marketers, it’s amplifying them, and dealerships that embrace this creative-first, data-enhanced model are already seeing stronger ROI.

What Google’s Removal of the “&num=100” Parameter Means for Your SEO Data

If you’ve noticed a sudden drop in impressions or keyword data in Google Search Console (GSC), you’re not alone. Many marketers and website owners have seen these numbers decline since mid-September 2025. But don’t panic — it doesn’t necessarily mean your rankings or visibility dropped. Instead, many of these drops are likely related to a change in how Google handles something called the “&num=100” parameter.

This update doesn’t directly affect how your website ranks, but it does change how certain data is collected and displayed in Google Search Console. Let’s break it down.

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What is the “&num=100” parameter?

The “&num=100” parameter was a part of the URL that some SEO tools and crawlers used to load up to 100 search results per page from Google at once.

For example, a typical Google search URL might look like this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=your+keyword

However, with the parameter added, the URL would look like this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=your+keyword&num=100

That “&num=100” part told Google to show 100 results on a single page instead of the 10 or so
that you'd usually see with a normal Google search.

Third-party SEO tools and automated crawlers used this setting to quickly scan large batches of
search results — helping them gather keyword rankings, competitor data, and visibility metrics
for reporting.

The result? Lots of pages buried a bit deeper on Google than the average human user might
look were generating "artificial" impressions.

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Why Google removed it.

In September 2025, Google stopped supporting the “&num=100” parameter entirely. That means when tools or bots try to crawl search results with that parameter, Google no longer shows them extra results or even allows the request to function as before.

This change hasn't been formally announced by Google, as many changes are. However, you can see the impact in real time if you try to use the parameter on your own — because it doesn't do anything.

This change was likely part of Google’s broader effort to:

• Reduce automated scraping and bot traffic on search result pages.
• Protect data integrity by ensuring metrics reflect real user behavior — not artificial visits from tools or scripts.

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How this affects Google Search Console metrics.

Here’s where the confusion comes in: even though this change doesn’t alter your site’s real-world visibility, it can make your Google Search Console data look different.

Before this change, automated crawlers that used “&num=100” could trigger impressions (and sometimes even clicks) in Google Search Console. That’s because GSC records an impression anytime a page appears in a search result — whether it’s seen by a real person or a bot.

Now, those crawlers can only see 10 results (give or take, depending on the results page features), rather than 100, each time they search a given query. So, a huge portion of those "impressions" have disappeared from your GSC data.

As a result:

• Impressions dropped significantly (because the extra crawler-generated data was removed).
• Average position rose, since lower-ranked pages were no longer on the radar of these third-party crawlers.

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So what you’re seeing is a “Correction,” not a drop.

If your Search Console data took a sudden hit in mid-September, you likely experienced what’s best described as a data correction — not an SEO performance drop.

In other words, your site didn’t lose visibility because of this change; the way Google counts that visibility simply changed.

Many businesses are noticing that when comparing the first half of October to the first half of September, impressions look way down. But when comparing October to the last half of September, the data stabilizes or even improves — showing that this is now your new baseline
for accurate reporting.

Note: Your "true" rankings and impressions will still see their ups and downs, of course — that's normal. But "normal" fluctuations are unlikely to be as severe as the impressions/rankings changes you're seeing this month.

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What you should do moving forward.

You don’t need to make any technical fixes for this. However, here are a few steps to keep your reporting accurate going forward:

• Use the new data as your baseline. Treat data from October 2025 data as the corrected version of your organic visibility.
• Avoid comparing new data to pre-September reports without noting the change — those older numbers were likely inflated to some degree.
• Focus on long-term engagement trends rather than month-to-month swings that may be data-related.
• Continue optimizing for real users, since Google is now filtering out non-human views more effectively.
• Keep on top of Google search related news. This change hasn't been formally discussed by Google, and like most of Google's changes, it might be reverted or adjusted at any time.

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Bottom line.

The removal of the “&num=100” parameter didn’t hurt your SEO — it just cleaned up your metrics. Google Search Console now paints a clearer, more realistic picture of how real people find your website in search.

So if you’ve seen big dips in impressions lately, don’t panic. It’s not your rankings — it’s just the data catching up to reality.

How is AI shaping
Paid Search.

How is AI shaping Paid Search?

Green Line Digital POV on Google’s AI Max for search.

Artificial intelligence continues to transform digital marketing, and Google’s latest roll out, AI Max for Search, is one of the clearest signals yet of where paid search is heading. Rolled out globally in May 2025, AI Max layers new AI-powered capabilities onto existing Search campaigns.

At Green Line Digital, we see AI Max as more than just another optional feature. It’s a preview of how Google intends to evolve Search campaigns in the years ahead.

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What is AI Max for search?

AI Max is not a brand-new campaign type. Instead, it’s a suite of AI-driven enhancements that can be switched on within existing Search campaigns. With AI Max, Google takes a larger role in shaping results: targeting can expand beyond keywords, ads can be customized on the fly, and final URLs can be swapped dynamically to better match user intent.

The result? Campaigns that can reach further and adapt faster—but also campaigns that require more oversight to ensure they’re driving toward the right outcomes.

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Our POV: Evolution, not just “Features”

Google describes AI Max as “added features,” but our view is different: this is the direction of paid search. Just as Performance Max evolved from optional to essential, we expect AI Max to gradually become the default way campaigns are managed.

That doesn’t mean keywords no longer matter. Traditional search campaigns still take priority when a query matches one of your existing keywords. For now, AI Max works alongside your search efforts, complementing, not replacing them.

The real value is in the flexibility and the insights it provides. By letting AI into your search campaigns, you can get custom search ads for each search- many of which you wouldn't even have thought of! Between keywordless targeting, location-based interest targeting, and dynamic creative pulled directly from client websites. AI Max also gives us visibility into which headlines resonate, which landing pages convert, and how Google interprets a brand’s digital footprint. Those insights can shape not just campaign performance but broader marketing strategy.

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How to approach AI Max.

Our recommendation is to test deliberately. Start by layering AI Max onto existing campaigns that have a smart bid strategy in place (Max conversions or Max conversion value). Double-check that your landing pages make sense, exclude irrelevant URLs, and maintain strong negative keyword strategies to protect your budget.

Monitoring is critical, especially since Google’s AI can (and will) expand reach beyond your existing keyword set to find new potential customers. By staying close to the data, you’ll know when AI is adding value and when it’s not.

If you’re hesitant, consider running AI Max within an experiment campaign first. Google has also begun offering more transparency into reporting, making it easier to see what pages are being used, what creative was generated, and what keywords were matched. Those levers give advertisers more confidence as they test.

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The takeaway.

AI Max for Search represents a shift toward AI enhanced paid search, and we believe it’s only the beginning. While traditional search campaigns remain important today, the brands that start experimenting now will be best positioned when AI-driven targeting inevitably becomes the norm.

At Green Line Digital, our approach is the same as it was with Performance Max: test early, learn quickly, and apply insights before the market catches up.

The future of paid search is AI-powered. The time to prepare is now.

Green Line Automotive joins as a Shift Preferred Provider for General Motors Canada.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Green Line Automotive to Offer Comprehensive Digital Marketing Services to GM Canada Dealers Through Shift Digital Preferred Partner Program.

Rolling Meadows, IL – October 7, 2025 – Green Line Automotive, a leading provider of digital marketing solutions for automotive dealers, is proud to announce that it has been added as a Shift Digital Preferred Provider for General Motors Canada’s dealer marketing program. Through this collaboration, Green Line Automotive is now an approved vendor for a full suite of digital services tailored to meet the needs of GM Canada dealers.

As part of this partnership, Green Line Automotive (www.gldauto.com) will offer participating dealers a robust lineup of digital marketing solutions, including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), Paid Search, Social Media Advertising, Streaming Television (OTT/CTV), and more integrated services designed to improve digital visibility and drive in-store traffic.

“We’re thrilled to be selected as a Shift preferred provider and excited to help GM Canada dealers grow their digital footprint with modern, performance-driven strategies,” said Brent Rogers, Founder and Partner at Green Line Automotive. “Our mission is to make digital advertising more accessible, transparent, and results-focused—backed by real-time reporting and dealership-first service.”

Green Line Automotive brings years of experience in the North American automotive space, supporting OEMs, regional groups, and individual rooftops with cutting-edge digital strategies that align with today’s car buyer journey. The new partnership with Shift allows GM Canada dealers to seamlessly onboard Green Line’s services through a program built to scale performance and efficiency.
For more information about Green Line Automotive’s services or to enroll through the Shift program, visit www.gldauto.com or email gmcanada@greenline.nyc

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About Green Line Automotive:

Green Line Automotive is a digital advertising agency created for automotive dealerships. Our mission is to deliver tier-one automotive advertising expertise, technology, and service to tier-three dealers. We give you an advantage over your competition by giving every dealership the best in technology, coupled with a fully customizable approach.

See our premier services at gldauto.com such as Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) or contact us at info@greenline.nyc or 833-GLD-CARS.

Facebook: @greenlinedigitalauto
Instagram: @greenlinedigitalauto
LinkedIn: Green Line Digital Auto

Why doesn’t my website show up in AI searches?

One of the biggest questions we’re hearing from dealers and marketers today is: 

“Why doesn’t my website show up for AI searches—on tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or other large language models (LLMs)?” 

It’s a valid concern. As more dealerships explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) fits into their marketing, visibility in these emerging AI-driven search experiences is becoming just as important as visibility on Google.

But the real question isn’t just why your website doesn’t show up. Instead, it’s: 

“Why do website and CMS providers block LLMs and AI tools from crawling in the first place?”

Why websites get blocked from AI tools.

Most dealership websites are managed through a Content Management System (CMS) such as Dealer.com, Dealer eProcess, or Dealer Inspire. These providers often block bots—including crawlers used by LLMs like ChatGPT—for two primary reasons:

1. Protecting Analytics Data
   Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and other reporting platforms rely on accurate user behavior data. If automated bots are allowed to crawl freely, they inflate traffic, skew engagement metrics, and disrupt conversion tracking. That means you can’t clearly separate real shoppers from automated bot activity—leading to poor marketing decisions.

2. Conserving Server Resources
   Every visit—human or bot—uses server resources like CPU, bandwidth, and memory. Allowing unlimited bot crawling can slow down websites, damage SEO performance, and even cause downtime. By default, CMS providers block these crawlers to keep dealership websites fast and available for real customers.



This isn’t unique to AI tools—it’s the same reason some providers block marketing software like SEMrush or Ahrefs unless you specifically request access.



The solution: LLM.txt for dealership websites.

So, how can you make your website accessible to AI without opening the floodgates to all bots?



Enter LLM.txt—a new solution designed specifically for AI tools and large language models.



Think of it like this:

• XML sitemaps help Google understand your website’s structure for search indexing.
• LLM.txt is a specialized sitemap for AI tools.

Instead of crawling every page (and overloading servers), LLM.txt provides AI with a curated map of your website—pointing to the most important and relevant content.



This gives ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI models structured access to your dealership’s key information (inventory pages, service specials, financing details, etc.) without disrupting analytics or performance.

Why this matters for dealerships.

AI-driven search is already influencing how consumers research and shop for vehicles. If your dealership’s website isn’t optimized and accessible for these tools, you risk falling behind competitors who are embracing AI visibility today.

By working with your CMS provider—or a digital marketing partner—you can implement strategies like LLM.txt to:

• Increase AI visibility – Make sure your dealership appears in AI-powered search results.
• Protect performance – Maintain clean analytics and fast site speed.
• Future-proof your marketing – Stay ahead of where search and consumer research are headed.

Final takeaway.

Website providers aren’t blocking AI tools to keep you invisible—they’re protecting site performance and analytics. The key is finding the balance between safeguarding your website and opening the right doors for AI.



For dealerships, now is the time to ask:

• Is my website accessible to AI search tools?

• Do I have an LLM.txt strategy in place?
• Am I future-proofing my digital marketing for AI-driven search?



Those who take action now will lead the next wave of automotive digital marketing.

Everything you need to know from the 2025 Google Marketing Live event.

This year’s Google Marketing Live event was once again all about AI. It has become a central focal point in not only the search results, but also in tools & tactics Google continues to roll out on Google Ads. With over 3 hours of information, what’s the stuff you need to know?

Here are our key takeaways and thoughts on next steps for our clients.

Be where your customers are. The customer journey from discovery to decision has changed and will continue to change.

• Ensure you have a full funnel approach and proper channel allocation to reach customers where they are.
  • While Google might want you to put all your dollars in their suite of products (they’re calling PMAX + Demand Gen + AI Max, the “Power Pack”), the real takeaway is to build awareness (video, display, programmatic), influence consideration (Meta, TikTok, and even Demand Gen), and drive decision making (Search, PMAX, Shopping).
• YouTube is more important than ever, and is still the #1 streaming service. With the amount of time spent, and the research that consumers conduct on YouTube, they are implementing new shoppable experiences.
  • What you need to think about is making sure you are in the space with great video content. Ensure you have videos in all sizes, lengths and orientations and that your messaging aligns with other media in market

• Incrementality testing: Previously only available for large spending accounts, Google Ads will allow you to see what’s truly driving conversions with lower budgets (~$5,000) - across all campaign types
• Cross-channel budgeting tools and attribution in GA4: Google is rolling out core new features to help marketers plan budgets cross-channel, as well as updates to attribution tools to include more social platforms, to give us a lot more visibility into where we should put your ad dollars for optimal effectiveness

AI MAX & Integrated Ads In AI Mode Are Here

The most important change that is here, and likely to stay, is AI Max for search campaigns. This is a new campaign type that can be used alongside PMAX. Our team feels that AI Max will likely replace traditional search over time.

So what really is it?

• Keywordless targeting allowing Google the ability to explore and match to broader queries to find your customers
• Real time asset creation based on URLs and existing creative
• Transparency into headline and landing page performance all in one place
• Google’s full details here

Another key feature that we’ve been anticipating for a while is Integrated Ads in AI mode. Google’s now showing Search and Shopping ads inside AI Overviews, allowing you to connect with potential customers during their research. If you’re running campaigns like Performance Max, Shopping, or broad match, you’re automatically eligible for these new placements.

Google has heard advertisers and is developing more tools for controls, new customer acquisition, and transparency.

• PMAX Channel Reporting - you can read more about that in our earlier blog post on the latest updates to Performance Max Reporting
• More prospecting controls are coming:
  • PMAX: The screenshot shared during the talk showed exclusions for customer lists, which we are amped for! What this means is we’ll have more campaign controls to exclude users who have recently searched for or interacted with your brand.
  • Demand Gen: New customer acquisition goal coming soon!
  • There’s no action needed for these, your teams are waiting to see what and when the features are released and will take action as needed.
• New tools:
  • Asset Studio in Google Ads: Create assets and variations for images and video directly in platform with Google AI.
  • Merchant center features: A/B title experiments, video hub that pulls from social & web and can easily sync to Google Ads, optimize images from feeds

So what’s next?

We’re most excited about the new prospecting tools, transparency and control tools that are rolling out. But we are testing into AI Max to be ready for key changes. Need help adapting to the new state of Paid Search? Let’s connect.