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.