Hand Google’s automation the work it is good at: finding searches, adjusting bids and testing ad text. Keep control of what it cannot know about your business: what counts as a real conversion, which searches are worthless, which brand terms you should or should not pay for, and how much you are willing to spend. Automation optimizes toward the signals you give it, so the quality of those signals decides whether the results are good.
This guide covers Performance Max, AI Max for Search, and broad match with smart bidding, with a clear split between what to automate and what to keep in your hands. Google changes its tools often, so confirm current settings in your own account.
What do these automation tools actually do?
Performance Max
Performance Max runs one campaign across Google’s inventory, including Search, YouTube, Display, Maps and Gmail, using the assets and goals you provide. Google added channel-level reporting to Performance Max in 2025, so advertisers can see more of where results come from, and campaign-level negative keywords were announced for all advertisers in January 2025.
AI Max for Search
Google announced AI Max for Search campaigns at Google Marketing Live on May 21, 2025. Google describes it as using broad match and keywordless technology to find searches you might not have targeted. Google’s help page says turning it on also activates text customization, which generates headlines and descriptions from your landing page, ads and keywords, and final URL expansion, which can send people to other relevant pages on your site. Each can be switched off in campaign settings.
Broad match with smart bidding
Broad match lets your keywords match related searches, and smart bidding sets bids for each auction based on the conversion data your account has collected. They work as a pair: broad match widens the net, bidding decides how much each search is worth.
What should you hand over to automation?
- Bid adjustments auction by auction. Humans cannot compete with a system that sees device, time, location and context for each search.
- Finding related search variations. Broad match can find phrasing you would never think to list, provided your tracking is sound.
- Testing ad combinations. Responsive ads rotate headlines and descriptions at a scale no one tests by hand. You still write the assets and approve the claims.
- Audience signals and expansion within your guardrails.
What should you keep control of?
1. Conversion tracking quality
This is the most important control. Smart bidding learns from the conversions you report. If the account counts page views, button clicks or duplicate form fills as conversions, the system learns to find more of the wrong thing. Count qualified outcomes: calls over a meaningful length, form submissions that are real leads, booked appointments and, where possible, offline sales fed back to Google. Our Conversion Tracking and Attribution service audits every tag against real results.
2. Negative keywords
Negatives keep your budget away from searches you do not want, such as jobs, free, DIY or services you do not offer. Review the search terms report weekly and add negatives for searches that are entirely useless. Account-level negative keywords apply across campaigns that serve on Search and Shopping inventory, including Performance Max, and campaign-level negatives are available in Performance Max. Be careful with over-blocking: a search that looks odd may still bring customers, so check calls and leads before blocking it.
3. Brand exclusions and brand controls
Without limits, automated campaigns may spend heavily on your own brand name, which people would likely find anyway, and report great results that were not new business. Performance Max has brand exclusions, and AI Max has brand controls that let you steer which brands your ads match. Decide deliberately: run a separate, protected brand campaign if you want to defend your name, and exclude brand terms from the growth campaigns so you can see what they really add.
4. Budgets
You set the daily budget and the goal. Automation will try to use the budget, so set it at an amount you are comfortable losing if the first weeks are inefficient. Change budgets gradually and give campaigns time to learn before judging them.
5. Landing pages and claims
If text customization or final URL expansion is on, check what pages and wording the ads use. Exclude pages that should not receive ad traffic, such as careers, privacy or outdated offers, and make sure generated text does not promise anything you do not offer.
Checklist before you turn on AI Max or Performance Max
- Confirm each conversion action counts something that matters, with no duplicates.
- Check that phone calls from ads are being tracked.
- Build a list of negative keywords from past search terms.
- Decide your brand strategy and set exclusions to match.
- Set a budget and a review date.
- Check that your landing pages are accurate, fast and clear.
- Switch off any automation you are not ready to supervise, such as URL expansion.
- Add a weekly calendar reminder to read the search terms.
How do you judge whether automation is working?
Look past the platform’s own conversion numbers. Compare calls and leads in your phone system and CRM against what Google reports. Ask whether new customers appeared, not just whether conversions rose. Review cost per qualified lead and, where you can, revenue. Our Google Ads management includes weekly search term review, brand protection and smart bidding tuned with accurate conversion data, and the broader Paid Advertising program ties results to revenue.
Give any change time. After a significant setting change, allow a few weeks of data before deciding, and change one major thing at a time so you know what caused the result. Keep a simple log of dates, settings and results. When performance drops, that log is the fastest way to find the cause.
Frequently asked questions
Is automation good or bad for small budgets?
It can work, but smart bidding needs conversion data to learn from. With very few conversions, keep campaigns simple, track the right actions and avoid splitting a small budget across many campaigns.
Should I let broad match run without negatives?
No. Broad match widens the searches you can appear for, so negatives and weekly search term review are how you keep it relevant.
Can I turn off parts of AI Max?
Google’s help page says text customization and final URL expansion can be turned off at the campaign level. Check your account for the current options.
Will the platform tell me when something is wrong?
Not reliably. It reports what it counts. You need independent checks of calls, leads and revenue.
Want a second set of eyes on your account?
BERI Consulting reviews Google Ads accounts for tracking, structure and wasted spend before recommending any change. Book a discovery call and we will walk through your account, or start with a free website scan.
