Performance Max or AI Max for Search: which one does what
Guide
What each one controls and reports, which serves when both match, what the upgrade changed, and how to test either one.
Research
Notes on search, advertising and how marketing gets done: research, working ideas and lessons from building the systems around it.
Showing 19 pieces
Search & acquisition
11 pieces
Notes from running paid search: platform changes, bidding and measurement.
The work in Search & acquisitionSmart Bidding for lead generation: what it learns from
Guide
The Conversions column, CRM import timing, learning periods, Google’s path to qualified leads, value bidding and a checklist.
Why one week of Google Ads data is too soon to pause or rebuild
Note
Conversion delay, how Google’s own bidding and experiments treat fresh data, and when a policy problem, outage or bad traffic justifies acting.
Google Ads conversion tracking, from the inquiry to the sale
Guide
The tag, the settings, the setup order, the checks, and the 2026 changes to how CRM outcomes reach Google Ads.
Updated
Your website now writes part of your Google ads
Guide
Text customization, final URL expansion, the AI Max upgrade, URL exclusions and a page checklist for US advertisers.
Approved is not serving
Platform update
Google is extending impression caps based on account trust signals to every Ads product, and because nothing gets disapproved it looks like weak performance rather than a policy state.
Campaign-level lift is not account-level lift
Point of view
Digital Traction reads Google’s AI Max figure as a campaign-level result, the level at which reallocated conversions look identical to new ones.
Updated
Google stopped letting your campaigns beat their target
Platform update
Budget-limited campaigns used to quietly outperform their bid target, and that has stopped, which raises cost per lead in every account where the target was never really a decision.
Local Services Ads are moving into Google Ads
Platform update
The standalone LSA dashboard is being retired and campaigns migrate to a pay-per-lead Performance Max type, keeping the lead model but removing manual bidding, vertical-level targets and your historical reports.
Updated
Where AI traffic actually lands in GA4
Guide
GA4’s AI Assistant channel covers ChatGPT and its peers but explicitly excludes AI Overviews and AI Mode, which sit in Organic Search, so there is no single AI number to report.
Feeding real outcomes back to the platform
Guide
Form fills teach automated bidding the wrong lesson; importing qualified leads and revenue from your CRM teaches it what a real opportunity looks like.
Updated
Advertising in AI
6 pieces
Tracking what is live, in testing or only announced as advertising moves into AI answers.
The work in Advertising in AIChatGPT ads: what a US business can buy today
Guide
Self-serve Ads Manager, the US category table, context hints, settings fixed at launch, billing, measurement limits and a checklist.
Independent AI ad networks: what a US business can buy, and whose apps the files confirm
Guide
Gravity, Koah, Thrad, Kontext and Velocity: the US route in, the ads.txt and sellers.json check, resale, and a checklist.
An AI agent in an ad still speaks for the business
Guide
OpenAI’s Sponsored Agents and Google’s Business Agent for Leads: where each stands in the US, the terms, and a checklist for a pilot.
The future of search is arriving in pieces
Essay
What is live, in testing or only announced across Google, ChatGPT and Copilot, and what a business should do about it now.
Business Agent for Leads changes what arrives in your CRM
Platform update
Google’s announced Gemini chat in place of the ad’s lead form moves qualification in front of the conversion, which makes cost per lead misleading.
Updated
What answer-engine advertising actually is today
Point of view
It now spans two different models, existing ad systems extending into AI search and purpose-built conversational ad platforms, and the honest thing is to keep them apart.
Updated
Marketing systems
2 pieces
Lessons from building content systems: what an agent should know before it drafts, and what not to build.
The work in Marketing systemsBefore the draft, confirm the business
Essay
Business facts, review and the information that should shape the next draft.
Query fan-out does not mean you need more pages
Point of view
The model generates related queries around yours before answering, and the common response of building a page per variation is the one thing Google explicitly warns against.