As promised, here is the recap post from our live chat with Ginny Marvin of Google Ads where she answers a ton of post Google Marketing Live questions! Massive thanks to her for both doing the chat and answering all the questions submitted.
Q: Can demand based bidding be applied outside of a month, say a quarterly or annual budget to factor in seasonal demand?
A: Demand-led budget pacing is a backend update to improve budget delivery (still keeping to the daily and monthly spending limits). The campaign total budget option is good for when you have a fixed budget and a fixed timeline for a promotion, for example. The budget report can be helpful for budget pacing insights.
Q: AI Max has brought more demand, though has also led to more time in SQRs and it seems like single word competitor terms will never stop coming, How much time is expected to be spent combing through AI Assets to update briefs and signals? Will there be the ability for “only say this…” or will it all be telling it what not to say?
A: You can include both negatives (what not to focus on) and positives (what to focus on). The AI Brief will allow you to set messaging, matching and audience guidelines.
Q: I think some brand managers will want things like guarantees or non-negotiables. Does that exist in this brief?
A: You can say things like “never mention prices” in messaging guidelines for example. It’ll also show sample assets and searches to help you edit and refine your guidelines as needed.
Q: For the AI Brief: Some of the inputs that would be useful in the brief might also be proprietary. What kind of protections/NDAs are in place for client info/data?
A: The AI Brief is used to help steer the AI within your own campaigns.
We know that having a unique identity is important to advertisers, and users are in full control over the information they provide to differentiate their campaigns.
AI Brief’s capabilities are strictly tied to your user permissions. It can only access, analyze, or modify data for accounts and features you already have permission to use.
Q: In relation to AI brief, what’s the rollout timeline like, should we start seeing this soon, or likely not for another few months?
A: AI Brief will roll out in English for AI Max for Search campaigns over the coming months, followed by Performance Max and AI Max for Shopping campaigns.
Q: What are the limits to what we should expect to be able to control via the AI Brief feature? I imagine if I say, “do not advertise on any competitor terms”, that’s likely to only drive marginal improvements in that area?
A: You can provide a lot of context about the audiences, searches and messaging you want and don’t want.
My guess is it may take some experimentation with your prompts to steer toward the traffic you want and away from the traffic you don’t. AI Brief will preview sample assets and queries so you can continue to refine before saving.
Q: When the new AI support bot can’t help us and can’t connect us to an agent, where can we find support?
A: You can also continue to follow the Help >> Contact us pathway. For issues that can be self-resolved, the Google Ads Help Community and Help Center can help answer questions or challenges.
Q: I work with several retailers who are B&M (brick and mortar) only, no merchant feed, no e-com, and no e-com on the roadmap. Is there a local feed or other type of tool they can use to ensure they can compete for foot traffic rather than big A just showing up in product placements?
A: Yes local ads don’t require e-commerce. The main thing is to be sure to link the Business Profile to the Google Ads account. You can find more details here.
Q: That’s already done, but I am worried about product ads specifically. Will my competitors with a merchant feed appear in the same AI Search? Say for Beaujolais during the season?
A: Also consider free local listings and local inventory ads, which allow you to promote products sold in-store via a local inventory feed in Merchant Center (link your Google Business Profile to the Merchant Center account). Local inventory ads show as product listing ads and are also currently launched within AI Overviews in the US.
Clicks go to a Google -hosted local storefront landing page when a merchant doesn’t have inventory info on their website.
Q: When will Google create an MPC connector for Google Ads so that we can connect it to Claude or other LLMs?
A: You can find more info on the Google Ads MCP server on the developers blog here.
Q: Do you know if Google plans to release a more user-friendly, native integration for the general Google Ads public? Right now, Meta’s official MCP server completely bypasses complex developer setups—allowing everyday marketers to securely authenticate via standard login and use AI as an active assistant. Google’s current MCP toolkit requires developer tokens, Python 3.12, and GCP projects, which makes it largely inaccessible to the average SMB or media buyer who wants to query their data. Is a native ‘click-to-connect’ option on the horizon? Google’s option is great if you’re an engineer…
A: Appreciate the feedback and please stay tuned in this area.
In the meantime, you might find this video on getting the Google Ads MCP up and running with Cloud Run more user friendly.
We’d also love to get insights on your MCP use-cases and features you’d like to see. Please send them along!
Q: Can you confirm whether or not ads get placed in AI Overviews with this setup: AI Max turned on at campaign level, text customization on, final URL expansion off, and search term expansion off at the ad group level?
A: If you have broad match keywords in the campaign, those are eligible for ads in AI Search. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16297775?hl=en
Q: Oh, so you don’t have to turn search term expansion on in order to be eligible to show in AI Max? Just have broad match keywords in an AI Max enabled campaign?
A: Broad match keywords are eligible to show in AI Search. With AI Max, search term matching enables broad match in the backend on your phrase and exact match keywords as well as keywordless matching. And text customization and final URL expansion work to tailor the ad and landing page to the user’s context and the content. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16297775?hl=en
Q: And that’s true in any scenario? (i.e. all you have to do is have broad match in your search campaign, you don’t necessarily have to have anything special enabled or checked?)
A: With AI Max, search term matching enables broad match in the backend on your phrase and exact match keywords as well as keywordless matching. And text customization and final URL expansion work to tailor the ad and landing page to the user’s context. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16297775?hl=en
Q: Does that setup allow for AI Overview placements if broad match is not used?
A: If you don’t have broad match keywords in the campaign and have turned off search term matching, because phrase and exact match keywords will not be eligible to show in AI Overviews.
You need to be using AI-powered targeting solutions like broad match on Search or the keywordless targeting technology available through AI Max for Search campaigns, Performance Max campaigns, Shopping campaigns, or Dynamic Search Ads, to match relevant ads.
Q: For the creator/influencer partner ads that were announced, are there usage rights that Google already negotiated on everyone’s behalf or will companies need to hammer that out with each influencer individually?
A: Yes, a big piece of YouTube Creator Partnerships is indeed the partnership between advertiser and Creator. The advertiser is responsible for securing sufficient rights to use a creator’s video as an ad.
The partnership tools in Google Ads are aimed, in part, at helping make connecting with creators and getting agreements to use their content easier. We spoke to this “handshake” in our Ads Decoded episode on YouTube Creator Partnerships that you might find really helpful.
I also saw comments that this is only for big brands, and while those are often the examples that get spotlighted at events like GML, there are a lot of creators with smaller audiences who might be a great fit for your business.
Q: Are Text Ad Disclaimers out yet / where will we find them when they do come out?
A: Text disclaimers for search ads will be rolling out over the coming weeks. You’ll see it in the ‘Assets’ tab when it becomes available in an account.
Q: Which releases is Ginny most excited about?
A: I’m excited about the new ad formats for AI Search and how they’ll continue to evolve as testing expands. We’re still early in this shift, and I’m interested in what resonates as ads are able to be tailored to users’ specific context and intent in new ways.
I also find the work happening in measurement and data anything but boring, including things like the new metrics for different views into full-funnel and longer-term causal impact of prospecting and brand spend.
Lastly, I think the YouTube Creator Partnerships space can open up new avenues for a lot of businesses. And as I mentioned earlier, you don’t have to be a big budget brand to work with creators. There are tons of niche creators on YouTube. I recommend spending some time exploring in the Creator search tab — you can filter by subscriber count, average views, location, and more — if eligible in your account.
Q: There weren’t many announcements yesterday that were relevant to B2B. What new features should B2B advertisers prioritize in the coming months, and what can we look forward to from Google in the future?
A: Not everything made it to the main stage, but there are a number of launches that B2B businesses may find helpful. I outlined several dozen launches launches relevant to lead gen businesses.
A few to highlight are:
- Business Agent for leads which enables people to ask questions and get answers sourced from the website content right from the ad.
- Click-to-call ads have been updated to use Gemini to better understand when a conversion happened and tie it back to the campaign.
- Journey Aware Bidding is a backend update that automatically learns from every goal in your lead to sale journey when you share those steps with Google.
In terms of prioritization, I would emphasize Data Strength – sharing high-quality first-party data in your Ads account and ensuring you’re mapping the full lead journey for bidding and additional insights like the new Qualified Future Conversions metric currently being tested.
Q: Up until now the options to appear in AI feature ads were (1.) broad match and smart bidding and then (2.) AI Max and (3.) PMax. So is broad match and smart bidding no longer an eligible format for AI ad placements and now it’s only AI Max and PMax?
A: Broad match is eligible to show ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
AI Max and PMax are emphasized at GML for two key reasons:
- As queries get longer, multi-modal, and more complex, with search term matching, Gemini can look at the full context of the AI response and the query for more relevant matching.
- Text customization allows the ad to be tailored to the content and more clearly indicate relevance to the user.
Q: Will they give us data on search vs AI placement and performance data?
A: Ads in AI Mode and AI Overviews are currently reported as top ads. We don’t currently have segmented reporting and are still learning and actively thinking about what reporting looks like. Our primary focus in these early days is on improving the value and quality for advertisers and users.
Q: Google says 1st party data is our competitive advantage, but they also say that they’re allowing sales to occur in YT & their Google AI surfaces. If they own the conversion data from the sale, how do we build strong 1st party data for new customers?
A: Regardless of how a shopper chooses to buy, the retailer remains the merchant of record, maintaining all of their customer data and relationships.
By integrating Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), merchants can implement a checkout button on eligible product listings in AI Mode in Google Search and on Gemini. At GML, we announced that soon, when merchants who’ve integrated UCP show Direct Offers or run Shopping ads on YouTube with product feeds via Demand Gen campaigns.
Q. What are all the ways we should give Google the best 1st party data signals?
To build Data Strength and provide robust first-party data and signals in your account, you can leverage the following:
Advanced tagging and signal recovery:
- Google Tag Gateway: This moves website tagging to your own server-side infrastructure, improving resilience against signal loss from ad blockers or browser restrictions, and making more conversions observable. Advertisers using this gateway have observed an average conversion uplift of 14%.
- Enhanced Conversions: Adds hashed, user-provided first-party data to captured conversions. We are simplifying implementation by merging Enhanced Conversions for Web and Leads into a single feature.
- Signal Enrichment: Maximize signal quality by enriching your tags with specific data points like store sales.
Unified data management:
- Google Ads Data Manager: Connect fragmented online and offline data sources – website, app, CRM, call and in-store data – into a unified stream for managing and activating first-party data across Google platforms.
- Data Manager API: For custom or large-scale integrations to securely send first-party data once and distribute it across Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Google Marketing Platform.
- Direct Database Integrations: Native integrations for sources like BigQuery and MySQL are being embedded directly into conversion settings to reduce friction in syncing backend data.
Q: Ask her to explain the concept of predicted conversions and QFC please. Why is this a thing and who needs this?
A: Qualified Future Conversions (QFC) is a new predictive measurement metric to give advertisers a longer-term and more complete (full-funnel) view of the impact of their media spend by looking beyond standard conversion lookback windows. It’s specifically aimed at addressing the gap where long-term demand creation is often undervalued because an ad interaction doesn’t result in an immediate conversion or sale – or a sale that is made in 31 days vs. within a 30-day conversion window, for example.
In short, QFC represents the total number of conversions that have occurred or are predicted to occur within 180 days of an ad interaction. Like Attributed Branded Searches, it doesn’t replace any existing metrics. It’s aimed at giving you another way to view the causal impact of your media spend.
Who is it for? It can be particularly insightful for businesses with longer consideration cycles such as B2B and lead gen.
QFCs will also eventually integrate with Meridian.
Q: Is this modeled by vertical? Will I see it for brand new campaigns or does it populate as the robot learns the account?
A: It looks at user interactions after ad exposure, such as branded search. The methodology analyzes how people interact with an ad right after they see it. It then combines these early signals with past data to forecast sales over the next six months, showing the full impact of an ad campaign.
Q. Is this related to the predicted conversions in the Overview/Campaign charts or different?
A: QFC is a new way to measure and bid on the total number of conversions influenced by your ads over an extended period (180 days), including predictions.
The idea of “conversion value incl. predicted” (e.g., pLTV) is still important for general Value-Based Bidding but is not yet integrated into the current QFC pilot. QFC currently counts future conversions; it doesn’t assign different values to them.
Q: As a % of total conversions, what can we expect QFC to amount to – monthly, quarterly, etc.?
A: Qualified Future Conversions will vary by account.
Q: When can we expect QFC to come out? Sounds like it might be in an early pilot? Also what data should we be asking clients to prepare in order to be able to use this metric when it does exist?
A: The product is currently being tested with a select group of advertisers. We plan to expand availability later this year.
Q: Ads in AI Mode are described as “capable of reasoning” – what does this mean?
A: It’s getting at the idea that these formats adapt their creative to explain why your product is the best answer to a user’s question. For the AI explainer, for example, the Gemini model evaluates and synthesizes information about a product or service and displays that context alongside the advertiser’s creative.
Q: Where is it getting that information from – what we have input into Google Ads and/or from our web site? What is it synthesizing? You can, I am sure, understand why that phrasing jumped out at me!
A: The independent AI Explainer provides an evaluation of why an ad is relevant to the user. It summarizes search results in the same manner as the organic items without direct advertiser influence.
User research has shown these explainers can improve trust and consideration. This is one of many features being tested.
Q: Business Agent for Leads – the documentation says “Maintain an active sales presence outside of business hours. The AI handles initial inquiries and captures lead data even when your team is offline” – how, exactly will this work?
A: People can chat with the Business Agent and get responses based on the content from your website at any time.
Q: The question I would bring to Ginny is about search query reporting in AI Max. When the reported query is a model-inferred intent approximation rather than the actual string the user typed, what is Google’s guidance on negative keyword strategy?
The current workflow assumes a direct relationship between the query you see and the signal you are managing against, and that assumption seems to be breaking down in ways that matter most for lead gen accounts with strict audience requirements.
A: You can use negative keywords as a surgical “whack-a-mole” to block specific unwanted queries, but there are other tools better suited for a strategic approach to optimize toward the traffic you want:
If you need strict exclusions due to regulatory constraints or brand safety: Brand exclusions work as hard guardrails on brands that need to be avoided. For precise intent boundaries, AI Brief will be rolling out in English in the coming months to help you steer the AI to allowable intents. In the meantime, you can continue using your brand safety-oriented negative keyword lists.
To optimize toward a business goal that the system isn’t currently incentivized to chase, be sure you have a robust measurement framework that is aligned with your optimization goals to drive business value (e.g. specific conversion types) and allow the AI to prioritize the right traffic for your business.
Q: With AI mode changing how ads appear in search, how should advertisers think about Quality Score and ad relevance signals going forward?
A: The bar for quality is that much higher in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Ads, which include both the assets and the landing page, need to be relevant to the query context and the content in the response. This is another reason why we recommend adding multiple assets to create unique combinations that can appeal to a diversity of searches, including different phases of the purchase journey.
Q: Our DSA ad groups sit within our standard campaigns alongside regular keyword ad groups. Would the whole campaign have to have AI Max enabled in order to benefit from the transition? If so, any settings to make the keyword ad groups opt out?
A: This is a common scenario. AI Max is enabled at the campaign level, but we recommend preserving your current campaign structure and using the upgrade tools as they become available, rather than restructuring before migrating.
A key reason is that this is an in-place upgrade: the ad group ID remains the same, historical data is preserved and “cold starts” are avoided.
Additionally, the new migration tools will transfer all existing URL settings in existing DSA ad groups. Any rule combinations or targets that aren’t available in AI Max will be brought over as read-only and continue to work. (They cannot be edited though.)
There are a number of ad group level settings with AI Max, including the ability to opt out of search term matching (which is what enables broad match in the backend and keywordless matching), and brand and location of interest controls.
Q: How will the changes announced regarding Google Omni impact search-based demand and inventory over the next year or three?
A: Gemini Omni is a generative media model that can produce media, starting with video, from blending text, image and video inputs and conversational editing – similar to Nano Banana for conversational image creation.
Gemini Omni Flash is rolling out on YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create App in addition to subscribers in the Gemini app and Google Flow.
Marketers could potentially use assets they create with Gemini Omni in their campaigns on YouTube, their landing pages and other marketing content.