Search
Home
About Us
Live Q&A
Hire Us
Log in
Sign Up
Search
Sign Up
May 7, 2026
AI Max Breakdown |🎙️ ScaledOn Media Live Session with Iulia Vasciuc
AI Max Breakdown |🎙️ ScaledOn Media Live Session with Iulia Vasciuc
10
15
00:00
29:25
Transcript
0:00
Everyone, welcome to the ScaledOn Live. I am Courtney, and I am joined today by our CEO, Yulia.
0:07
We are gonna be talking today about, I'm sure all sorts of things, but primarily about a really important topic to all businesses and all marketers right now, which is something that's changing dramatically, which is how people are searching and making decisions, um, especially online.
0:23
You know, question-based searches on Google are up over a hundred and sixty-three percent over the last three years. But ChatGPT reached a billion prompts per day faster than any platform in history, right?
0:35
And the number one paid position has lost about twenty-five percent of clicks in just the last two years alone.
0:41
So a lot of how people are searching, a lot of how businesses need to seek to be found is changing, you know, dramatically and quickly in ways that I'm sure it's hard for a lot of business to keep up with-- businesses to keep up with.
0:54
So two out of three brands, right? Like, lots of facts we can jump into in the beginning here. Two out of three brands ranking first organically are still not being mentioned in AI Overviews or AI mode at all, right?
1:05
So lots of things with AI and without AI that are really impacting how businesses are being found, and it's not a small shift at all.
1:13
So we've noticed recently, or I should say Yulia and her team have been very focused recently on Google betting big on a future with AI Max, a feature that's now built into standard search campaigns that's having a major impact on performance or could have a major impact on performance, probably depending on the campaign and how you or your agency are approaching it.
1:33
So over the next thirty minutes, that's where we're gonna spend some time chatting. We're gonna break down a little bit about what no one's telling you about AI Max.
1:41
Um, it works, but only if you're managing it and setting the right guardrails. Uh, so we're gonna dive in on that end of things.
1:48
Yulia will, of course, be sharing lots of expertise and experience that we have around AI Max, um, and all things marketing that might come up along the way. Uh, that said, ScaledOn is always here to help.
1:59
So ScaledOn is a digital marketing agency with services that cross Amazon, SEO, and paid media, um, email marketing, website design and development, like the gamut of all the things that you might, uh, you might need help with.
2:11
If, if it's happening online digitally, we can help you. So if you are listening to this and you feel like, "Hey, I could use some input from this team," please reach out to us. You can reach out to us at scaledon.com.
2:24
You can drop comments here in the chat, and someone will get back to you. We are here to help with anything that you might need. But that said, Yulia, welcome. It is great to have you here. Thank you, Courtney.
2:34
Glad to be on. [chuckles] Let's start with the, you know, the big shift behind all of this. So I know, like, we're seeing performance changes across accounts, but not necessarily traditionally in the way people expect.
2:46
You know, what are you seeing on your side? You know, what do you find that's actually driving the changes?
2:52
Well, I think the biggest shift that's happening is really, um, on the-- as you mentioned earlier, it's actually the decision, when the decision are taking place. If, um...
3:02
and I think another shift that we see is really in the funnel itself. So that said, the buyer decision is moving much more earlier, often even before the click even happens.
3:15
So when people use AI tools like, I don't know, Google AI Overviews or ChatGPT, they are not anymore only browsing. They are already comparing, filtering, and often deciding before ever visiting the website.
3:32
So this is where the shift, uh, happens, is that any campaign that we are running are not really that top of the funnel. It's already becoming like a top mid funnel.
3:43
And what are we seeing across, uh, some of the ScaledOn accounts in terms of some of the metrics? So click-through rates are going down, but traffic quality goes up.
3:54
The people who do the click are more qualified and are comparing at the higher rates because they already know what they want.
4:03
So the role of the click actually changed, and, um, there is no longer where the decision happens, where the decision gets finalized, and that's where we talk the, the big shift.
4:14
So for the brands that are not showing yet in those AI-driven moments like AI Overviews or AI, uh, mode, so that means they are not even considered, uh, by, by the, I mean, consumer when they're doing their research.
4:32
And, uh, with the campaigns currently, traditional campaigns, we are entering in their journey actually too late.
4:39
What this means is mean that the, the way that we were building, I don't know, maybe half a year ago, even one year ago, the campaign strategy has changed.
4:49
It needs to evolve at the level of how Google adopted all this AI mode, but as well how the consumer changed their decision behavior.
4:58
So for this purpose, Google introduced a couple of the changes, and a while ago introduced Performance Max.
5:06
We didn't really understood why, but this was one of the reason just to shift this, uh, and support this buyer journey, um, factors. And second one is really the AI Max.
5:19
So they are becoming kind of essential for, uh, to influence the decision early and not just capture the demand at the end.
5:29
Um, the-- why we are discussing it now, because we sensed a bit of the fear between the, I don't know, other, uh, business owners or marketing managers to enable, uh, AI Max or even errors launching it and forgetting it.
5:46
The catch is that it's-- it won't work on autopilot. So
5:51
if you don't build, uh, control, input, um, structure, guardrails, uh, you're giving up on how brand shows up on those key moments, and this is true.
6:04
That's a big opportunity for people just to capture that prior, um-Piece of the funnel to sell that, uh, top of the funnel, but it requires a more intentional strategy that we were used to do, I don't know, a while ago when we didn't have AI overviews, we didn't have AI mode.
6:23
So that's the big shift that, uh, we want to talk and cover today. Yeah, right?
6:28
Like, that makes sense because I think when you think about, you know, a lot of the business owners that we hear from or that we see out, you know, um, out on the, the digital streets, right, are people who really fall into opposite ends of an extreme spectrum.
6:41
Either they're all in with AI, but then they tend to fall a little bit into the set it and forget it that you're talking about, and kind of assuming that, hey, I can just let AI do all this for me, you know, it doesn't necessarily require oversight or human, you know, intervention, or those who are AI skeptics who are really resistant to using the functionality, the efficiencies of AI to their benefit.
7:02
And so I think, like, what we're talking a little bit about is how we wanna, you know, help people understand the, the value and the opportunity that exists in the middle of that spectrum, where you have to have human oversight and intervention, but you do wanna be using, you know, the tools and the resources that things like AI Max can bring to you.
7:20
So, you know, essentially if I'm still running a standard keyway or keyword-based search campaign the way, you know, we used to, right, the way that I think is most comfortable for people who run campaigns, do you see that approach starting to ba- break down, and kind of consequently to that, what do you see as kind of the, the, the effect if I decide I don't want to adopt AI Max at all?
7:42
Well, the short answer is that it definitely will start breaking. Um, the problem is that, um, businesses will start losing visibility, and that directly means less traffic.
7:54
What we see across accounts is that m- more and more campaigns, uh, started to have, like, a status, um, called limited by search volume, just because the people are not anymore in our traditional search campaigns.
8:07
So those search volumes are not enough. Uh, even so, we are trying to expand with the long tail keywords, with, uh, more, um, informational search volume or search queries.
8:19
Uh, we won't be able to guess what people are putting into the M- uh, AI just asking, because it shifts the way the people search anyway.
8:27
So what do we see happening across the account that I manage, uh, it's like a typical of between 15 and 30% drop, uh, in the traffic volume for those people who are not enabling this AI features, uh, in their search campaigns.
8:43
So this is actually the consequences to say of not, uh, uh, really, uh, enabling AI Max. And unfortunately, this domain or this AI piece is not going away. It will...
8:54
It's not like a temporary sh- hype or it's not something that is just for now.
8:59
It continues to grow, and if you don't try to adapt to some of these changes as we go, you really started to fall behind or be way behind from where the, the consumer behavior, the oldest algorithms are, uh, moving, uh, into that direction, so.
9:18
Yeah, so doing nothing it sounds like is really not a g- not an option, not a good one anyway, right?
9:23
So, um, we don't, you know, definitely don't want people to feel like they're falling behind or to realize too late that they've fallen behind and, you know, it can be hard to rebound from that.
9:32
You know, for those that are hesitant to just switch AI Max on, you know, who have concerns there, what do you, what do you think is driving that?
9:41
Um, well, maybe they were, most of them it might be that they are aware of some, some of those consequences.
9:47
But the, the reality that, um, I think the fear, it's pretty fair, uh, as by turning AI Max without any guardrails can really burn your budget.
9:58
So that's another, I don't know, on the other, uh, hand of this topic is really burning the budget because, um, AI Max can hallucinate a lot, just matching between your keywords, doing very loose, uh, just like that, um,
10:16
loose association with your keywords, matching between headlines, matching and mixing between your landing page on the website that are not necessarily prepared for, or they are not optimized for converting, uh,
10:30
the messaging of your brand or intent of those campaigns really shifting away from the core, um, core course of that.
10:38
So this is a, it's a, it's a normal fear for people to have it, and totally understand that AI Max can really drive, um, like a big spend without bringing back that, uh, result or efficiency that people expect from that.
10:53
So it sounds like there's, you know, a different level of setup and strategy, you know, than most people are used to. You know, what, what, what could you walk me through?
11:01
Walk me through some of the, you know, the differences and the different areas that you would recommend that people really hone in on when they're working with AI Max.
11:10
So it's very important to you, so it, it shouldn't be a fear to launch AI Max, but it definitely will bring more value to your business and will expand the exposure to sell that and bring your business in the upper funnel.
11:24
But what it needs to be done is you need to get prepared for that, and there are actually four main areas where businesses will start losing control if they will enable AI Max just like that without any preparation.
11:37
The first one is really the copy itself. So we are used to write the standard search copy, like headlines, the long, uh, just like that, long description, then we have the URL and so on.
11:49
What Google is doing with AI Max, so it's rewriting the whole headlines, all the description, and if you don't build guardrails, they, he, Google will rewrite without any, um, I mean, any guidance.
12:03
So it will do whatever he wants to do, whatever it associate with your business, and it might happen that you have-Um, like a search term, like buy running shoes, and Google will end up with something like free running tips for beginners.
12:18
So it's at this moment still your budget, and it's running, spending your budget, but it's not really the message of your business.
12:24
So this is where people need to understand how Google can hallucinate into mixing up, uh, the content that you have in your account without building clear guidelines for, for Google.
12:38
The secondary, and I think this is actually the biggest one and where we have the most of the control, is really the keywords. If in the past, and there were a lot of them, you know, the evolution of keywords.
12:49
We started-- When Google started, it was only broad match. Then we had phrase match. Then we had exact match. Now those, they were like becoming more and more like more targeting options.
13:02
Nowadays with AI, keywords are becoming more like signals. So Google can really expand into loosely related s-search terms if it sees a pattern.
13:14
So sometimes we see that spend goes totally off intent queries just because Google AI algorithm made even broader connection to your keywords.
13:26
So here is where people need to-- We'll talk maybe, uh, about later, and it's, it is as actually in the playbook that we have it scaled on.
13:34
We have like a clear, uh, settings how to control the keywords and the search, uh, queries coming, uh, under an AI Max, uh, um, feature enabled. The third one, uh, is landing pages.
13:50
So what Google is doing is, um, generates actually reviews or scans your website, then he's sending traffic to... It can send to all of your website.
14:01
It can send to the, your blog post, it can send to your career page, it can send even to your thank you pages. But those, many of those pages are not really built to convert.
14:13
So in this case, you'll see high bounce rates and no conversions or very, uh, low-level efficiency. So definitely that's another spend burn that people are, uh, concerned about.
14:26
Then the last one would be really the creative. So Google was doing it just mixing your images, videos, and copy variations.
14:33
And again, it's powerful, but it's risky because if your inputs are not tied, just end up with a mismatch message and low-quality engagement. So that's, um, what we-- people need to, uh, think when they enable AI Max.
14:48
It's really the copy, it's the keywords, it's the landing pages, and it's the creative part.
14:55
So it sounds like, you know, definitely putting some guardrails around Google so that they don't go rogue, you know, is an important thing. But that also sounds like a lot, right?
15:03
Like when we think about what to set up before you launch, it really kind of runs through like setting up landing pages, ad copy, creative, the things that, you know, the things that you just mentioned, um, you know, which can maybe feel overwhelming and make people question, like, so what's the value of AI Max if I still have to set up a lot?
15:21
Like what do you think? Does it, is it, is it a lot, or do you feel like, you know, it's manageable? Well, it can feel like a lot. So, but y-you don't need to do it like at once.
15:33
Um, it's, this feature allows you to do it in steps. So you enable AI Max, and our recommendation is to enable AI Max and then enable just the first big, um, uh, lever, which is keyword control.
15:46
Uh, because here is actually wh-where the biggest shift happens, and actually it's where the most of the risk is. So how you can control the keyword is really by using negative keywords and monitor the search trends.
15:59
In our playbook, we refer to a lot of them, like s-several formulas.
16:04
For instance, avoid, um, keywords related to your career or to do it yourself or to the brand, uh, the competi-competitive brands or to some of the things that definitely it's not related to, um, your business, uh, or it might be some wrong associations to your business or a geographical confusion.
16:27
So in our playbook, we are really stating each of those, uh, points, uh, so it can help people to build in advance before launching AI Max some, uh, list of negative keywords that they can apply at the campaign or at the account level.
16:42
So from the beginning, they can avoid some wasted spend in their accounts. And then people can start layer the rest.
16:51
I don't know, start with the brand protection, for instance, excluding the, some of your own brands because you don't want some of the cannibalization of the, between your brand campaigns and the non-brand.
17:03
Uh, maybe put some guardrails around copy. For instance, don't use any warranty, uh, copy.
17:10
Don't use any percentage of sales, or don't use any, um, uh, in the-- when you enable the AI Max, you have, uh, content guidelines, uh, where you can add up to forty rules, uh, to Google how, what expressly, uh, specifying to Google what you can, Google can talk about or he cannot talk about.
17:35
Very cool. So that will really be helpful for anyone, but you need to really think very well what to write there. And it's not compulsory to fulfill all of the forty of them.
17:44
You can start with five of them, and then you can see that there is some wrong messaging and then adapt. So it's, as I said, it's a continuous work.
17:52
It's not just start and forget, and it's not, um, uh, it, it's a work that it needs to be done on weekly basis, revising the keywords, revising the copy, revising the creative, understanding where the spending goes.
18:05
And you don't need to push all your money to that from the beginning.
18:08
Start small and then scale as you see better and better engagement, better and better results, uh, coming from that.Yeah, test, learn, and scale, right?
18:17
Which is an important, uh, uh, an important component, but also the perfect segue for me to take a little pause here.
18:22
We're about two-thirds of the way through today's live Q&A session, um, so I will pause for what I like to call station identification. Um, welcome to the ScaledOn Live.
18:32
Uh, this is a Q&A session that we like to have at least once a month.
18:36
Definitely lots of things happening and changing in digital marketing and in digital overall, so we may have more of these sessions than, than we have been, because we like to use this as an opportunity to bring hot topics or certainly problems that we see our clients, our, you know, partners struggling with, that maybe we can share some knowledge with you to help you as you're managing through those things.
19:02
That said, we know that a lot of this can be overwhelming, and we are here to help. So please feel, feel free to drop us a line at scaledon.com if you have questions.
19:10
You can add questions into the comments here, and if we're not able to answer you today, we will absolutely have a subject matter expert get back to you.
19:18
And always, we recommend subscribing here and dropping a like on this video if it was helpful to you so that you will be notified of future sessions and can continue to learn from the awesome team that I like to bring forward to chat with, you know, to chat with you on at least a monthly basis.
19:34
Um, I'm Courtney.
19:35
I am the director of marketing here at ScaledOn, um, and I am joined by Yulia, our CEO, who has had her hands in all things ScaledOn for quite some time, but lends her wisdom, particularly on the paid media end of things today, and is talking to us about AI Max.
19:53
Uh, and I think that the important point that we've talked about is I think a lot of people see AI as an opportunity to, you know, to set it and forget it, to say, "Why do I need subject matter experts if I can just ask AI to do these things for me?"
20:06
So we've covered a lot of good information today about some of the risks of that, but also some of the rewards and some of the reasons that whether you're comfortable or not, you probably need to dump- jump in and give it a try.
20:19
So now that we've covered a little bit of station identification, again, drop us a, you know, a like and subscribe, please.
20:25
Um, now that we've covered a little bit of that, let's jump back into AI Max, because I think we've talked a little bit about what to do if you want to experiment with it. But it's probably not for everyone.
20:37
You know, who do you think should really be using AI Max right now and who should wait?
20:44
Well, definitely AI Max, um, so I think the most important part is to make sure that your campaigns have good quality data, and you have enough volume, actually, so that, um, AI Max can learn from that.
21:00
Because if you don't give the right signals to Google, uh, it will just start to optimize for wrong stuff.
21:08
So that means, uh, really accurate tracking in your Google Ads account, making sure that you track not for views, not for, you know, fake conversions, but you're really tracking for real conversions.
21:20
If you are like a bigger B2B,
21:23
uh, I don't know, um, business, or you have longer cycling, uh, sales, uh, sorry, longer sales, uh, cycles, um, offline conversions, uh, imports as well are essential, so otherwise Google will just optimize too early in the funnel.
21:40
So I feel first you need to really make sure that in your account data is tracked correctly. So that's number one. Second is that the budget. If you have... And there is a...
21:53
We identified, I think, in our ScaledOn accounts a couple of, to select that, thresholds that would be good. Just you need to have at least 30 conversions in the account in the last 30 days to enable AI Max.
22:07
For, um, for, for either target CPA bidding strategy or for maximize conversion value, if you're using ROAS or target ROAS bidding strategy, you might, um, have closer to 50 conversions in your account, and if you use, uh, for instance, maximize conversions, then, which most of the businesses do, then you can lower this threshold to 15 conversions.
22:31
But the idea that if those levels are too low, the AI system will just have a too longer learning period, and the efficiency of those campaigns will be not so, I don't know, feasible to select that.
22:45
It just takes too long to learn when you have low data. So, um, but it really depends. So m- many people or many business ask, "Okay, but what should be the, the daily budget for my accounts?"
22:59
So- That was gonna be my next question, yes. Always ask that one. Yeah. Well, and it's, it's not something that... It, it really depends on your audience.
23:05
Are you advertising nationwide, or are you advertising in a smaller, local, I don't know, region? Because for small accounts, it can be $50 per day. It's totally doable.
23:16
Um, but you need to monitor how many conversions you have in that 30 days. For bigger accounts, it can be $250. So actually, it's, these are the, the biggest levers of, um, a successful AI Max campaign.
23:30
It's really for having enough data in account for learning, give AI enough, uh, data to learn. This is actually valid for launching a B Max campaign, so it's not only for A Max.
23:42
Anything that implies AI learning, it needs data in the account. So this is first, and second is, um, data tracking. And the most important one, prepare yourself before launching AI Max.
23:56
So if you, even so you're not yet achieving those thresholds, use the time to improve your campaigns, tracking, uh, gather data. Then when you hit those thresholds, then you start moving forward.
24:09
And as I said, one step at a time. Start with keyword boundaries, and then move to landing pages, then move to copy, and so on.
24:16
So you don't need to launch everything at once.That's a good roadmap for accounts who may be a little too small, they have smaller budget, they have lower conversion volume, like that's some good things for them to focus on instead.
24:27
You know, talk to me a little bit more about tracking, obviously, and the importance of tracking. Why, why is that so critical?
24:35
Well, as mentioned, is that Google, um, when you don't have the accurate tracking, and now Google has been changed, uh, the way that we tracked, um, they suggest you to use more tools like a Google Tag Gateway, um, make data connection.
24:50
They implemented some data connection with, uh, some of the top CRM systems like HubSpot or Salesforce. Um, where possible, you can implement the server-side tracking.
25:01
Recently, they did, um, uh, most mostly the process of integration or import of the offline conversions through spreadsheets or a direct connection to the CRM, uh, tools.
25:12
So this is done for one particular reason, to foil data into Google so it better learns who is your, uh, who is your ICP, who is that customer who is bringing you more business or more value.
25:29
So, and AMax is definitely using that data, so if you don't have good tracking in place, you won't have good results into AMax. But not only AMax, it's actually valid for all your Google campaign.
25:42
Pretty much everything, right? Bad data in is bad outcome. Right. But it's becoming even more critical as soon as you enable these AI, uh, features in your- Absolutely. Yeah.
25:52
Yeah, look, context with AI is everything, so if you give AI the wrong context, you know, the output you get will, will- Yeah... you know, not be the useful output that you're hoping for, for sure.
26:02
Um, so before we, you know, before we wrap up today, you know, we've talked about a lot of different components and a lot of information around AIMax, and I know that anybody that has questions will reach out to us, but what's one thing that you feel like people should take away from today's conversation?
26:20
Um, first of all, is, um, is not AI that beast, so AIMax is not that beast of fear, uh, to launch it. I think the key is really preparation here. Just really get ready, learn what's happening in the account.
26:34
If you have challenges, reach to an expert, so you can do, like, analysis of your long-run keywords, understand what are the rules of your business to write copies, what are the landing pages that convert the best, so you can give those guidelines to, to the AIMax.
26:50
Then don't, don't treat AIMax that's something that you launch, because in the past,
26:55
when you launch like a search campaign or, um, display campaign, even though there were some account management pieces you need to do, but they weren't so much impacting your budget.
27:07
Nowadays, it's even more critical not to set and forget.
27:12
So it's just to keep in mind that it's an ongoing work, and you need to continually build guardrails and control around everything that AIMax is producing because it's, uh, it will hallucinate, and will bring you even unqualified traffic and will burn your budget.
27:30
So I think that's, that, this is, will have a very big impact, uh, on your business. So, but if you have it done properly, it'll have a very good impact on the business.
27:41
I think that's the biggest takeaways of, uh, from launching AIMax. Absolutely. For sure. Well, that was amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your insight with all of us today.
27:51
Um, as I know I've mentioned, we are always here, um, if you have questions that we can help with.
27:56
If you'd like Yulia and the team to take a look specifically at your account, you can reach out to us on scaledon.com at our Contact Us form.
28:04
You can type AIMax in there, or you can type whatever your question or need may be, um, and the team will certainly get back to you to help you out. Um, but we don't wanna leave you empty-handed today.
28:13
If you've joined us today and hopefully found value in the information that we've shared, we've put everything into a detailed AIMax playbook that you'll be able to access scanning the QR code that will pop up on your screen.
28:24
Um, it will include the negative keyword list, the different setup steps that Yulia spoke about, and the thresholds that we covered today.
28:31
So if you would find that useful, if maybe you're not ready to reach out yet, you know, but you want a little bit more help and insights, like feel free to, to get that playbook from us, and then reach out with any questions.
28:42
Um, in the meantime, thank you again, Yulia. It has been great to chat with you today. Thank you to everyone who has joined us. Um, and again, we appreciate any new subscribers who may join us.
28:52
Share out the live with anyone who you think may benefit from the information that we've shared today or who may benefit from future, uh, lives that we'll be having across the gamut of services that we offer here at Scaledon with Amazon media, SEO, email marketing,
29:07
development, design, all things that we could ever help with, we're here to help. So reach out to us if we can be of help. Until next time, I'm Courtney, um, and we will see you soon. [outro music]
ScaledOn Insider Podcast
Listen on
YouTube
YouTube
Recent episodes
No results found
