Google Marketing Live 2025: The Biggest Changes Coming to Google Ads & How They'll Impact You

Live from Mountain View, it’s AI!

The Google Ads team made some big announcements at this year’s Google Marketing Live (GML) event on May 21, including some major AI features. Lots and lots of AI features.

You may have missed some of the actual announcements amidst the Selena Gomez Ads, surprise cameos, and all the YouTube stats, so I’m here to cut through the fluff and recap the most important announcements for you.

Disclaimer: I’ll also share my take on what I think of these announcements as of today, but in general, I think almost anything is worth a test! However, I haven’t seen/tested many of these new features yet, so take everything I’m saying with a margarita rim of salt.

Another disclaimer: I will not be covering every single announcement – just the ones I feel are the most impactful. Google put this recap together with everything that was announced (and even some things that weren’t.)

Table of Contents

• Ads in AI Overviews & AI Mode
• The Power Pack
• Bidding Updates
• Video Ads Updates
• Google Merchant Center Announcements
• Tracking & Reporting Updates
• Marketing Advisor

Ads in AI Overviews & AI Mode

At GML 2024, Google announced ads were coming to AI Overviews on mobile. I have not seen one yet, nor has anyone I know or follow on social media.

But Google announced yesterday ads would be coming to AI Overviews on desktop as well as AI Mode.

My Take

In theory, having ads in AI Mode/AI Overviews sounds like a good thing for marketers. With the right smart bidding strategy and conversions, I’d be excited to test this for clients to see if these placements can drive incremental conversions.

One piece that hasn’t been explained is what campaign types would be eligible to show in these placements and if there would be any control for opt-in or opt-out. It was discussed at GML that Google could match intent to even non-commercial searches and show ads, but we still don’t know what campaign types will be eligible for these placements.

It’s possible that only Performance Max (PMax) campaigns will be eligible to serve, or perhaps Search campaigns that use broad match. My guess is AI Max for Search campaigns may be eligible to show in AI Overviews/AI Mode, but this hasn’t been confirmed.

The Power Pack

The excitement was palpable through the livestream when Sylvanus Bent took the stage to get us hyped up about the Power Pack! This moment made me nostalgic for 2024 when I would watch grainy live streams of The Eras Tour on my phone. ✨

This one technically wasn’t an announcement. The Power Pack is just PMax, AI Max for Search campaigns, and Demand Gen. This is not to be confused with Power Pair (Sylvanus’ tagline last year,) which was just PMax and Broad Match. To my dismay, he did not make the audience chant this year.

It’s clear Google is working toward making these three AI-powered campaign types their core product offerings, and we should expect Google to push us to use them. My guess is Google will focus most of its product updates and new features within these campaign types for the foreseeable future.

So let’s unpack all the Power Pack updates we got at GML.

AI Max for Search Campaigns

ICYMI, the biggest announcement from Google Ads so far this year happened before Google Marketing Live. AI Max is a suite of AI features that can be applied to Search campaigns with one click. It uses your broad match keywords and keywordless targeting based on your keywords to find users with the right search intent.

We got a look at the search term report at GML, which shows the search term along with the headline that showed to the user and the landing page they were sent to.

My Take

I can’t wait to test AI Max for clients. I have a lot of success with PMax in lead gen accounts with the right down-funnel conversion action and smart bidding, but I assume a good chunk of my conversions are coming from search.

AI Max will enable advertisers to take what we love about PMax and apply it to Search ads only, without spending on lower-quality placements. I also love that we’re getting lots of options, controls, and transparency.

PMax Channel Reporting is Now in Open Beta

Channel reporting was already announced, but should now be in open beta in accounts!

My Take

If you couldn’t tell from the exclamation point at the end of the previous sentence, I love this. PMax has (rightfully) had a bad rap but this feels like a step in the right direction for transparency for advertisers.

I should note, PMax is not getting channel control. But if you see one channel performing well, you could spin up a Demand Gen or AI Max Search campaign to drive more conversions from that channel.

I don’t see this in my accounts yet, but Google said there would be a new channel performance page within PMax campaigns that shows performance by channel, including cost, conversions, and conversion value!

New Customer Acquisition Controls for Demand Gen Campaigns

New controls include an option that will let you exclude certain people from seeing your Demand Gen ads. For example:

• Existing customers
• People searching for your brand
• People who clicked your ads or content on Google or YouTube
• Website visitors
• App users

They also include new options to bid only for new prospects or to bid higher for new prospects.

My Take

I love these options and am so excited to give them a test! It will allow us to focus prospecting dollars on new leads that are truly incremental for the brand.

I like that Google is clearly positioning Demand Gen as an upper-funnel campaign type and giving advertisers more control over who will see these ads.

Accelerated Checkout for Demand Gen

This feature allows advertisers to send shoppers directly from your ad to the cart so they can check out.

My Take

I hope this is an option for the user within Google Shopping and not turned on for all ads automatically. If it is optional, I like it.

Bidding Updates

Smart Bidding Exploration

Google announced Smart Bidding Exploration, which enables flexible ROAS targets for campaigns with Target ROAS bidding.

According to Google, “This allows Google AI to find new, qualified leads that the [advertiser] wouldn't have captured otherwise.”

Google also said, “This new tool builds on existing features like AI Max for Search campaigns.” It’s unclear if that means this feature is only eligible for campaigns using AI Max.

My Take

In full transparency, we had access to this beta earlier in the year for one client. I tested it in some campaigns, saw lower ROAS, and turned it off. That’s not to say I wouldn’t test it in another account, but I haven’t liked what I’ve seen so far.

Overall, if I wanted lower ROAS and/or more, less efficient conversions or conversion value, I would set a lower ROAS target. I’m not super excited to test this one.

Video Ads Updates

Branded Search Attribution For Video Ads

New reporting will show if someone searched for your brand name after seeing your video ad.

My Take

I love this! It can be difficult to measure results for upper-funnel video campaigns, and if I can show clients they’re driving branded searches, that would be a win.

New Shoppable Experience for Connected TV (CTV)

This will allow TV watchers to engage with products using QR codes. According to Google, it’s rolling out globally soon across Demand Gen and PMax campaigns.

My Take

Love this. Give me more TV features for YouTube Ads and fewer shorts!

Shoppable Masthead Ads

The masthead ad placement on YouTube can now feature shoppable products.

My Take

I love this for product launches for big brands. However, I think the clicks will be very expensive.

Video Ads Across All Google Channels

Video ads will be able to show in Search, Image Search, and Google Shopping for PMax campaigns. Google says this is rolling out soon in the US and Canada.

My Take

I’m withholding an opinion on this one until I see what the videos look like in the search results.

Creator Partnership Hub

This one has already been announced, but Google rolled out a hub for brands and creators to collaborate on paid partnerships.

My Take

I love that brands have this easy access to creators for partnerships. But I don’t love that Google is probably taking a cut where they may not have otherwise.

AI Video Enhancements

Google will use AI to reformat and extend your videos to all aspect ratios. This is available now across the globe.

My Take

I hope advertisers will be able to see all the variations and approve or disapprove before going live.

Asset Studio

This will provide one destination within Google Ads to create, import, and preview assets, including lifestyle imagery, using AI. Google says it’s rolling this out soon globally.

My Take

Asset creation features like this could hopefully help small businesses create assets that might not otherwise have them, which is fantastic.

However, I don’t think they could replace a good designer, and I hope advertisers can approve all images before they run live in ads. We’ve seen that Google’s AI creative tools didn’t work great in the past.

Google Merchant Center Announcements

Brand Profiles for Google Search

Brands will soon be able to manage how they appear in Google Search – right in Google Merchant Center.

My Take

Arpan Banerjee found this early and shared it on LinkedIn last week. It looks like you can manage descriptions or add images and videos.

I love this!

AI Campaign Suggestions in Merchant Center

I’m finding few details about this announcement online, but Google will have campaign recommendations for you in Merchant Center. The example they gave was for Father's Day, showing how advertisers could click to review and set up the campaign. AI would then make recommendations for what to test and set up experiments.

My Take

They lost me here when they said Merchant Center could make a recommendation for discounts to add to the campaign.

In general, I think it takes time to set up a good campaign and I don’t want to let Google’s AI have too much control. I’m all here for the recommendations for upcoming events, but I would prefer to set up my own campaign in the platform.

Tracking & Reporting Updates

Google Tag Gateway

I tagged in Jack, our Head of Data, to cover this one.

Basically, the Tag Gateway is a way to load Google Tags for Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, and more directly from your Content Delivery Network (CDN) rather than from Google Tag Manager.

Jack’s Take

This feels like Google's way of providing people with the means to implement more first-party tracking solutions without needing to have the technical expertise to implement a full server-side tracking solution.

Better Cross-Platform Reporting Coming to GA4

Google teased cross-channel measurement improvements coming to Google Analytics to give better insights into performance across platforms. Some of the improvements include:

• Enhanced multi-touch attribution in GA4
• View-through conversions coming to GA4
• Cross-channel budgets coming to GA4

My Take

I love the idea of having a better understanding of how all channels are performing, but will have to see this in action to decide whether it’s good or just makes Google look good.

Marketing Advisor

This is a new AI tool that can help marketers gain insights and complete tasks. They played a cute little Girl Boss ad demonstrating how it could help.

Then to close the show, there was an example where the host asked why conversions were down. The tool told her that the Google Tag wasn’t installed on her landing page, then helped her install it.

My Take

The example given was great, but I don’t think this can replace real human advertisers. I’ve seen Google’s recommendations live in accounts, and they often lack nuance into people’s actual business objectives.

Final Takeaways

For the most part, I really enjoyed Google Marketing Live this year and many of the announcements we heard! A lot of these updates weren’t exactly “new” and had actually been announced by Ginny Marvin earlier this year or already spotted in accounts. So I didn’t feel like anything shocked me.

Google has made lots of welcome changes to give advertisers more control and transparency in PMax and Demand Gen campaigns recently and it seems like they are headed in the same direction with AI Max campaigns.

The presenters at GML said multiple times that they are listening to us and welcome our feedback, and I’m actually starting to believe them!