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# Black Propeller

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## Posts
- [Negative Keywords in 2026: How to Stop Wasting Google Ads Budget on Clicks That Will Never Convert](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/negative-keywords-for-google-ads/): Why Negative Keywords Matter More in 2026 Than They Ever Have Google's broad match algorithms are more aggressive than ever. As of 2026, broad match is the default in Smart Bidding campaigns, and close variant matching extends reach to queries that are semantically related to your keywords but not necessarily commercially relevant to your business. The result is that advertisers are seeing three to five times as many unique search queries as they did two years ago, many of which have no realistic chance of converting. Negative keywords are the primary lever you have to counteract this. They do not adjust your bids, they do not change your creative, and they do not require a conversation with a Google rep. They simply prevent your ads from appearing on queries that do not belong in your funnel. In over 50 percent of paid search accounts that Opascope audits, negative keyword hygiene is the fastest budget reclaim lever their team finds. It is consistently one of the highest-ROI actions available in a Google Ads account, and one of the most consistently neglected. This guide covers how negative keywords work in 2026, including the March 2025 Performance Max expansion that changed the control landscape, the match type decisions that most advertisers get wrong, the management cadence that actually protects budget over time, and the industry-specific exclusions worth implementing before you spend a dollar on your next campaign. For the more extensive campaign structure context, see our Google Ads campaign setup guide. ​ Key Takeaways Broad match and Performance Max are generating three to five times more unique search queries than in 2023 (groas, 2025). Without active negative keyword management, that expanded reach directly translates to wasted spend. Performance Max now supports 10,000 campaign-level negative keywords per campaign as of March 2025, up from 100. This is a material change to PMax control that remains underused across the industry (groas AI, 2025). Phrase match is the recommended default for most negative keywords, not broad match. Broad match negatives can inadvertently block profitable traffic if applied without checking conversion data (groas, 2026). Over-negating is a real problem. Expert practitioners consistently warn that aggressive negative lists hurt more than they help in accounts where Smart Bidding has enough signal to make accurate intent judgments. An ecommerce advertiser who committed to a weekly 30-minute Search Terms Report review added 1,143 negative keywords over 90 days and reduced their Performance Max CPA by 31 percent while maintaining conversion volume (groas AI, 2025). What Negative Keywords Actually Do to Your Account A negative keyword tells Google's auction system not to enter your ad against a specific query or category of queries. When a search matches a negative keyword on your account, that search simply does not receive your bid, and your ad does not appear. Unlike positive keywords, which now include broad semantic matching and close variant expansion, negative keywords behave predictably: they block what you tell them to block, they account for casing and misspellings automatically, and they do not expand to synonyms the way positive keywords do. The effect on campaign economics is immediate. Irrelevant clicks inflate your impression count while reducing your click-through rate, which signals low relevance to Google's auction and drags your Quality Score down. A lower Quality Score means higher CPCs across your keyword portfolio, not just on the queries where you are showing for the wrong intent. Every irrelevant click is a double loss: you pay for the click directly, and you pay an indirect cost through worsened auction standing across your whole campaign. The compounding effect works in reverse, too. Poor negative keyword hygiene degrades your campaign's ability to find the right audience tomorrow, not just today. Smart Bidding algorithms learn from conversion signals. When the algorithm receives click-without-conversion data from irrelevant queries, it incorporates that noise into its bidding model, which trains it toward a slightly wrong audience profile over time. Clean data in implies cleaner targeting out. That said, there is a genuine tension worth understanding clearly before you start adding negatives aggressively. Paul DeMott, owner of Helium, puts the risk directly: "Most negative keyword lists are too exhaustive and haven't been revisited in years... aggressive negative lists often hurt more than they help. You're constraining the algorithm's exploration on the exact accounts where it has the signal to make smart calls." The goal is surgical exclusion of clear irrelevance, not comprehensive blocking of anything that could theoretically not convert. Negative Keyword Match Types: What Each One Does and When to Use It Negative match types work differently from positive match types, and defaulting to the wrong one is one of the most common errors in account management. The standard recommendation has shifted in 2026 toward phrase match as the default, not broad match. Phrase Match Negatives Phrase match negatives block any query that contains the exact phrase in the specified order, including when additional words appear before or after. Adding "free trial" as a phrase match negative blocks "get a free trial today" and "free trial no credit card," but does not block "trial account" or "product trial." This is the recommended default for most negative keywords because it provides meaningful coverage of unwanted intent without the collateral blocking risk that comes with broad match. Use it for intent modifiers like competitor names, job-seeking terms, educational qualifiers, and DIY queries. Broad Match Negatives Broad match negatives block your ad when all the words in your negative keyword appear in a search query in any order. Adding free as a broad match negative blocks "free CRM," "CRM free trial," "best free CRM," and any query containing that word. This sounds efficient, but Navah Hopkins' analysis points out the risk: broad match negatives do not account for close variants. Adding "cheap" blocks queries containing the word "cheap" but may still allow "affordable" or "budget-friendly" through. Use broad match negatives only for single-word themes you want eliminated entirely, such as "jobs" or "free," and only after confirming there is no profitable traffic containing that word in your account. Exact Match Negatives Exact match negatives block only the precise query in the exact order specified, with no variation. This is the most surgical option and the least likely to cause collateral blocking, but it requires you to know the specific query you want to eliminate. Use it when a particular long-tail search term is wasting budget, but you do not want to risk blocking semantically related queries that might convert. In practice, exact match negatives are most useful for competitive conquesting cases where you want to stop appearing for one specific competitor's branded phrase without blocking adjacent searches. ​ Match Type What It Blocks Best Use Case Primary Risk Phrase match Queries containing the exact phrase in order Intent modifiers, competitor names, DIY terms Low -- recommended default Broad match Queries containing all negative keyword words in any order Single-word universal exclusions (free, jobs) Can block profitable close variants Exact match Only the precise query as specified Surgical removal of one specific wasted query Low coverage -- misses variations ​ Where to Apply Negative Keywords: Account, Campaign, and Ad Group Negative keywords can be applied at three structural levels in Google Ads, and each level has a different role. Getting the architecture right saves significant management time at scale. Account-Level Negatives Account-level negative keyword lists apply to all eligible campaigns across your account. Google Ads allows up to 5,000 negatives per list, and you can apply multiple lists to multiple campaigns simultaneously. This is the right place for universal exclusions that should never appear for any campaign you run: job-seeking terms (jobs, salary, hiring, careers), free-intent terms (free, free trial, open source), DIY and educational terms (how to, tutorial, certification, course), and any demographic signals that universally don't match your buyers. Well-managed accounts usually maintain at least 50 to 100 account-level negatives as a baseline, with ecommerce accounts often carrying 200 or more. Campaign-Level Negatives Campaign-level negatives apply exclusions specific to one campaign's intent without affecting the rest of the account. A term that is irrelevant in your branded campaign might be entirely appropriate to bid on in a competitor conquest campaign. Campaign-level negatives let you manage this segmentation cleanly. Use them to block geographic terms outside your service area, product categories that are not part of that campaign's scope, and competitor names you are not actively pursuing in that particular initiative. Performance Max and the March 2025 Change Performance Max was historically the hardest campaign type to control with negative keywords. Before March 2025, PMax supported only 100 campaign-level negatives. Google expanded that limit to 10,000 negative keywords per PMax campaign in March 2025, which materially changed what is possible. Brand exclusion lists are the most important PMax negative to configure immediately. Without them, PMax absorbs branded search volume and inflates platform-reported ROAS while your actual new customer acquisition cost rises. If you are running PMax campaigns without brand exclusions and a comprehensive negative list, see our Performance Max guide for the full setup approach. Ad Group-Level Negatives Ad group-level negatives provide the finest targeting control, letting you sculpt traffic between ad groups within a single campaign. PPC practitioners consistently caution against overuse here because it creates management bloat that builds up over time. Ad group negatives are appropriate in tightly themed, single-intent ad groups where you need to prevent traffic overlap between adjacent themes. For most accounts, keeping negatives at the account and campaign level is cleaner and easier to audit. How to Find the Negative Keywords That Are Actually Hurting Your Account Mine the Search Terms Report First The Search Terms Report is the only trustworthy first-party source for discovering which queries are actually triggering your ads. Sort by cost, filter for zero conversions over a meaningful window (30 to 90 days, depending on your volume), and look for three types of entries: high-spend queries with no conversions, queries that are topically related but wrong regarding intent (someone searching "what is CRM" when you sell CRM software to enterprise buyers), and queries that indicate the wrong audience entirely. One important 2026 caveat: Google now redacts a meaningful portion of low-volume search terms from your reports. The queries you can see are not a complete picture of what is triggering your ads. If the visible queries show patterns of irrelevance, assume similar queries you cannot see are also present. The review should inform your strategy, not define the entirety of it. Review cadence ought to match your spend level. High-spend accounts should be reviewed weekly. Lower-spend accounts, biweekly at minimum. Monthly reviews allow weeks of wasted spend to accumulate before the issue is caught. Proactive Brainstorming Before Launch Building a starter negative list before a campaign goes live prevents the initial weeks of budget waste that reactive management cannot avoid. For any new campaign, brainstorm along three axes: who are the wrong audiences (students, job seekers, DIY researchers), what are the wrong intents (informational queries, comparison shopping that indicates a far-earlier funnel stage), and what are the wrong contexts (competitor brands you do not want to appear against, product categories outside your offering). Sales team input is underused for this. CRM data and sales call transcripts reveal the exact language confused prospects use when they contact you, having misunderstood what you sell. Those phrases are almost always worth adding as campaign or account-level negatives. N-Gram Analysis for Scale For large accounts with thousands of search terms, reviewing full queries individually is impractical. N-gram analysis breaks queries into individual words and two-to-three word sequences, then sorts by frequency and searches to detect recurring wasteful patterns. If a word like "free" appears 400 times across queries with zero conversions, one broad match negative at the account level eliminates all 400 variants simultaneously. This pattern-based approach is significantly more efficient than term-by-term reactive management and is the method underlying most AI-assisted negative keyword tools. CRM and Offline Conversion Data If your CRM tracks lead source to revenue closed, you can identify search terms that generate leads but produce no revenue. A query that sends 20 leads at a $50 CPL with zero closed revenue is more expensive than a query that sends 5 leads at $150 CPL with a 40 percent close rate. Integrating GA4 and CRM data with your keyword strategy shifts your negative keyword decisions from front-end click quality to downstream revenue quality, which is the right optimization frame for mature accounts. Industry-Specific Negative Keywords Worth Implementing Now Universal account-level negatives apply across almost every commercial account. Beyond these, your industry has specific exclusion patterns worth applying before your campaign generates its own data. Industry Key Negative Keywords Rationale Universal (all accounts) free, jobs, salary, careers, hiring, how to, DIY, tutorial, course, certification, internship, template Job seekers, researchers, and free-tier seekers appear in every vertical. Block at account level. B2B and SaaS open source, student, scholarship, self-hosted, forum, Reddit, GitHub, crack, pirate Protects high-CPC budgets from learners, developers evaluating free alternatives, and non-buyer audiences. Ecommerce and retail wholesale, bulk, used, secondhand, repair, parts, refurbished, thrift, consignment Excludes supply-chain and bargain-hunter intent. Adjust if your catalog includes those categories. Home services and local remote, online, virtual, national, DIY, supplies, materials, tools, rent, rental Users searching for digital solutions or self-service options are not hiring a local contractor. Legal and financial services pro bono, free consultation, legal aid, grant, scholarship, government assistance Indicates users seeking free or publicly funded services rather than paid professional counsel. Healthcare home remedy, natural remedy, alternative, self-diagnosis, free clinic, student health Filters out self-treatment intent and non-paying audiences from paid clinical or product campaigns. ​ One note on this table: treat it as a starting point, not a definitive list. Before adding any term at the account level, confirm there are no converting queries in your Search Terms Report containing that word. A term like "parts" is correct to exclude for most retail accounts, but would block profitable traffic for an auto parts seller. Negative Keywords in Performance Max: What Changed and What to Do Performance Max deserves its own section because the landscape changed significantly in early 2025 and because PMax accounts for a growing share of total Google Ads spend. PMax now drives approximately 45 percent of all Google Ads conversions, which means it is almost certainly involved in a meaningful portion of your account's spend, even if you built your campaigns before PMax was the default recommendation. The expansion from 100 to 10,000 campaign-level negative keywords in March 2025 changes the control options materially. You can now apply genuinely comprehensive negative lists directly at the campaign level rather than relying exclusively on account-level shared lists. The priority order for PMax negatives: brand exclusion lists first, then job-seeker and free-intent terms, then competitor names, then product categories outside your campaign's scope. Brand exclusion is the most important PMax negative to implement immediately. Without it, PMax competes for your own branded search traffic, which inflates the reported ROAS of the PMax campaign (because branded searches convert cheaply) while cannibalizing your branded search campaign's performance. The fix is a brand exclusion list at the PMax campaign level that prevents PMax from showing for queries containing your company name and core branded product terms. Our Performance Max guide covers this setup alongside the wider PMax account structure decisions that determine whether the campaign type works for your business. The Effect of Negative Keywords on Quality Score, CPCs, and ROAS Negative keywords create a measurable cascade of improvements through your account metrics when applied correctly. The mechanism is simple: removing irrelevant impressions increases your click-through rate because your ads only appear against queries where users are likely to click. Higher CTR signals relevance to Google's auction system, which improves your Quality Score. A Quality Score improvement of three to five points translates to CPC reductions of 30 to 40 percent on the affected keywords without any change to your bid. The downstream effects continue. Higher-intent traffic lands on your pages with stronger purchasing motivation, which improves conversion rate independent of any landing page changes. Better conversion rate data feeds into Smart Bidding models, which improve targeting efficiency over time. The result is a positive feedback loop where negative keyword hygiene compounds into progressively better account performance. The quantified impact remains significant. One ecommerce account that implemented a disciplined weekly negative keyword review over 90 days added 1,143 new negative keywords and achieved a 31 percent CPA reduction in Performance Max while continuing conversion volume within 3 percent of baseline. The wasted spend reclaim required no additional budget and no creative changes. Maintaining Your Negative Keyword Lists Over Time Negative keyword management is not a setup task. It is an ongoing discipline that requires a defined cadence, a clear ownership structure, and periodic audits to catch both new waste and stale exclusions. Weekly Review (High-Spend Accounts) Export your Search Terms Report covering the previous seven days, sorted by cost descending. Filter for queries with zero conversions across that period. Review the top cost entries first. PPC expert Adam Gorecki recommends prioritizing by impressions and then cost: "If you don't have time to review everything, start with the search terms getting the most impressions -- then move on to the ones costing you the most." Add confirmed waste to the appropriate shared list or campaign-level list immediately rather than accumulating them for a later batch. Monthly Audit (All Accounts) A monthly audit covers three things that the weekly review misses. First, reviewing whether any negatives added during the previous period have inadvertently blocked profitable traffic. Look for volume drops in ad groups where you recently added negatives, and compare against conversion data before concluding whether a blocked query was genuinely irrelevant. Second, segment your lists by theme to prevent redundancy and identify gaps. Categories worth maintaining separately include job seekers, informational intent, DIY, free intent, geographic exclusions, and competitor terms. Third, and most commonly overlooked: checking for stale negatives. A negative added in 2023 to block a launch-period issue may be blocking the conversion of traffic today. As your product evolves, your catalog expands, or your target audience shifts, exclusions that were correct when added can become incorrect. A quarterly sweep of your account-level lists specifically for stale exclusions is worth building into your management calendar. Inheriting an Account If you take over a paid search account from another team or agency, auditing the existing negative keyword lists before running campaigns is essential. Legacy exclusions frequently remain in place long after the reason for adding them has passed, and they can silently block profitable traffic at scale. See our guide on 10 signs your Google Ads account needs help for the full audit checklist we use when taking over an account, which includes negative keyword list review as one of the first diagnostic steps. Advanced Negative Keyword Tactics for Mature Accounts Pairing Broad Match Keywords With Tight Negative Lists The combination of broad match keywords and Smart Bidding gives the algorithm maximum data volume and targeting flexibility. The risk is that without guardrails, this suppleness turns into budget diffusion across irrelevant queries. Pairing broad match with hyper-specific negative lists at campaign or ad group level captures the volume benefit of broad match while maintaining the targeted accuracy that protects your CPL. This is the operating model in accounts that have graduated from exact match defensive structures to genuine Smart Bidding leverage. GA4 and CRM Integration for Revenue-Quality Filtering Standard negative keyword management removes queries that do not produce clicks or conversions. Advanced management removes queries that produce conversions but not revenue. A lead that closes at zero percent is worse than no lead at all if it consumes sales team time. Connecting GA4 goal data and CRM outcome data to your search term analysis detects queries that look performant on click and conversion metrics yet produce no downstream revenue, which is a different and more valuable cut of the data. Negative Keywords as an Intent Sculpting Between Campaigns In accounts with multiple campaigns targeting different stages of the buying journey, negative keywords function as routing logic between campaigns instead of purely as exclusions. A broad awareness campaign should have all bottom-of-funnel transactional terms negated to ensure those searches route to your conversion-focused campaign. A branded campaign should have all generic category terms negated to ensure they route to your non-branded search campaigns. This campaign sculpting is how mature paid search accounts prevent their campaigns from bidding against themselves in the same auction. Frequently Asked Questions How often should I update my negative keyword lists? High-spend accounts should review the Search Terms Report weekly. Lower-spend accounts should be reviewed biweekly at a minimum. A full audit of all negative keyword lists, including checking for stale exclusions, should happen quarterly. Most agencies only review search terms once or twice a month, which allows weeks of wasted spend to accumulate before being caught. Building a 30-minute weekly review into your account management routine is one of the highest-ROI time investments in paid search. Can negative keywords hurt my campaign? Yes. Over-blocking with broad match negatives is a genuine risk. Adding a high-volume word as a broad match negative without checking whether any converting traffic contains that word can reduce your reach significantly and starve the Smart Bidding algorithm of data it needs. Industry practitioners consistently report that aggressive, unmaintained negative lists hurt accounts more than under-negating in accounts where the algorithm has sufficient signal to self-correct. Always check conversion data before adding high-volume terms, and monitor performance after adding any significant new exclusion. What is the right match type to use for negative keywords? Phrase match is the recommended default for most negative keywords. It provides meaningful coverage of unwanted intent while being specific enough to avoid the collateral blocking risk of a broad match. Use broad match only for single-word universal exclusions where you are confident no profitable traffic contains that word. Use exact match for surgical removal of one specific query that needs blocking without touching anything around it. The common recommendation to default to broad match negatives has been revised by practitioners who have seen the volume impact in mature accounts. Do negative keywords work in Performance Max campaigns? Yes. As of March 2025, Performance Max supports up to 10,000 campaign-level negative keywords per campaign (Google AI, 2025). Before this change, PMax negatives were limited to 100 per campaign, which made meaningful query control nearly impossible. Brand exclusion lists are the first priority: without them, PMax cannibalizes your branded search performance while inflating its own reported ROAS. Apply brand exclusions first, then job-seeker and free-intent terms, then broader category exclusions. What are the most universal negative keywords to add immediately? The terms that apply across virtually every commercial account are: free, jobs, salary, careers, hiring, how to, DIY, tutorial, course, certification, internship, and template. Add these to a shared account-level list before your campaigns go live. Most accounts that Opascope audits arrive without this baseline in place, and catching up costs nothing except the time to implement it. How is negative keyword management different from SEO keyword research? In organic search, an irrelevant query that produces a click is a vanity metric. It inflates your session count without draining your budget. In paid search, the same click is a direct financial loss. This makes negative keyword management a budget-critical discipline in PPC that has no true equivalent in SEO. The method also differs: PPC relies on real-time Search Terms Report data and immediate exclusion decisions based on spend and conversion outcomes, while SEO keyword research relies on volume trends and content alignment over longer time horizons. Negative Keywords Are the Fastest Way to Improve Your Paid Search ROI Without Spending More You do not need a bigger budget to improve your Google Ads performance. In most accounts, the budget required for meaningful improvement is already being spent on queries that will never convert. Negative keyword management reclaims that spend without touching your bids, your creative, or your targeting strategy. Black Propeller audits paid search accounts regularly and consistently finds negative keyword hygiene as one of the highest-leverage quick wins available. If you want an expert view of where your current account is leaking budget, visit our paid search service page or contact us to discuss an account audit. You can also see the results we have achieved for clients through structural improvements on our case studies page.
- [Pinterest Ads in 2026: A Step-by-Step Guide for Ecommerce and SaaS Brands](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/pinterest-ads-step-by-step-guide/): In 2026, the Tag alone is insufficient. Browser-level tracking has become increasingly unreliable following iOS privacy restrictions and widespread ad blocking. The Conversions API (CAPI) sends conversion events directly from your server to Pinterest, bypassing browser limitations and capturing events that the Tag misses. CAPI implementation directly improves your campaign performance by giving the algorithm higher-quality, more complete conversion signals to optimise against. If you are running Pinterest Ads without CAPI, you are feeding the algorithm an incomplete picture of your results.
- [Home Services Seasonality Marketing: How to Stay Booked in Every Season, Not Just Peak](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/home-services-seasonality-marketing/): Every home services business has a season where the phone does not stop ringing and a season where it barely rings at all. HVAC companies are slammed in July and August, then quiet through October and November. Roofers get buried after a hailstorm and idle for weeks until the next one. Landscapers are booked solid every spring weekend and scrambling for work by December.
- [Home Services SEO and GEO Strategy: How to Get Found in Google and AI Search in 2026](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/home-services-seo-geo-guide-2026/): Home services SEO pricing typically ranges from $1,500 to $2,500 per month for targeted local campaigns through to $3,000 to $5,000 per month for comprehensive full-service management with advanced optimisation (Foxxr Digital, 2026). The right investment level depends on your market competition, geographic footprint, and how aggressively you want to grow organic lead volume.
- [Home Services Paid Social Strategy: How to Use Meta and YouTube to Generate Leads and Fill Your Pipeline](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/home-services-paid-social/): The first mistake home services businesses make with paid social is running it the same way they run Google Ads. They write an ad, set a budget, target a broad homeowner audience, and wait for the phone to ring. When it does not, they conclude that Facebook and Instagram do not work for contractors.
- [SEO, GEO, and AEO: The Complete Guide to Organic Visibility in 2026](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/seo-geo-aeo-complete-guide-2026/): For most of the last decade, organic visibility meant one thing: ranking on Google. Build the right pages, earn the right links, collect reviews, and traffic would follow. That framework still has a role in 2026, but if it is the only framework you are using, you are leaving a significant share of organic reach on the table.
- [Paid Search Strategy for Home Services: How to Build Google Ads Campaigns That Book Jobs](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/paid-search-home-services-strategy/): When a homeowner's AC stops working on a 95-degree day, they are not browsing Instagram or waiting for a mailer. They open Google and type something urgent. That search query is the highest-value marketing moment in home services, and paid search is the channel built to own it.
- [Home Services Marketing: How to Build a Multichannel Strategy That Actually Works](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/home-services-marketing-strategy/): Home services marketing typically starts on a single channel. Usually Google Ads. Sometimes Local Service Ads. Occasionally SEO. And for a while, one channel is enough. Then CPCs rise, lead quality dips, or a competitor with a bigger budget starts crowding out the same keywords, and suddenly the pipeline that felt stable starts to wobble.
- [The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Home Service Business in 2026](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-marketing-your-home-service-business-in-2026/): The contractors winning those moments are not necessarily the best in their market. They are the ones with a marketing system built to be visible at exactly the right time, on every surface where that homeowner might be searching. That is what home services marketing is, and this guide explains how to build it.
- [SEO Services That Drive Revenue in 2026](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/seo-services-that-convert/): What modern SEO services should deliver, why GEO now matters alongside SEO, and how to evaluate whether your strategy is built for the way buyers search today.
- [Google Ads Conversion Tracking Audit: The 15-Minute Check That Saves Your Budget](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/google-ads-conversion-tracking-audit-15-minute-check/): Here is a scenario that plays out in hundreds of Google Ads accounts every day. A campaign manager looks at a dashboard showing 87 conversions and a cost-per-conversion of $42. Leadership is happy. Budget increases are approved. Bids are raised. Three months later, the sales team reports that pipeline is flat. Revenue hasn't moved.
- [Performance Max Best Practices 2026: Setup, Asset Groups, and When to Avoid It](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/performance-max-guide-2026/): Performance Max adoption jumped from 60% to 71% in a single year. Over 73% of Google Ads accounts now run at least one Performance Max campaign. And yet, a significant share of those campaigns are quietly leaving money on the table.
- [10 Ways Businesses Can Optimize Content for AI Search](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/optimize-content-for-ai-search/): AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are transforming how people find information. Instead of presenting users with a list of websites, these systems generate direct answers by pulling from a select group of trusted sources.
- [How SEO Powers AI Visibility](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/seo-powers-ai/): AI is changing how people discover businesses. Instead of scrolling through pages of search results, customers are asking platforms like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity for answers. These systems scan the web in real time, select only a handful of trusted sources, and deliver a single response. When a potential customer asks an AI a question about your industry, will your business appear in the answer, or will you be invisible?
- [Call Center Digital Marketing: Guide to Lead Generation and Conversion Optimization](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/call-center-marketing-guide/): Call centers remain a critical revenue driver for many businesses, yet success hinges on more than just having phones ringing. At Black Propeller, we've partnered with numerous call center clients across B2C, B2B, and hybrid models to create integrated digital marketing strategies that align paid media efforts with operational excellence. The result? Higher quality leads, better conversion rates, and stronger ROI from call center marketing campaigns.
- [In-House Marketer vs Marketing Agency](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/in-house-vs-marketing-agency/): Choosing the right marketing solution can make or break your growth strategy. Many businesses debate whether to hire a full-time, in-house marketer or outsource to a digital marketing agency. Both routes offer value, but the best decision depends on your goals, budget, and internal capabilities.
- [Why Google Marketing Live 2025 Just Proved You Still Need a PPC Agency](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/google-marketing-live-2025/): Google Marketing Live 2025 made one thing crystal clear: the tools are getting smarter, but the strategy is getting harder. With major updates announced and coming to AI Mode, YouTube & Google Ads, and Google Analytics, paid search is entering a new era where performance hinges on how well you understand and leverage these tools, not just whether you have access to them.
- [3 Simple (But Powerful) Ways ChatGPT Can Enhance PPC Workflows](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/3-simple-but-powerful-ways-chatgpt-can-enhance-ppc-workflows/): Ah yes, yet another blog about ChatGPT, the AI chatbot from OpenAI that’s sent the digital world into an all out frenzy. As a PPC marketer, we’re sure you’ve read your fair share of blogs and articles about this technology. Whether you are scared or excited about it, doesn’t matter. It is here to stay, and it’s only going to get better, so it’s best to jump on the bandwagon now!
- [How to Choose the Best PPC Agency: A 2026 Buyer’s Guide](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/best-ppc-agency/): PPC advertising is not getting simpler. Global PPC spend will reach $306 billion in 2026, growing at 11 percent year over year as more advertisers compete across search, social, and emerging AI platforms. At the same time, 53 percent of PPC professionals say the work is harder than it was two years ago, with increased competition and platform complexity as the primary drivers. The platforms themselves want you to hand control of your budget to their automated systems. Without expert oversight, that automation optimises for platform metrics, not your revenue.
- [Landing Page Form Best Practices](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/landing-page-form-best-practices/): Therefore, it is crucial to understand the different types of landing page forms and how you can use them to elevate your conversions. 
- [Setting Realistic PPC Goals With Growth Modeling](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/growth-modeling/): Let's suppose you're leading the PPC strategy for a new ecommerce client. They've tasked you with helping them hit $1m monthly revenue by the end of the year.
- [How to Effectively Run Google Ads After Your Budget Gets Cut in Half](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/how-to-effectively-run-google-ads-after-your-budget-gets-cut-in-half/): When your Google Ads budget is cut clean in half, it’s time to start making some hard choices about where you want your ad spend to go.
- [10 Signs You Need Help With Google Ads](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/10-signs-need-help-with-google-ads/): Whether you’re new to Google Ads or have dabbled with the dashboard from time to time, you probably know that getting a campaign launched is one thing, but getting consistent results is something entirely different. Before you know it you’re neck-deep in technical lingo, wading through a sea of indecipherable features, and ready to pull out your hair or pull the plug altogether. If the signs below describe the state of your Ads account, it may be time to hire a ppc agency.
- [What Is PPC & How Does Pay-Per-Click Advertising Work](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/what-is-ppc/): If you type the title of this post for example "what is PPC" into Google’s search box there are over 85 million results for what is PPC in search results. The search engine can only display one page of results at a time, and the limitations of digital devices (and human attention span) mean that it can only display a few.
- [Quora Ads – The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/quora-ads-guide/): Digital marketing professionals generally fall into two distinct categories when it comes to Quora Ads: those who use the platform personally and realize it’s immense value, and those who know very little (if anything) about it. If you fall in the latter group, Quora is likely on the fringe of your digital advertising strategy at best.
- [Attribution Models for Google Ads: Everything You Need to Know](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/attribution-models/): All businesses understand the importance of detailed, accurate data, and marketers are no different. We need reliable data to determine which campaigns are profitable, which to invest more ad spend into, which to scale and which to pause.
- [Law Firm PPC: 8 Reasons You’re Not Winning & How To Fix It](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/law-firm-ppc/): That is why law firm PPC campaigns tend to fail for structural reasons rather than a lack of demand. When every click is priced at a premium, the same errors that merely dent performance elsewhere post negative returns here. The eight fixes below recover spend you are already paying, without raising the budget.
- [42 Facebook Ad Examples to Help You Ditch Dull Ads Forever](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/facebook-ad-examples/): It’s not hard to find inspiration for Facebook ad examples. The Facebook Ad Library tool can show you every ad that’s running for your competitors or in other industries. You can search by keyword or advertiser to see which ads are running, how long they’ve run, and how much the advertiser is spending. It’s kinda like a candy store for Facebook ads inspiration.
- [The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up A Google Ads Campaign](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-setting-up-a-google-ads-campaign/): Over the last decade, PPC advertising has become essential for almost every business, regardless of size or industry. For as little as a couple hundred dollars a month, even the smallest of small businesses and startups can jump into the digital advertising game and make an impact on their bottom line.
- [The Case For Branded Campaigns: 7 Ways To Cash In On Branded Terms With PPC](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/branded-campaigns/): 1. Avoid losing traffic to competitors. If your competitors are smart, or have a smart ppc agency behind them, they are going to bid on your name. That means even if you are #1 organically, you’ll no longer be #1 on the SERP. The CTR’s for position 1 on Google's search results pages are staggering, even compared to position 2. By losing your stranglehold on the #1 spot you could stand to lose some serious traffic. And if there are multiple companies bidding on your name, the numbers get worse and worse.
- [10 Advantages of Facebook Giveaway Campaigns](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/10-advantages-of-facebook-giveaway-campaigns/): Executing a Facebook giveaway campaign is one of the best paid social strategies a business can implement to boost brand awareness, interact with consumers, drive site traffic, and generate leads that turn into sales. No matter the size of your business or the size of your prize, consumers love anything that is free and are willing to give their information for a chance to win. With the right goals, giveaways can be extremely successful and have numerous advantages.
- [How To Grant Google Tag Manager Permissions](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/grant-google-tag-manager-permissions/): Log in to your Google Tag Manager account.
- [Google Ads vs Smart Campaigns vs AI Max: What Every Advertiser Needs to Know](https://blackpropeller.com/blog/google-adwords-vs-adwords-express/): Three Products, Two Hard Deadlines, and One Decision You Need to Make If you have been running Google advertising for more than a few years, you have lived through multiple platform transitions: AdWords to Google Ads, Smart Shopping to Performance Max, manual bidding to Smart Bidding. Each transition came with a deprecation date, a migration deadline, and an industry-wide conversation about what the new product actually does versus what Google says it does. 2026 brings two more. Starting August 3, 2026, the Google Ads API will stop supporting the creation of new Smart Campaigns, pushing agencies and advertisers toward Performance Max and other campaign types. And AI Max for Search, which reached general availability on April 15, 2026, is set to auto-migrate all remaining Dynamic Search Ads campaigns by February 2027, with Automatically Created Assets and campaign-level broad match settings migrating earlier in September 2026. These are not optional upgrades. They are platform-level changes happening on fixed timelines regardless of whether you are ready. This guide explains what each product is, who each one is actually right for, what the timelines require, and how to make the transition on your own terms rather than having it imposed on your account at the least favorable moment. ​ Key Takeaways The Google Ads API stops supporting new Smart Campaign creation on August 3, 2026. Existing campaigns continue serving, but no new campaigns can be created via API after that date. DSA auto-migration to AI Max was pushed from September 2026 to February 2027 on June 11, 2026 following advertiser feedback. ACA and campaign-level broad match settings still migrate in September 2026. The destination has not changed, only the DSA deadline. AI Max is not a new campaign type. It is a feature suite layered onto standard Search campaigns, consisting of three components: Search Term Matching, Text Customization, and Final URL Expansion. The 7% conversion lift Google cites for AI Max is full-suite AI Max versus matching-only AI Max on non-retail accounts, not AI Max versus DSA. Read the fine print before using this number to set expectations. Manual migration before the auto-upgrade deadline is consistently better than waiting. Accounts auto-migrated by Google default to the most aggressive AI Max configuration, including Final URL Expansion enabled by default, which may not match your campaign intent. ​ The Three Products: What Each One Actually Is Google Ads (Standard Search Campaigns) Standard Search campaigns are the basic paid search product and the one that has existed in recognisable form since the AdWords era. You choose your keywords, set match types, write your ads, define your audiences, and bid against the auction. Automated bidding strategies like Target CPA and Target ROAS are available within this structure, but the architecture, keyword selection, and negative keyword management remain under your direct control. This control is binding for certain use cases. Brands with strict compliance requirements, legal or financial advertisers where a single irrelevant impression creates liability, and B2B accounts where a precise ICP and long sales cycle demand surgical keyword intent management are all examples where standard Search campaigns remain the correct product regardless of how sophisticated the alternatives become. The platform gives you the search terms report, full negative keyword control, asset-level performance data, and transparency into every lever the auction system is pulling on your behalf. Standard Search campaigns are also the product AI Max is layered on top of. Understanding what a well-built Search campaign looks like is the prerequisite for getting AI Max right, since AI Max inherits the campaign's conversion data, keyword signals, and structural decisions as its starting point. Smart Campaigns: What They Were and Why They Are Ending Smart Campaigns launched in 2018 as a simplified, automated product for small businesses with no dedicated advertising team. You entered your business name, wrote a few lines of text, set a monthly budget, and the system handled targeting, bidding, and ad delivery automatically. This made Google advertising accessible to local businesses that would not have otherwise engaged with the platform. The trade-off was comprehensive automation in exchange for almost no visibility. You could not see which search terms were triggering your ads, you had no meaningful negative keyword input, you could not control which partner sites received your budget, and the reporting dashboard gave you aggregate numbers without the granularity needed to optimize. As advertisers grew and their acquisition targets became more specific, these limitations became roadblocks rather than simplifications. The product is now being wound down. Starting August 3, 2026, the Google Ads API will no longer accept the creation of new Smart Campaigns. Existing campaigns continue serving and can still be updated via the API, but no new campaigns can be created programmatically after that date. Google's recommended migration path is Performance Max for advertisers who want broad automation, or standard Search or Demand Gen campaigns for those who want more control. If you are currently running Smart Campaigns and managing them through an API-connected tool, audit your workflow now. The August 3 deadline applies specifically to API-based creation. New Smart Campaign creation via the standard Google Ads UI may also be affected in subsequent changes, so the practical approach is to plan migration regardless of how your campaigns are managed. AI Max for Search: What It Is and What It Is Not AI Max for Search reached general availability on April 15, 2026, after approximately 11 months of open beta. Google described it as a feature suite integrated directly into standard Search campaigns, not as a new standalone campaign type. This distinction is crucially important for how you should think about it. AI Max consists of three components that can be enabled individually or together. Search Term Matching expands your reach into relevant queries beyond your keyword list using real-time intent signals and website content, similar to what Dynamic Search Ads did, but incorporating expanded user intent data beyond just page content. Text Customization uses Gemini to generate contextually relevant headlines and descriptions based on your landing page content and the user's search intent. Final URL Expansion dynamically sends users to the most relevant page on your site for their specific query rather than always landing on the URL you designated in the ad. Ginny Marvin, Google Ads Liaison, described it accurately when she wrote that "AI Max's suite is essentially Performance Max search, bringing the AI-powered tools of PMax for Search into Search". The underlying technology is the same Gemini-based crawl and intent inference that PMax uses, but with ad-group-level brand controls, location controls, URL controls, and text guidelines that Performance Max has historically refused to give advertisers. This is the notable difference: AI Max gives you levers that PMax does not. What AI Max is not: a replacement for standard Search campaigns or a migration target for all accounts. It is an optimization layer that makes the most sense for accounts with mature conversion tracking, sufficient search volume to benefit from expanded query matching, and landing pages structured well enough for AI-generated ad copy to accurately represent the offer. Accounts with strict brand guidelines, narrow keyword intent requirements, or low conversion volume should approach AI Max features selectively rather than enabling all three by default. The 2026 and 2027 Timeline: What Is Changing When The transition dates in this space have shifted, and having an accurate ongoing timeline is essential before making any account decisions. Here is the verified picture as of July 2026. Date What Changes Who Is Affected April 15, 2026 AI Max for Search reaches general availability. Voluntary upgrade tools begin rolling out for DSA campaigns. All Search advertisers. DSA users can begin manual migration. June 11, 2026 Google delays DSA auto-migration from September 2026 to February 2027. New DSA campaign creation restored from June 15. DSA campaign users. ACA and broad match timelines unchanged. August 3, 2026 Google Ads API stops supporting new Smart Campaign creation. Agencies and developers creating Smart Campaigns via API. September 2026 Auto-migration of Automatically Created Assets (ACA) and campaign-level broad match settings to AI Max begins. Search campaigns using ACA or campaign-level broad match. January 2027 New DSA campaign creation ends. All advertisers. DSA can no longer be created after this date. February 2027 Auto-migration of remaining DSA campaigns to AI Max begins. All accounts still running Dynamic Search Ads. ​ The important nuance in this timeline: the DSA delay does not apply to ACA or campaign-level broad match settings. Those still migrate in September 2026. If your account uses either of those features alongside DSA campaigns, you are on two separate migration clocks running simultaneously. The Digital Applied analysis of this split timeline is worth reading in full before planning your account transitions. The 7% Conversion Lift Claim: What It Actually Measures Google reports that AI Max for Search campaigns see an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS when using the full feature suite compared to using search term matching alone. This figure appears everywhere in coverage of AI Max and in the original article this post replaces. It calls for careful reading before you use it to set expectations with clients or stakeholders. Three things the fine print establishes: first, the comparison is full-suite AI Max versus AI Max with only search term matching enabled, not AI Max versus DSA and not AI Max versus a well-managed standard Search campaign. Second, the data is from non-retail advertisers only. Google explicitly excludes retail from this statistic, and separately published Shopping-specific AI Max data under a different framing. Third, independent benchmarks from SMEC showed 13% revenue growth alongside a 16% higher CPA, a materially different outcome than the headline number suggests, depending on your margin structure. There is also a separately cited figure of 27% more conversions for Search campaigns using exact and phrase match keywords that add AI Max features. That figure applies to a different campaign population than the 7% claim. Monks reported that in one account, 99% of AI Max-driven search terms drove zero conversions, illustrating that aggregate lift figures may obscure significant account-level variance. Use these numbers as directional reference, not as projections. Which Product Belongs in Your Account Standard Search Campaigns: When Manual Architecture Still Wins Standard Search campaigns with Smart Bidding remain the right product for accounts where keyword intent precision is the primary value driver. This covers legal and financial advertisers where CPCs are high and unqualified leads are genuinely expensive, B2B accounts with a narrow ICP where broad query expansion would route budget to completely wrong audiences, and any account where compliance requirements restrict what searches can trigger ads. Standard Search is also where you should start before adding AI Max features. The conversion data, keyword signals, and negative keyword infrastructure you build in standard Search campaigns are the inputs AI Max learns from. A well-designed standard Search campaign with clean conversion tracking and a comprehensive negative keyword list is a stronger foundation for AI Max than a campaign with poor data quality, regardless of how intelligent the AI layer above it is. AI Max: The Right Move for Most Established Search Accounts AI Max makes the most sense for accounts that have sufficient conversion volume for the algorithm to learn effectively, landing pages structured well enough for Gemini to generate accurate ad copy, and search volume broad enough to benefit from expanded query matching. For these accounts, enabling Search Term Matching captures relevant queries that your keyword list would never have explicitly targeted. Text Customization removes the creative bottleneck of writing ad variants at scale. Final URL Expansion removes the manual work of matching ad groups to the most relevant page for each query intent. The most important operational decision when enabling AI Max is which features to turn on and in what order. ZATO's practitioner recommendation is to start with Final URL Expansion off or restricted to a verified URL feed, because the default setting enables broad URL expansion that may send traffic to pages you did not intend. Enable Search Term Matching first, measure, then add Text Customization, then consider Final URL Expansion with explicit URL controls rather than full site expansion. Running a Google-recommended one-click A/B experiment against your current setup before full deployment gives you accountable data before you commit the entire campaign. Brand controls at the campaign and ad group level are one of the clearest advantages AI Max has over Performance Max. Use them. Set explicit brand restrictions before enabling Search Term Matching, otherwise the expanded query pool can surface brand-adjacent queries that are not appropriate for the campaign's positioning. For guidance on the wider paid search framework these decisions sit within, see our Google Ads campaign setup guide. Smart Campaigns: The Migration You Need to Plan Now If you are currently running Smart Campaigns and not yet planning a migration, August 3 is the hard date to work backward from. Existing campaigns will continue serving after that date, but you will not be able to create new ones via API. The practical implication for agencies is that any client account currently structured around Smart Campaign creation through automated workflows needs a new workflow before August 3. Google's recommended migration target is Performance Max, which provides similar broad automation with better reporting and more audience signal inputs than Smart Campaigns. For advertisers who want more control than Smart Campaigns provided, standard Search campaigns or Demand Gen campaigns are the alternative. Our Performance Max guide covers the account structure decisions that determine whether PMax works for a given business, which are the same decisions you need to make before migrating Smart Campaign clients onto it. How to Migrate DSA Campaigns to AI Max Before February 2027 The reprieve from September 2026 to February 2027 is useful time, but the smart move is not to wait for it. Accounts that migrate DSA to AI Max manually in the calm months before Q4 enter Black Friday 2026 with AI Max already stable. Accounts that wait for the February 2027 auto-migration run their first weeks of AI Max, the noisy negative-keyword-triage weeks, in the post-holiday January sales tail. Step 1: Audit Conversion Tracking Before Touching Anything AI Max optimises against the signals it can see. A broken or shallow conversion setup produces bad training data that quietly caps your results regardless of how well the campaign structure is built. Before migrating any DSA campaign, confirm that your conversion actions are accurately configured, that call tracking is recording and attributing accurately, and that CAPI is sending server-side events for any campaigns where browser-based tracking may be incomplete. Our 15-minute conversion tracking audit walks through the specific checks that catch the most common configuration errors. Step 2: Export Your DSA Data Before Migration Download your top-performing search terms of the DSA campaign's search terms report before you migrate. Download your URL and page feed if you are using one. Export your negative keyword lists. Agencies that migrated Smart Shopping to Performance Max in 2022 lost access to pre-migration benchmark data in specific reporting dimensions after the auto-upgrade. Manual migration gives you the chance to preserve that data before it becomes inaccessible. Step 3: Use Google's Upgrade Tools to Port Settings Google began rolling out voluntary upgrade tools for DSA-to-AI Max migration the week of April 15, 2026. These tools port your historical settings and data into standard ad groups, preserving URL controls, negative keyword lists, and audience settings so the migrated campaign starts with context rather than from scratch. Use these rather than building a new campaign from zero, which triggers a full learning reset and loses all historical conversion data. Step 4: Configure Brand, URL, and Text Controls Before Enabling Features Before you enable Search Term Matching or Text Customization, set your brand guidelines explicitly. Use AI Max's brand controls to prevent your ads from appearing against competitor brand terms or brand-adjacent queries that are inappropriate for the campaign. Set your URL controls to restrict Final URL Expansion to a verified URL feed if you are not ready for full site expansion. Write explicit text guidelines for Gemini: brand voice rules, pricing and promotion restrictions, and any legal or compliance language requirements. These controls are the main advantage AI Max has over Performance Max and the reason to prefer AI Max for accounts where query control matters. Step 5: Run an A/B Experiment Before Committing Google provides a one-click experiment tool that lets you run your current DSA setup against AI Max on real spend with a controlled split. So you have real performance data before February 2027 that forces the switch. Measure to CPA and ROAS, not just conversions and CTR, since a wider query net can inflate conversion volume while quietly increasing acquisition cost. Side-by-Side Comparison Standard Search Smart Campaigns AI Max Control level High: full keyword, bid, and negative control Minimal: algorithm controls everything Medium: keyword list retained, AI handles query expansion Automation level Low to medium (Smart Bidding optional) High (fully automated) High (AI-driven with controls) Keyword input Required Not applicable Optional but recommended as intent signal Negative keywords Full control at all levels No negative keyword input Full negative keyword control retained Ad copy Manual or RSA rotation Automated from business inputs AI-generated (Gemini) with text guidelines URL control Fixed to designated URL Automated Full URL expansion or restricted to feed Best for Precision, compliance, B2B, high-CPC Entry-level local SMB (deprecated) Scaling established Search accounts Migration status Stable API creation ends Aug 3, 2026 Default for new Search campaigns from April 2026 ​ Frequently Asked Questions Is AI Max the same as Dynamic Search Ads? No. DSA was a campaign type that used website crawling to match queries to landing pages. AI Max is a feature suite layered onto standard Search campaigns that uses DSA's crawl functionality plus broader real-time intent signals from across Google's ecosystem. AI Max also adds Gemini-generated ad copy (Text Customization) and dynamic landing page selection (Final URL Expansion), neither of which existed in DSA. Google's April 2026 announcement describes the transition as an upgrade rather than a replacement, but the basic mechanics are meaningfully different. Can I still create new Smart Campaigns after August 3, 2026? Not via the Google Ads API. Starting August 3, 2026, the API will reject new Smart Campaign creation requests. Existing campaigns continue serving and can still be updated via the API. Google's recommended replacement is Performance Max for advertisers who want automated broad reach, or standard Search or Demand Gen campaigns for those who want more strategic control. Will my DSA campaigns automatically upgrade to AI Max? Yes, but the timeline changed. On June 11, 2026, Google delayed DSA auto-migration from September 2026 to February 2027. Campaigns using Automatically Created Assets and campaign-level broad match settings still auto-migrate in September 2026 on the existing timeline. New DSA campaign creation was also restored on June 15, 2026. The destination has not changed: every DSA campaign will eventually be on AI Max. Only the forced deadline for DSA specifically moved. What does the 7% conversion lift from AI Max actually mean? It means that running all three AI Max features together (Search Term Matching, Text Customization, and Final URL Expansion) produced 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS compared to running Search Term Matching alone. The comparison is not AI Max versus DSA, and it applies to non-retail advertisers only. Google's own source notes confirm this fine print. Independent results differ markedly by account, with some showing strong lift and others seeing higher CPA alongside higher conversion volume. Run your own experiment before treating 7% as a projection. Do I lose keyword control when using AI Max? No. AI Max operates alongside your existing keyword list, not in place of it. Your keywords remain active and continue generating traffic. What AI Max adds is the ability to capture relevant queries beyond your keyword list using intent signals and website content. Your negative keyword lists remain fully active and are one of the most important inputs for controlling what the expanded query pool includes. Brand controls and URL controls give you additional levers that Performance Max does not provide. The risk is enabling Final URL Expansion without restricting it to a verified URL feed, which can send traffic to unplanned pages. Configure URL controls before enabling that feature. Should I migrate DSA campaigns to AI Max now or wait for the auto-migration? Migrate now on your own terms. The auto-migration in February 2027 defaults to the most aggressive AI Max configuration, with all three features enabled and Final URL Expansion set to full site expansion. Manual migration lets you configure brand controls, URL restrictions, and text guidelines before the expanded query matching begins, which is significantly safer than inheriting defaults you then have to correct. Migrating in the summer also means your AI Max campaigns will have several months of learning data before Q4, rather than going through the initial learning period during your most important trading period of the year. Managing Platform Transitions Without Disrupting Performance Platform transitions in Google Ads are operationally complex in ways that the announcement blog posts do not capture. The DSA-to-AI Max migration requires exporting historical data, configuring controls correctly before activating features, running experiments with proper measurement, and monitoring for the specific failure modes that come with expanded query matching. The Smart Campaign sunset requires auditing API workflows and building migration paths that preserve client performance through the change. Black Propeller manages paid search accounts through exactly these kinds of transitions. If you are running DSA campaigns that need to migrate, Smart Campaigns that need to move to Performance Max, or if you are evaluating whether AI Max belongs in your current account structure, visit our paid search service page or contact us to discuss your specific situation. You can also see how we have handled prior Google platform transitions for clients across home services, ecommerce, healthcare, legal, and B2B on our case studies page.

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## Case Studies 
- [Peruvian Connection](https://blackpropeller.com/results/peruvian-connection/)
- [Yuniquemedical](https://blackpropeller.com/results/yuniquemedical/)
- [World Spa](https://blackpropeller.com/results/world-spa/)
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- [Olde Wood Limited](https://blackpropeller.com/results/olde-wood-limited-ppc/)
- [CUBE84](https://blackpropeller.com/results/cube84/)
- [Santanna Energy Services](https://blackpropeller.com/results/santanna-energy-services-digital-ads/)
- [Ekstrom Carlson](https://blackpropeller.com/results/ekstrom-carlson/)
- [Black Garlic North America](https://blackpropeller.com/results/black-garlic-north-america/)
- [Mass Firearms School](https://blackpropeller.com/results/mass-firearms-school-ppc-management/)
- [MyHotTub.com](https://blackpropeller.com/results/myhottub-ppc-management/)
- [Shade Pro](https://blackpropeller.com/results/shade-pro-ppc/)
- [OPS Security Group](https://blackpropeller.com/results/ops-security-group-ppc/)
- [Olsinski Law Firm](https://blackpropeller.com/results/olsinski-law-firm-ppc/)
- [New Orleans Flooring](https://blackpropeller.com/results/new-orleans-flooring-lead-generation/)
- [South Texas Independent School District](https://blackpropeller.com/results/south-texas-independent-school-district/)
- [Falcon Car Rental](https://blackpropeller.com/results/falcon-car-rental-ppc-revenue/)
- [Microscope Central](https://blackpropeller.com/results/microscope-central-increases-roas-ppc/)
- [Valet Living](https://blackpropeller.com/results/valet-living-meaning-ppc/)
- [Tactical Gear Junkie](https://blackpropeller.com/results/tactical-gear-junkie-ppc-seo-growth/)
- [Tint My Ride](https://blackpropeller.com/results/tint-my-ride-ppc-campaigns/)
- [Tanner Tees](https://blackpropeller.com/results/tanner-tees-product-visibility/)
- [US Mortgage Corporation](https://blackpropeller.com/results/us-mortgage-corporation-increased-leads/)
- [Retirement Planners of America](https://blackpropeller.com/results/retirement-planners-of-america-ppc/)
- [NRG Clean Power](https://blackpropeller.com/results/nrg-clean-power-increased-leads-ppc/)
- [Metropolitan Bath & Tile](https://blackpropeller.com/results/metropolitan-bath-tile-seo-ppc/)
- [Avertium](https://blackpropeller.com/results/avertium-sales-from-linkedin-google-ads/)
- [American Hunting Lease Association](https://blackpropeller.com/results/american-hunting-lease-association-ppc/)
- [Base Camp Leasing](https://blackpropeller.com/results/base-camp-leasing-lead-growth/)
- [Construct Capital](https://blackpropeller.com/results/construct-capital/)
- [Lulu Press](https://blackpropeller.com/results/lulu-press-ppc-strategy/)
- [FlavCity](https://blackpropeller.com/results/flavcity-paid-media-expansion/)
- [Page Publishing](https://blackpropeller.com/results/page-publishing/)
- [Happy Jack](https://blackpropeller.com/results/happy-jack-paid-search/)