<div><img width="800" height="457" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-800x457.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-800x457.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-592x338.jpg 592w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-198x113.jpg 198w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>Google's Audio Overviews test offers AI-generated spoken summaries and related links directly in results for hands-free, on-the-go browsing.

<div><img width="800" height="457" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-800x457.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-800x457.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-592x338.jpg 592w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-198x113.jpg 198w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/google-assistant-robot-1920.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>
<p>A new Google experiment – Audio Overviews – turns some search results into spoken summaries. The feature is now available in Google’s Labs for U.S. users.</p>



<p><strong>What’s new:</strong> When enabled, Audio Overviews use Google’s Gemini AI model to generate short, conversational audio clips summarizing certain search queries. If you’re exploring a topic you’re unfamiliar with, the feature is designed to give you a “lay of the land” in a hands-free format, according to Google.</p>



<p><strong>What it looks like.</strong> Here&#8217;s a screenshot of Audio Overviews:</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1000" height="562" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/google-audio-overview.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-457021" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/google-audio-overview.webp 1000w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/google-audio-overview-768x432.webp 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p><strong>How it works:</strong></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>After opting in through Search Labs, you may see a prompt on the search results page to generate an audio summary.</li>



<li>The audio plays in a mini player directly within the results.</li>



<li>Beneath the audio player, Google surfaces related webpages for users who want to explore more deeply.</li>



<li>Users can give feedback with a thumbs up or down on both individual clips and the overall experiment.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Why we care. </strong>The move reflects Google’s push to make Search more multimodal. Google&#8217;s mission has long been to organize the world&#8217;s information and make it universally accessible and useful. This is another way Google is doing that to serve users who may prefer to consume content via audio. But it also could keep people within Google&#8217;s ecosystem for longer, continuing the ongoing trend of websites getting less clicks and traffic. </p>



<p><strong>The announcement.</strong> <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/audio-overviews-search-labs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Get an audio overview of Search results in Labs, then click through to learn more.</a></p>



<p></p>


A new Google experiment – Audio Overviews – turns some search results into spoken summaries. The feature is now available in Google’s Labs for U.S. users.
What’s new: When enabled, Audio Overviews use Google’s Gemini AI model to generate short, conversational audio clips summarizing certain search queries. If you’re exploring a topic you’re unfamiliar with, the feature is designed to give you a “lay of the land” in a hands-free format, according to Google.
What it looks like. Here’s a screenshot of Audio Overviews:




How it works:
After opting in through Search Labs, you may see a prompt on the search results page to generate an audio summary.
The audio plays in a mini player directly within the results.
Beneath the audio player, Google surfaces related webpages for users who want to explore more deeply.
Users can give feedback with a thumbs up or down on both individual clips and the overall experiment.
Why we care. The move reflects Google’s push to make Search more multimodal. Google’s mission has long been to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. This is another way Google is doing that to serve users who may prefer to consume content via audio. But it also could keep people within Google’s ecosystem for longer, continuing the ongoing trend of websites getting less clicks and traffic. 
The announcement. Get an audio overview of Search results in Labs, then click through to learn more.

Google's Audio Overviews test offers AI-generated spoken summaries and related links directly in results for hands-free, on-the-go browsing.

Google tests Audio Overviews for Search results

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Fractl-Agents-AI-Laptop-Hand.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How AI is reshaping SEO: Challenges, opportunities, and brand strategies for 2025" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Fractl-Agents-AI-Laptop-Hand.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Fractl-Agents-AI-Laptop-Hand-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Fractl-Agents-AI-Laptop-Hand-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Search isn’t a platform. It’s a behavior – and it’s fracturing across AI, social, and SERPs. Is your strategy ready?

The cyclical, now AI-fueled, “SEO is dead” panic cycle is in full swing. 
But here’s what most of those headlines miss:
Search isn’t a platform, it’s a behavior. 



Whether people are typing into Google or prompting ChatGPT, consumers are still asking questions that require content, expertise, and trust. 
Search isn’t dying – it’s fracturing – as it always has when new platforms emerge and achieve mainstream adoption. 
Fortunately, generative engine optimization (GEO) is based on similar value systems that advanced SEOs, content marketers, and digital PR teams are already experts in.
The entity authority framework
Media mentions across trusted publications.
Schema-enriched pages with structured data.
First-party research that establishes expertise.
Expert quotes and branded citations.


While AI will radically change consumer search behavior over the next few years, it’s relying on a lot of the same signals Google’s been rewarding for over a decade. 
To maintain brand visibility as search fractures, brands need unified content and authority-building strategies that drive brand visibility across the multiple platforms where your target market resides: 
Indexable web content (for Google and Bing), schema markup for context, E-A-A-T signals and author bios, fresh data-driven insights
Structured data and mentions (for LLMs and GEO), expert quotes in trade publications, first-party research citations, brand mentions across authoritative sites 
Short-form social content (for TikTok and Reels), searchable captions and hashtags, video content optimized for discovery, cross-platform content threading
Beyond algorithms, I wanted to understand how AI was influencing consumer search behavior and how marketers were adapting their strategies with these transformative workflow tools. 
At SMX Advanced 2025, I presented a cobranded study I led between Fractl Agents, Search Engine Land, and MFour that demonstrates:
How consumers are shifting toward AI-powered search.
How their trust in AI content is evolving.
How marketers are leveraging AI to optimize workflows while maintaining brand credibility.

What follows is an actionable playbook built around the key takeaways from our research. 
Consider this your guide to future-proofing your brand visibility and workflow efficiencies in the age of AI. 
1. Two-thirds of consumers think AI will replace search in the next five years
But, AI chatbots only represent 2.96% of search engine traffic, currently. 
This contradiction reveals the deeper truth: we’re in a paradigm shift of consumer search behavior, not an SEO extinction event. 
Consumers are experimenting with new tools like ChatGPT, but they’re still heavily reliant on traditional search engines for the majority of their queries. 


The consumer data tells a story that most headlines miss.
People are experimenting with AI-powered search, but 49% of them are still clicking the little blue link for deeper dives. 

Nonetheless, friction and innovation drive adoption, and users have been increasingly frustrated with Google’s search experience. 
In my February 2025 study, users cited ads cluttering search results, inaccurate AI Overviews, and irrelevant results as major friction points in traditional search.

Consumers aren’t abandoning Google for lack of quality content; they’re escaping SERP friction for clean interface design and faster answers. 
When ads bury answers, clean interfaces reign supreme, and AI tools deliver. At least, they’re ad-free, for now. 
That’s why even as Google gets 5 trillion searches per year (with 20% YoY growth), tools like ChatGPT are already ranking as the 5th most visited site globally, with nearly 5 billion visits per month.

2. 64% feel positive about AI, 74% feel confident using AI tools
Think consumers aren’t AI savvy? Think again.
When it comes to the technology adoption lifecycle, we’re officially entering the Early Majority phase.
After ChatGPT’s explosive growth, 100 million users just two months post-launch and over 200 million registered by Q1 2025, we’re seeing:
Major SaaS platforms (Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Slack) bake generative-AI features into everyday workflows.
Mid-market and large enterprises piloting (and increasingly licensing) ChatGPT for content.
ChatGPT itself achieving household-name status. 
This signals that AI has crossed the chasm and is rapidly becoming a go-to search platform for everyday consumers. 

It’s no longer a matter of if this technology will go mainstream – it has. 
Only 8% of respondents weren’t familiar with ChatGPT or Gemini, and 47% said they would explore AI tools as soon as they launch. 
It’s no wonder why, with 59% of people believing AI will improve the quality of their life and only 33% thinking “AI is overhyped.”


3. 82% find AI-powered search more helpful than traditional SERPs
Yet, only ~ 22% of marketers track LLM brand visibility or traffic. 
Google Search (77%), LLMs (49%), and AI Overviews (38%) top the charts as preferred consumer search tools. 
But with 82% of respondents agreeing that “AI-powered search is more helpful than traditional search engines,” it’s clear how consumer search will evolve in the near future. 


Although consumer search behavior is rapidly evolving, marketing executives haven’t quite caught up.
Only 22% of marketers have set up LLM brand visibility or traffic monitoring. 
At least marketers recognize the urgency, with 53% saying they’re in the early stages of exploring how to monitor this emerging brand channel.

4. 78% of marketers and 68% of consumers are concerned about AI-driven misinformation, more than the fear of job loss
It’s not all sunshine and daisies in the world of AI innovation. 
Hallucinations and misinformation are legitimate concerns for consumers and marketers alike. 


Over the next 12–18 months, “search” will increasingly feel like a dialogue with a model. 
Worried about hallucinations? 
It’s a short-term problem due to premature rollouts, but ultimately:
Google’s AI Overviews is built to cite sources.
Bing Chat taps real-time crawling to cut down on made-up answers. 
Those safeguards aren’t flawless (yet), but transformer architectures, retrieval-augmented generation, and other core technologies are improving exponentially. 
In 6-12 months, blatant hallucinations should be much rarer, and AI responses will include the trustworthy brand citations we’re all after. 

Still, it’s imperative that we address consumer concerns around the potential impacts of AI, especially regarding misinformation. 

To fight misinformation in AI-driven content workflows, marketers need to double down on: 
Proprietary source of truth.
Source transparency.
Credible author review on E-E-A-T topics.
Bias and fact-checking.
Robust author bios.
Proprietary “sources of truth” are one of the best ways for you to produce unique, high-value content with robust, accurate data. 
This means giving your AI workflow direct access to proprietary datasets or information, whether that’s: 
A knowledge base (i.e., training guides, brand guides).
A data feed (i.e., brand research, an API). 
With this, every AI-generated statement can be produced and cross-checked against factual information. 
By feeding AI models proprietary sources of truth, you eliminate guesswork and significantly reduce hallucinations.
For instance, my company creates proprietary brand research enriched with insights from client SMEs, designed to earn newsworthy coverage and authoritative mentions. 
Every step of that process, from research to digital PR, is enhanced by agentic workflows and custom GPTs. 
These AI tools handle the tedious parts, drawing on a decade of training materials, proprietary data, and client guides as their source of truth. 
This streamlines content production and digital PR, while reassuring stakeholders that every AI-driven workflow is grounded in proven industry best practices. 

Source transparency and credible author review on E-E-A-T topics (or really, all topics) are other critical steps for establishing brand credibility. 
All of our clients are encouraged to build authoritative author profiles for SMEs so consumers (and ranking algorithms) have clear source transparency and an immediate understanding of the educated stakeholders who were involved in publishing the content. 

Beyond that, AI-driven content should be audited for bias and inaccuracies, especially if you aren’t using a proprietary source of truth. 
While there should always be a “human-in-the-loop” in AI workflows, even humans have these same fallacies. 
That’s what agentic workflows can be ideal for doing scaled audits of bias and fact-checking. 




5. 80% of consumers have a neutral or positive attitude toward trusting brands that use AI-generated content, only 20% don’t
While AI Overviews have driven high levels of skepticism in the SEO industry, the broader consumer market is open to trusting AI-generated content. 
Especially when brands follow the guidelines outlined above. 

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6. Only 11% of marketers feel ‘over-reliant’ on AI tools, yet over 50% of feel ‘high pressure’ to adopt AI to stay competitive

When half your industry feels pressure to adopt something, but only 11% worry they’re overdoing it, you’re looking at classic early-majority anxiety – not actual overreliance.
Marketers who feel “high pressure” to adopt AI are typically part of:
The 30% struggling to keep up with the pace of AI advancements.
The 29% that fear job security due to AI automation.
The 15% who lack internal resources to implement AI effectively. 
Still, the only way to keep AI from taking your job, is to use AI to do your job better. 

If these fears exist within your organization, you have a cultural enablement problem, and it’s time to get proactive before cultural sentiment and brand visibility suffer: 
Adopt a companywide growth mindset.
Promote internal champions to pioneer AI innovation in each department, focusing on custom GPTs, prompt libraries, and agentic workflows.
Launch quarterly AI upskilling sprints to keep your team ahead of the curve.
The pressure will only increase as adoption hits mainstream, but the advantage goes to teams that integrate thoughtfully, not frantically. 
7. 74% of marketers are using AI tools in some part of their workflow 

74% of marketers are using AI tools in some part of their workflow, but only 4% rely on it for more than three-quarters of their work. 
The data reveals where marketers are finding the most value: 
44% use AI for social content. 
43% for SEO analysis
40% for data reports. 
On the other hand:
In-house teams lean heavily on social drafting (45%).
Agencies focus on SEO optimization and analytics (44%).
Consultants prioritize keyword research (48%). 
The pattern? AI’s winning at high-volume, low-creativity tasks.

The biggest surprise in our research? 
SEO penalties from AI content barely register as a concern among marketers, but misinformation anxiety is through the roof. 
The assumption is that Google will penalize AI-generated content. 
The reality? 
Google’s more likely to reward AI content that demonstrates originality, depth, and clarity than punish content simply because it was AI-assisted. 
It’s time to shift your concern from “will AI hurt rankings?” to “will AI content deserve rankings?” 
Here’s the operational framework that works: 
Use proprietary sources of truth to combat misinformation risks. 
Demand editorial fact-checking before anything ships. 
Design writing prompts that prioritize divergent thinking over generic tone – because creativity still matters, a lot. 

The guardrails matter: 
Use proprietary sources of truth to combat misinformation anxiety.
Design prompts that prioritize divergent thinking over generic tone.
Shift concern from “will AI hurt rankings?” to “will AI content deserve rankings?” 
Teams don’t need to fear AI, they need to fear mediocre brand content in a sea of sameness. 
8. 93% of marketers say AI tools are saving them time each week, but only 19% reinvest it in professional development
The assumption is that AI adoption equals productivity gains, but the time paradox reveals the deeper problem: 
93% of marketers say AI tools are saving them time each week.
But only 19% reinvest it in professional development. 
Most? They just produce more. 
That’s not optimization, that’s just faster hamster wheels. 

Across the industry, teams that treat AI as a volume multiplier burn out faster than teams that treat it as a capability amplifier. 
As an example, my team drives 70% human strategy, creativity, and relationship building and 30% AI execution, research, and optimization. 
We expect this ratio to shift to 60/40 by 2027, but the human elements will become more valuable, not less. 
As a result of our AI efficiency gains over the last two years, we started piloting a four-day workweek in 2023.
As a result, our company culture, client retention, and department KPIs are stronger than ever. 
The lesson for management?
Build AI usage into your org’s KPIs, appoint internal champions, create learning paths, and reward and recharge your team with the time saved. 
9. Search isn’t a platform – it’s a behavior that’s fracturing across interfaces
SEO is no longer about gaming keywords; it’s about earning authority that algorithms recognize universally. 
Let’s all take a deep breath and remind ourselves: content marketing is an advanced skillset that has driven visibility across most of the platforms that emerged over the last decade. 
After all, the most effective SEOs have always focused on producing fresh, educational, data-driven content, which:
Drives qualified brand traffic and engagement.
Builds authority.
Achieves cross-channel brand visibility. 
Today, these strategies have all been proven to elevate brand visibility in organic SERPs, LLMs, SGEs, and AI Overviews. 

We’re not watching the death of search. 
We’re watching the convergence of channels – search, social, AI – all optimized by the same core signals:
Authority (citations and mentions).
Originality (first-party research and insights).
Trust (consistency across platforms and personas).
Digital PR and brand visibility are now essential LLM inputs. 
The same tactics that earn coverage, backlinks, and social engagement also improve your odds in AI summaries and SERP overviews. 
If you can master this convergence, you’ll win on Google, ChatGPT, TikTok, and whatever fractures emerge next.
Remember: the fractures aren’t the problem, they’re the opportunity. 
But only if you stop treating them like separate games and start building the credibility that works across all of them.
Methodology: We surveyed 2,302 U.S. adults and 810 marketers in May 2025 to explore how attitudes and behaviors around AI vary across consumers and marketing professionals. Marketer responses were drawn from a balanced sample, ensuring all referenced subgroups comprised at least 10% of the total sample.

Search isn’t a platform. It’s a behavior – and it’s fracturing across AI, social, and SERPs. Is your strategy ready?

How AI is reshaping SEO: Challenges, opportunities, and brand strategies for 2025

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Stop-sabotaging-your-PPC-success-13-traps-that-kill-growth.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Stop sabotaging your PPC success- 13 traps that kill growth" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Stop-sabotaging-your-PPC-success-13-traps-that-kill-growth.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Stop-sabotaging-your-PPC-success-13-traps-that-kill-growth-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Stop-sabotaging-your-PPC-success-13-traps-that-kill-growth-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Scaling too fast, hiding help, micromanaging teams – break these bad habits and build a smarter, scalable PPC operation.

Even the most talented marketers can fall victim to self-sabotaging behaviors that limit their success. 
PPC is not just technical expertise, but also self-awareness about the habits and mindsets that might be holding you or your team back. We’ve all been there. 
Here are 13 common traps we fall into, and here’s how to step out of them. 
For PPC freelancers and agencies
1. Eroding client trust by holding campaigns hostage
Many freelancers and agencies choose to maintain sole control over client accounts by withholding access to campaign data after the relationship ends. 
This “hostage” approach:
Creates an unhealthy power dynamic.
Breeds distrust.
Ultimately damages the industry’s reputation.
Some believe that controlling access protects their business by making it harder for clients to leave.
However, this approach backfires by fostering resentment and preventing transparent collaboration.
Solution
Create transparent relationships by granting appropriate access levels after the working relationship ends. 
Set up accounts under the client’s ownership with your agency as a manager, not the other way around. 
Establish value through expertise and results rather than artificial barriers to exit. 
While you may legitimately protect proprietary strategies and processes, the client’s campaign data and assets ultimately belong to them.
2. Damaging credibility through outsourcing secrecy
This one is controversial. 
Agencies frequently outsource campaign tasks via white-label services or contractors but conceal this from clients.
On the other hand, these same professionals may judge others who use similar resources.
Hiding your use of outsourced help:
Creates stress.
Breeds mistrust if discovered.
Perpetuates unrealistic expectations about what a single person or small team can accomplish. 
Meanwhile, criticizing others for the same practice creates a toxic industry environment where large agencies can openly utilize global teams.
Freelancers and small agencies face criticism for identical practices.
Solution
Adopt a consistent and transparent approach to outsourcing. 
Be honest (within appropriate boundaries) about your extended team and focus on the quality of your collaborative strategy you provide rather than pretending to handle every click and adjustment personally. 
Recognize that effective management of resources, whether in-house or external, is a skill itself. 
Judge your peers’ work by quality and results, not by how many people contributed to it.
3. Stalling growth by becoming your own bottleneck
Agency owners and managers sometimes become operational bottlenecks by insisting on handling too many responsibilities themselves:
Managing campaigns.
Conducting all client calls.
Micromanaging employees. 
This approach limits growth potential and often leads to burnout.
While automation and AI tools aim to streamline PPC efforts, they often introduce new layers of complexity.
This can make it challenging for a single individual to oversee all aspects of an agency’s operations effectively.
Solution
Implement strategic delegation and create clear standard operating procedures. 
Identify which responsibilities truly require your expertise and which can be handled by team members with the skill set. 
Develop systems that allow your team to work independently while maintaining quality standards.
Common pitfalls across all PPC professionals
Whether you’re a freelancer, agency professional, or in-house marketing team member, the following self-sabotaging behaviors can affect everyone in the PPC industry.
4. Mismanaging campaigns through tinkering or neglect
PPC freelancers, agencies, and in-house teams can all be perpetrators of this at some point. 
They fall into one of two counterproductive extremes: constantly changing campaigns or adopting a “set it and forget it” approach. 
Both behaviors undermine campaign performance and client satisfaction. 
One side wants proof via the change history that campaigns are actually being worked on.
The other takes a “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” mentality.
Solution
Develop a structured campaign management schedule with clearly defined review intervals based on:

Account size.
Traffic volume.
Campaign maturity. 
Newer campaigns may require more frequent monitoring, while mature campaigns benefit from less frequent but more strategic adjustments. 
Create data thresholds that trigger adjustments rather than making changes based on hunches or arbitrary schedules. 
Document all changes and their results to identify patterns and optimal intervention frequencies.
Dig deeper:Google Ads optimization: What to stop, start, and continue in 2025
5. Jeopardizing performance with reactive budget changes
One of the most expensive forms of PPC self-sabotage is not knowing when – or how – to scale your budget. 
Too many pros either reduce spending too soon when performance dips or increase spending too quickly when things are going well. 
Both can wreck long-term performance and disrupt campaign learning.
Budget increases should typically stay within 10–20% to allow bidding algorithms to stabilize and adjust effectively. 
Scaling too quickly confuses the algorithm and leads to volatility. 
On the flip side, slashing budgets too harshly can tank impression share, decrease visibility, and make it harder to recover.
Solution
Adopt a pacing mindset, not a panic one. Budget decisions should be incremental and informed by data and marketing trends, not emotions or fear. 
Make sure you’re tracking key budget indicators like impression share lost (budget), cost per conversion, and marginal ROI before making any budget changes. 
Document what happens post-adjustment to build internal benchmarks for your future decisions.
Dig deeper: PPC budgeting in 2025: When to adjust, scale, and optimize with data
6. Misfiring strategies by copying tactics across platforms
There are a wide variety of paid advertising platforms, each with unique interfaces, algorithms, and audience behaviors. 
Many PPC professionals make two critical mistakes: 
Trying to master all platforms equally.
Using copy-paste strategies across them. 
What works for one doesn’t work for the other.
Each ad platform caters to distinct user behaviors and expectations. For instance:
Users on Google often exhibit high purchase intent, actively searching for specific products or services.
Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram are more conducive to brand discovery and engagement. Users might not be actively seeking products but can be influenced by images and videos. 
Understanding these nuances is crucial.
Tailoring your strategy to align with each platform’s unique user intent can significantly enhance campaign effectiveness.
Solution
Rather than spreading yourself thin across all platforms or duplicating campaigns verbatim, focus on mastering platforms most relevant to your target audience while developing platform-specific strategies for each. 
Craft messaging that aligns with each platform’s unique user intent and optimizes bidding strategies according to platform-specific algorithms. 
Remember that what works on Google Ads may perform poorly on Facebook or LinkedIn without proper adaptation.
Dig deeper: How Microsoft Ads compares to Google Ads and when to use it
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See terms.
7. Losing strategic insight by ignoring market trends
Forgetting to zoom out and track the real-world currents shaping buyer behavior can impact it in a form of sabotage. 
Platform-specific metrics are important, but they’re just one layer of the game. 
In 2025, external shifts from economic indicators to legal rulings have directly shaped ad budgets and strategy. 
These aren’t just news stories. They’re fundamental shifts that force advertisers to rethink where and how they spend.
When advertisers ignore these broader economic and political dynamics, they miss optimization opportunities and risk serious inefficiencies. 
An underperforming campaign might not need a new headline; it might need a new worldview. 
Real PPC strategy means watching the news as closely as you watch your dashboard.
Solution
Dedicate time each week to review economic indicators relevant to your clients’ industries. 
Subscribe to economic and industry newsletters and incorporate this broader context into your strategy discussions and reporting. 
Remember that in 2024, 68% of marketing executives confirmed a positive return on their AI investment, showing the growing importance of leveraging new technologies alongside economic insights.
8. Falling behind by overlooking platform updates
With features like Search Max and Google AI Max rolling out faster than most can keep up, PPC platforms are changing at breakneck speed. 
It’s not enough to launch campaigns – you need to know:
What tools are being auto-enabled behind the scenes.
How they affect performance.
When it’s worth testing them. 
Fear or avoidance can cost you real results.
Solution
Establish a routine for continuous learning. 
Allocate time each week to:

Read platform updates.
Participate in PPC communities. 
Focus on features that directly impact your clients’ goals.
9. Misusing AI by replacing, not supporting, human judgment
An overdependence on AI tools can lead to a lack of critical oversight. 
Relying solely on AI without human intervention may result in:
Misaligned targeting.
Poor ad copy.
Overlooked nuances in audience behavior.
Missed opportunities for creative optimization.
Conversely, underutilizing AI capabilities can hinder campaign efficiency and scalability. 
Marketers who resist integrating AI tools may find themselves lagging behind competitors who leverage automation for real-time bidding, audience segmentation, and predictive analytics.
Solution
Strive for a balanced approach that treats third-party AI tools as creative partners, not replacements. Custom GPTs can help speed up ideation, draft ad copy, give surface keyword insights, and suggest landing pages, but they still need a human strategist at the wheel. 
Audit everything AI generates to make sure it aligns with your brand voice, audience intent, and campaign goals. 
Use AI to work faster, not lazier, and stay sharp by regularly testing its outputs against real-world performance data.
Dig deeper: Is AI making PPC marketers better or worse?
10. Limiting career potential by skipping cross-disciplinary skills
Many PPC specialists focus only on mastering paid media, without developing complementary skills like SEO, email marketing, CRO, or content strategy.
This narrow focus limits campaign performance and long-term career potential. 
The issue is often systemic – most agencies and in-house teams fail to offer well-rounded training. 
They only focus on what’s billable or urgent. 
As a result, team members become platform operators instead of strategic thinkers.
Websites, blogs, and SEO represented 16% of the channels with the highest ROI, showing just how much PPC pros can gain by integrating their strategies with other disciplines. 
Miles McNair and Bob Meijer advocate for the concept of the “T‑shaped Google Ads specialist,” a marketer with deep PPC expertise supported by broad, functional skills in other key marketing areas.
That’s the kind of talent today’s ad world needs.
Solution
Be intentional about becoming T-shaped. 
Go beyond impressions and conversions:

Study landing page psychology.
Learn how email nurtures post-click journeys.
Understand how SEO affects long-tail ad strategy. 
This elevates the campaigns you manage and positions you as a high-value strategist instead of a replaceable media buyer.
11. Boxing yourself in with the wrong level of specialization
PPC professionals often struggle to find the right balance in specialization. 
Taking on too many industries can lead to weak strategies, while focusing too narrowly can hurt flexibility and put income at risk when things change.
The average cost per lead varies drastically, per WordStream’s 2024 Google Ads Benchmarks: 
Legal sits at $144.03.
Furniture at $108.85.
Automotive at just $42.95. 
What works for one won’t necessarily work for the others, and metrics like CPL, CTR, and CVR are entirely context-dependent.
Solution
Instead of going all-in on one niche or chasing every industry that comes along, define 2–3 key verticals where you can go deep while still diversifying risk. 
Build industry-specific playbooks and track separate benchmarks.
Stay plugged into economic or platform shifts that could impact each. That way, you’re seen as a specialist – not a generalist – but you’re never boxed in.
12. Neglecting boundaries that protect your mental health
The pace of PPC is relentless. Most campaigns run 24/7, platforms change overnight, and expectations rarely slow down. 
Many professionals find themselves stuck in a cycle of always being “on,” constantly.
Refreshing dashboards.
Jumping between client fires.
Trying to outpace an algorithm that never sleeps.
Over time, that constant pressure adds up to:
Exhaustion.
Emotional detachment.
Lack of creativity.
A slow erosion of joy for the work.
Solution
Burnout isn’t just a personal issue; it’s a systems issue. You need a structure that supports recovery. 
Build in space to step away without guilt by implementing processes that keep campaigns moving even when you’re offline. 
Automate where you can and delegate where you should.
Create honest boundaries with clients or teams.
Dig deeper: How to avoid search marketing burnout
13. Holding on too long to clients, roles, or partnerships that no longer fit
One of the most insidious forms of self-sabotage in PPC is failing to recognize when it’s time to walk away from:
A toxic employment situation.
An underperforming employee.
A problematic client.
A potential client. 
Many professionals stay in harmful relationships – whether with clients, jobs, or partners – because of fear, loyalty, or pressure from a competitive industry. 
Often, they don’t realize how much it’s really costing them.
Solution
Establish clear criteria for evaluating professional relationships, including red flags that warrant termination. 
For client relationships, document signs of a poor fit (scope creep, consistent late payments, unrealistic expectations) and create processes for diplomatic exits. 
For employment situations, recognize when a position no longer aligns with your career goals or values. Remember that opportunity cost is real – every toxic relationship prevents you from forming beneficial ones.
Dig deeper: When and how to fire PPC clients
Breaking the self-sabotage cycle
Self-sabotage in PPC rarely shows up as apparent failure.
It hides in the habits we normalize: 
Overworking.
Under-communicating.
Chasing every client.
Refusing to adapt. 
This industry rewards speed and strategy, but true success demands more than technical skill. 
It requires emotional intelligence, strategic boundaries, and the courage to evolve.
Whether you’re freelancing solo, leading an agency, or managing campaigns in-house, your long-term performance depends just as much on your internal patterns as your external tactics. Audit both. 
The real win isn’t just better ROAS – it’s building a sustainable career you don’t have to recover from.

Scaling too fast, hiding help, micromanaging teams – break these bad habits and build a smarter, scalable PPC operation.

Stop sabotaging your PPC success: 13 traps that kill growth

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/05/google-ai-mode-head-1920-e1748875083240.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/05/google-ai-mode-head-1920-e1748875083240.jpg 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/05/google-ai-mode-head-1920-e1748875083240-768x432.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/05/google-ai-mode-head-1920-e1748875083240-1536x864.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Google announced at I/O, three weeks ago, AI Mode will roll out to all US users and now that seems to be happening.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/05/google-ai-mode-head-1920-e1748875083240.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/05/google-ai-mode-head-1920-e1748875083240.jpg 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/05/google-ai-mode-head-1920-e1748875083240-768x432.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/05/google-ai-mode-head-1920-e1748875083240-1536x864.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Three weeks ago at Google I/O, Google announced AI Mode will roll out <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-mode-us-searchers-455654">to all U.S. searchers</a>.  That time has seemed to come over the past several hours.</p>



<p><strong>AI Mode signed out. </strong>When you use Google without being signed in, or in incognito mode, and try to access AI Mode with longer queries, it probably will show up for you within the U.S.</p>



<p>Here is a screenshot that I was able to trigger for AI Mode while signed out of Google:</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="2048" height="1281" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/google-ai-mode-signed-out-live-1749808085-scaled.png" alt="" class="wp-image-456983" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/google-ai-mode-signed-out-live-1749808085-scaled.png 2048w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/google-ai-mode-signed-out-live-1749808085-768x480.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/google-ai-mode-signed-out-live-1749808085-1536x960.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" /></figure>



<p><strong>What is AI Mode. </strong>AI Mode is a new tab within Google Search that brings you into a more AI-like interface. Google said AI Mode “is particularly helpful for queries where further exploration, reasoning, or comparisons are needed.” AI Mode lets you explore a topic and get comprehensive AI-based answers without you needing to do those comparisons and analyses yourself. We saw rumors of this news and it is finally officially here, for some of you.</p>



<p>AI Mode uses a “query fan-out” technique that issues multiple related searches concurrently across subtopics and multiple data sources and then brings those results together to provide a response. Google said using this query fan-out method provides searchers with a “more breadth and depth of information than a traditional search on Google.”</p>



<p>AI Mode supports searching with text, voice, and images through its multimodal capabilities. Plus, AI Mode offers the conversational follow-up questions like you’ve seen in AI Overviews and Gemini.</p>



<p><strong>Search Console. </strong>You may start to see a change in impressions, clicks and other data in your Search Console performance reports. Google will be lumping AI Mode data with web search data in those reports.</p>



<p><strong>Why we care. </strong>This is a big step for the <a href="https://searchengineland.com/the-future-of-seo-as-the-future-google-search-rolls-out-455954">future of Google Search</a> and the search marketing industry.  For AI Mode to roll out in the U.S. without opting into it, is a big deal.</p>



<p>I expect it to roll out in more and more regions over the coming months.</p>


Three weeks ago at Google I/O, Google announced AI Mode will roll out to all U.S. searchers.  That time has seemed to come over the past several hours.
AI Mode signed out. When you use Google without being signed in, or in incognito mode, and try to access AI Mode with longer queries, it probably will show up for you within the U.S.
Here is a screenshot that I was able to trigger for AI Mode while signed out of Google:




What is AI Mode. AI Mode is a new tab within Google Search that brings you into a more AI-like interface. Google said AI Mode “is particularly helpful for queries where further exploration, reasoning, or comparisons are needed.” AI Mode lets you explore a topic and get comprehensive AI-based answers without you needing to do those comparisons and analyses yourself. We saw rumors of this news and it is finally officially here, for some of you.
AI Mode uses a “query fan-out” technique that issues multiple related searches concurrently across subtopics and multiple data sources and then brings those results together to provide a response. Google said using this query fan-out method provides searchers with a “more breadth and depth of information than a traditional search on Google.”
AI Mode supports searching with text, voice, and images through its multimodal capabilities. Plus, AI Mode offers the conversational follow-up questions like you’ve seen in AI Overviews and Gemini.
Search Console. You may start to see a change in impressions, clicks and other data in your Search Console performance reports. Google will be lumping AI Mode data with web search data in those reports.
Why we care. This is a big step for the future of Google Search and the search marketing industry.  For AI Mode to roll out in the U.S. without opting into it, is a big deal.
I expect it to roll out in more and more regions over the coming months.

Google announced at I/O, three weeks ago, AI Mode will roll out to all US users and now that seems to be happening.

Google AI Mode finally rolling out to all users in the U.S.

<div><img width="800" height="457" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-800x457.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-800x457.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-592x338.jpg 592w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-198x113.jpg 198w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>Google confirmed  an issue with serving content across numerous surfaces for some users. May be part of the Google Cloud outage.

<div><img width="800" height="457" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-800x457.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-800x457.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-592x338.jpg 592w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-198x113.jpg 198w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/03/google-logo-cracking-1920.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>
<p>Google has confirmed a content serving issue with Google Discover, Google Lens and voice search for some users.</p>



<p><strong>What Google said. </strong>Google <a href="https://status.search.google.com/incidents/wNcefVMLpVGGoFLzgMEg">wrote</a>:</p>



<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s an ongoing issue with serving Google Lens, Discover, and Voice Search results that&#8217;s affecting some users. We&#8217;re working on identifying the root cause. The next update will be within 12 hours.&#8221;</p>



<p><strong>Impacting who. </strong>It is unclear how widespread the issue is but Google said it is &#8220;affecting some users.&#8221;  It must be larger enough of an impact for Google to post about it on its status report.</p>



<p><strong>Larger internet issues. </strong>Google Cloud <a href="https://status.cloud.google.com/">posted</a> regional issues across almost all its services, CloudFlare <a href="https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/">posted</a> issues for its services, and sevices like AWS and others are <a href="https://www.techmeme.com/250612/p34#a250612p34">reportedly</a> having issues as well.</p>



<p><strong>Why we care. </strong>If your site gets traffic from Google Discover, Google Lens and voice search, you may want to annotate the outage or issues.  In addition, even if you don&#8217;t, your site and services may be having loading issues due to AWS, Cloudflare and Google Cloud issues.</p>



<p><strong>Update</strong> &#8211; <strong>New content</strong> <strong>impacted too. </strong>It appears that Google Search is <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-not-serving-new-content-39584.html">no longer returning new content</a> in its index and search results.  This started a few hours after the initial issue.  </p>



<p><strong>Update &#8211; fixed. </strong>Google <a href="https://status.search.google.com/incidents/wNcefVMLpVGGoFLzgMEg">confirmed</a> both <a href="https://status.search.google.com/incidents/rX6zGEp9vJJxxrY16g4A">issues</a> are now fixed the following morning.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Google&#39;s indexing and serving issues across Search, Discover, Lens and voice search are resolved this morning &#8211; officially <a href="https://t.co/Ti0d7Hu92d">https://t.co/Ti0d7Hu92d</a> <a href="https://t.co/5adL4n2FcQ">pic.twitter.com/5adL4n2FcQ</a></p>&mdash; Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) <a href="https://twitter.com/rustybrick/status/1933458730093314256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>


Google has confirmed a content serving issue with Google Discover, Google Lens and voice search for some users.
What Google said. Google wrote:
“There’s an ongoing issue with serving Google Lens, Discover, and Voice Search results that’s affecting some users. We’re working on identifying the root cause. The next update will be within 12 hours.”
Impacting who. It is unclear how widespread the issue is but Google said it is “affecting some users.”  It must be larger enough of an impact for Google to post about it on its status report.
Larger internet issues. Google Cloud posted regional issues across almost all its services, CloudFlare posted issues for its services, and sevices like AWS and others are reportedly having issues as well.
Why we care. If your site gets traffic from Google Discover, Google Lens and voice search, you may want to annotate the outage or issues.  In addition, even if you don’t, your site and services may be having loading issues due to AWS, Cloudflare and Google Cloud issues.
Update – New content impacted too. It appears that Google Search is no longer returning new content in its index and search results.  This started a few hours after the initial issue.  
Update – fixed. Google confirmed both issues are now fixed the following morning.


Google's indexing and serving issues across Search, Discover, Lens and voice search are resolved this morning – officially https://t.co/Ti0d7Hu92d pic.twitter.com/5adL4n2FcQ
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) June 13, 2025

Google confirmed  an issue with serving content across numerous surfaces for some users. May be part of the Google Cloud outage.

Google Lens, Discover, and Voice Search serving issues

<div><img width="800" height="457" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-800x457.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-800x457.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-592x338.jpg 592w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-198x113.jpg 198w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>Specifically these will no longer be supported; Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement and Vehicle Listing. 

<div><img width="800" height="457" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-800x457.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-800x457.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-592x338.jpg 592w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-198x113.jpg 198w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/09/man-phone-desk-google-logo-1920.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>
<p>Google will be dropping support for several structured data markup elements in order to simplify the search results interface.  Specifically, Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, and Vehicle Listing will no longer show rich results in the Google Search results.</p>



<p><strong>Why are they being removed. </strong>Google <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2025/06/simplifying-search-results">said</a> they &#8220;believe this change contributes to a cleaner, more focused Search results page for everyone.&#8221; Google added they are not used that much. &#8220;We’re phasing out these specific structured data types because our analysis shows that they’re not commonly used in Search, and we found that these specific displays are no longer providing significant additional value for users,&#8221; Google added.</p>



<p>Google said, &#8220;Removing them will help streamline the results page and focus on other experiences that are more useful and widely used.&#8221;</p>



<p><strong>What is being removed. </strong>Here is the list of structured data elements being removed:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/book">Book Actions</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/course-info">Course Info</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/factcheck">Claim Review</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/estimated-salary">Estimated Salary</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/learning-video">Learning Video</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/special-announcements">Special Announcement</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/vehicle-listing">Vehicle Listing</a></li>
</ul>



<p><strong>When will they be removed. </strong>Google said these will be &#8220;phased out over the coming weeks and months.&#8221; It is unclear when each one will be removed but they will be removed over the coming weeks.</p>



<p><strong>Other structured data not going away. </strong>Google supports a large number (about 30 or so) of <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery">structured data elements</a> and Google stressed they will &#8220;continue to actively support a range of structured data types that users find helpful when evaluating content to visit.&#8221; &#8220;Structured data can be a valuable way for website owners to describe their content and enable helpful Search features,&#8221; Google added.</p>



<p><strong>More changes coming? </strong>Google hinted that more changes may be coming.  Google wrote, &#8220;We’ll keep looking for ways to simplify the Search results page to provide the best experience for users and website owners, and we’ll share updates as we continue this work.&#8221;</p>



<p><strong>Why we care. </strong>The removal structured data support may result in a lower click-through rate from the Google search results, since those search result snippets won&#8217;t have as much &#8220;dressing&#8221; to them.</p>



<p>But keep in mind, while Google may no longer support these structured data elements, other search engines may continue to support them.  So you can keep it on your pages for other search engines who may use them.</p>


Google will be dropping support for several structured data markup elements in order to simplify the search results interface.  Specifically, Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, and Vehicle Listing will no longer show rich results in the Google Search results.
Why are they being removed. Google said they “believe this change contributes to a cleaner, more focused Search results page for everyone.” Google added they are not used that much. “We’re phasing out these specific structured data types because our analysis shows that they’re not commonly used in Search, and we found that these specific displays are no longer providing significant additional value for users,” Google added.
Google said, “Removing them will help streamline the results page and focus on other experiences that are more useful and widely used.”
What is being removed. Here is the list of structured data elements being removed:
Book Actions
Course Info
Claim Review
Estimated Salary
Learning Video
Special Announcement
Vehicle Listing
When will they be removed. Google said these will be “phased out over the coming weeks and months.” It is unclear when each one will be removed but they will be removed over the coming weeks.
Other structured data not going away. Google supports a large number (about 30 or so) of structured data elements and Google stressed they will “continue to actively support a range of structured data types that users find helpful when evaluating content to visit.” “Structured data can be a valuable way for website owners to describe their content and enable helpful Search features,” Google added.
More changes coming? Google hinted that more changes may be coming.  Google wrote, “We’ll keep looking for ways to simplify the Search results page to provide the best experience for users and website owners, and we’ll share updates as we continue this work.”
Why we care. The removal structured data support may result in a lower click-through rate from the Google search results, since those search result snippets won’t have as much “dressing” to them.
But keep in mind, while Google may no longer support these structured data elements, other search engines may continue to support them.  So you can keep it on your pages for other search engines who may use them.

Specifically these will no longer be supported; Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement and Vehicle Listing.

Google to drop support for several rich result types to simplify the search results page

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/12-actionable-tips-for-the-AI-Mode-era.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="12 actionable tips for the AI Mode era" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/12-actionable-tips-for-the-AI-Mode-era.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/12-actionable-tips-for-the-AI-Mode-era-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/12-actionable-tips-for-the-AI-Mode-era-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Get your brand ready for AI-first search. Create standout content, optimize for agents, and lead in the era of search everywhere.

Optimizing for Google AI Mode (and AI search in general) isn’t just business as usual for SEO professionals. 
But it also doesn’t necessitate a deep technical understanding of vector space or dense retrieval models. 
Instead, it calls for recognizing and addressing the evolution of both Google Search and user behavior. 
This means adapting existing SEO tactics (yes, SEO is still not dead) with updated strategies, fresh applications, evolving approaches, and new ways to measure success.
While these tips will help prepare your strategy for the future, remember the immediate goal is to win today. 
Currently, most people aren’t using AI Mode, and AI search still accounts for less than 1% of most brands’ traffic from what I’ve seen from client data. 
However, it is crucial to strategically prepare for tomorrow, as AI will undoubtedly expand its role and continue to bring significant new opportunities.
If you want to win today while also preparing for tomorrow, implement these 12 tips.
Topical authority model showing core topics and how they branch out to supplementary topics
1. Cultivate deep topical authority
Strive to become a go-to expert in your space by creating a wealth of insightful content that thoroughly explores your main topics and subtopics. 
Think of your goal as being the most comprehensive and reliable resource available. 
Ensure your pages link to one another naturally, guiding users and AI through your content like a clear, structured map. 
Your goal is to have Gemini find your brand for as many topically related queries as possible and to make your message as relevant as possible. 
When writing your content, focus on genuinely explaining concepts and their relationships, not just sprinkling in keywords. 
The aim is to make your expertise unmistakably clear and valuable to both people and AI systems.

Dig deeper: How AI Mode and AI Overviews work based on patents and why we need new strategic focus on SEO
2. Build your brand through search everywhere optimization
In 2025, much of search is beyond our direct control. 
That makes it vital to focus on what you can influence: your brand. 
Build a strong brand presence through diverse channels and invest in digital PR to expand your reach. 
In addition to building strong topical authority on your site, you also need a search everywhere optimization strategy to make sure your content is discoverable across all the platforms where AI models, like Gemini, collect information.
The ultimate goal is for AI to identify your brand as the most relevant and valuable resource at every stage of its reasoning, effectively answering both explicit and implied user questions.
3. Be user-driven
AI Mode is user-first, so success in this new chapter will require user-centric approaches. 
AI Mode answers will be heavily personalized, integrating user behavior and preferences from other Google sources (e.g., Gmail). 
AI Mode answers will be contextualized based on user embeddings, which are like digital fingerprints based on things like:
Search and click history.
Content engagement history.
Location.
Demographics.
Google’s longstanding recommendation to do what’s best for your users has never been more critical.
Dig deeper: The next wave of search: AI Mode, deep research and beyond
4. Create unique content 
Standing out has never been more crucial. Simply replicating existing content from competitors won’t work. 
You need to create something truly unique and valuable, leaning into the existing E-E-A-T framework. This means:
Leveraging proprietary or custom data.
Integrating exclusive quotes.
Showcasing contextualized subject matter expertise to deliver content that genuinely hasn’t been done a dozen times before.
5. Think beyond rankings and clicks
Success metrics in modern-day search are changing. 
Google hasn’t shared data backing up their claim that clicks in an AI Overview SERP are coming from “more engaged audiences” that are “more likely to spend more time onsite.” 
Still, the recommendation to “understand the full value of your visits” is valid, nonetheless. 
Make sure you focus on lower funnel KPIs and how those are trending. 
Rather than just traffic volume, this means evaluating metrics like:
Transactions.
Leads generated.
Customer lifetime value. 
Understanding the qualitative impact of AI visits will be key to understanding and proving ROI.
Dig deeper: 12 new KPIs for the generative AI search era
6. Audit your content for relevancy and freshness
Relevance is everything in this next era of search. 
Continuously audit and refresh your website content for stronger relevance and new insights. 
Strategically retire outdated or off-topic content to optimize topical authority and overall site value. 
This ensures your content provides the most current and comprehensive answers, aligning with how AI prioritizes information. 
By maintaining a highly relevant and fresh content library, you signal expertise and trustworthiness to both users and AI.
AnswerThePublic questions flywheel showing longtail “marketing” questions
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See terms.
7. Think outside the ‘search volume’ box
AI mode captures intent that the user didn’t explicitly express. 
Gemini moves beyond the initial prompt and determines user intent either:

Directly from the user’s explicit query.
By inferring and synthesizing it from their history and context. 
While we aren’t in a position to completely eliminate search volume yet, conversational AI search will eventually render keyword search volumes less relevant and less accurate. 
Instead of focusing solely on keywords and search volumes, take the time to ensure: 
Your content is semantically rich.
Explores related concepts and diverse user intents.
Provides a deep and authoritative understanding.
Screenshots of Google’s AI Mode at work to find and book MLB tickets
Dig deeper: Chunks, passages and micro-answer engine optimization wins in Google AI Mode
8. Start thinking about agent optimization
It will take time, but connecting with audiences via AI agents will be crucial as users will ultimately rely on agents rather than websites for their needs.
Agents will not only synthesize and personalize answers for people, but they’ll complete actions, too. 
Grabbing tickets to a Padres game.
Signing up for a new yoga studio.
Purchasing a new set of earbuds. 
Agents will become personal assistants, and marketers need to start thinking about how they optimize content and experiences for agents.
Rank in AI mode by moving beyond text-based content into imagery, video, and audio
9. Move beyond text-based content
AI Mode’s ability to synthesize information extends far beyond just text, actively incorporating imagery, audio, and video into its responses. 
To maximize visibility and relevance, strategically diversify your content portfolio. 
This means:
Optimizing images with descriptive alt text and contextually relevant captions.
Creating engaging video content with clear transcripts.
Even exploring audio formats like podcasts, if you haven’t already. 
Ensuring these assets are discoverable and clearly aligned with related topics will be crucial, as AI aims to provide comprehensive, multi-faceted answers. 
If your content strategy remains solely text-focused, you risk being overlooked in this richer, more dynamic information landscape.
Dig deeper: How multimodal discovery is redefining SEO in the AI era
Invest in CRO and UX to get more from each site visitor
10. Invest in CRO and UX
With AI search reducing organic site traffic, every visitor becomes that much more valuable. 
CRO focuses on refining your website to make it easier for users to take desired actions, such as:
Completing a purchase.
Submitting a form. 
An optimized user experience ensures your site is intuitive, engaging, and easy to navigate. 
Make sure you have clear calls to action, fast load times, and an overall frustration-free journey, so those who do visit can easily convert.
Profound Answer Engine Insights
11. Onboard Profound
Profound is a best-in-class AI search optimization tool, built by a team who’s thinking isn’t clouded by the history of SEO and how things have been done historically. 
They’re building technology specifically to help brands show up in LLMs and AI Mode. 
Going forward, you’ll need data about your performance in AI search, such as: 
Sentiment.
Citation frequency.
AI share of voice. 
Your standard SEO tools just aren’t going to cut it anymore.
Dig deeper: SEO in an AI-powered world: What changed in just a year
12. Put poor collaboration to bed
Winning in 2025 and beyond means there’s zero tolerance when it comes to working in silos. 
Knowledge sharing and collaboration is the only path forward. 
SEO, content, social media, CRO, user experience, engineering, digital PR, brand, product, and data and analytics will all have to work together to:
Win AI visibility.
Keep up with the shifts.
React to what’s working or not.

Get your brand ready for AI-first search. Create standout content, optimize for agents, and lead in the era of search everywhere.

12 actionable tips for the Google AI Mode era

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/5-tests-to-run-to-drive-growth-with-LinkedIn-Ads.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="5 tests to run to drive growth with LinkedIn Ads" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/5-tests-to-run-to-drive-growth-with-LinkedIn-Ads.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/5-tests-to-run-to-drive-growth-with-LinkedIn-Ads-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/5-tests-to-run-to-drive-growth-with-LinkedIn-Ads-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>LinkedIn’s not just an awareness play anymore. Try these five ad types, tune your offer, and start pulling qualified leads into your funnel.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/5-tests-to-run-to-drive-growth-with-LinkedIn-Ads.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="5 tests to run to drive growth with LinkedIn Ads" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/5-tests-to-run-to-drive-growth-with-LinkedIn-Ads.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/5-tests-to-run-to-drive-growth-with-LinkedIn-Ads-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/5-tests-to-run-to-drive-growth-with-LinkedIn-Ads-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Convincing B2B brands to test <a href="https://searchengineland.com/linkedin-advertising-a-comprehensive-guide-439831">LinkedIn Ads</a> is getting easier as <a href="https://searchengineland.com/cpc-inflation-google-ads-costs-rising-fast-454291">Google’s CPCs continue to rise</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<p>For its part, LinkedIn has helped make a case for itself with some much-needed updates lately, including UX improvements in Campaign Manager and some measurement functionality, including <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a1655394" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CAPI</a> (finally) and a new <a href="https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/revenue-attribution-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revenue attribution report</a>.</p>



<p>So, assuming you’re working with (or for) a brand that’s willing to see what kind of results LinkedIn can produce, here are the tests to prioritize, including:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Thought leader ads.</li>



<li>Conversation ads.</li>



<li>Video ads.</li>



<li>Carousel ads.</li>



<li>Different offers.</li>
</ul>



<p>Let’s lay out the reasoning and some recommendations for each.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-1-thought-leader-ads-testing">1. Thought leader ads testing</h2>



<p>Thought leader ads (TLAs) have produced great engagement for our clients since we began testing them shortly after LinkedIn introduced them in 2023.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The engagement makes sense.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Content coming from personal accounts is far more human and appealing than content coming from faceless corporate accounts.</p>



<p>Thought leader ads, especially given that they have only an indirect association with a brand, are perhaps LinkedIn’s ultimate top-of-funnel play.</p>



<p>Advertisers need to be aware of that when they test the ad type. They’re highly effective in conveying information in longer-form content and work best under the following conditions:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>A focus on customers and their problems and challenges, not your product.</li>



<li>A poster with a relatively high profile, a senior title, and a good base of followers.</li>



<li>An engaging hook, an authoritative but authentic tone, and highly readable formatting (e.g., short paragraphs and plenty of vertical spacing).</li>



<li>Emoji usage when appropriate (but beware patterns of clearly AI-generated content).</li>



<li>Images or video included.</li>
</ul>



<p>You <strong>can</strong><em> </em>use TLAs to promote assets to get lead information (you’ve all seen the “DM me to get a copy” or “Comment with {prompt}” to request a copy).&nbsp;</p>



<p>If you’d prefer to stay squarely focused on thought leadership, you can measure the effectiveness of your TLAs through engagements and impressions, particularly those from brands in your ICP.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/top-6-b2b-paid-media-platforms-where-and-how-to-advertise-effectively-451512">Top 6 B2B paid media platforms: Where and how to advertise effectively</a></em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-2-conversation-ads-testing">2. Conversation ads testing</h2>



<p>TLAs are great for getting in front of a fairly good-sized, less-targeted audience for little cost.</p>



<p>On the other hand, conversation ads are good for very small audiences, with precise targeting of users in your ICP and tightly aligned, customized messaging.</p>



<p>Even with their small scale, conversation ads are much more cost-effective at engaging qualified leads than sponsored content.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Our clients use them for prospecting, but not just with decision-makers.&nbsp;</p>



<p>With a strong enough message, conversation ads can spark engagement with decision influencers that may catalyze internal conversations within the brand’s team.</p>



<p>Conversation ads have several elements to test:&nbsp;</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>CTAs.</li>



<li>Messaging angles and length.</li>



<li>Different senders (e.g., a company’s CEO vs. a director of business development).</li>



<li>Subject lines.</li>



<li>Etc.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>



<p>Test one of these at a time to keep results clear.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-3-video-ads-testing">3. Video ads testing</h2>



<p>LinkedIn has introduced more functionality for video ads in the past year-plus. This has been a win-win for the platform and its advertisers.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Video has proven effective at the top of the funnel because people come to LinkedIn to engage with content, not to find solution providers, and video is a highly digestible, immersive format.</p>



<p>LinkedIn was later to the video game than Meta (as well as <a href="https://searchengineland.com/youtube-advertising-the-ultimate-guide-436845">YouTube</a> and <a href="https://searchengineland.com/tiktok-advertising-450817">TikTok</a>), but its users are showing similar preferences for playfulness and authenticity.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Our clients have had more success with less-produced videos and animations than slicker, more corporate-looking content, so save yourself some budget and go for a more UGC angle.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/test-ugc-egc-ads-meta-campaigns-454940">How to test UGC and EGC ads in Meta campaigns</a></em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-4-carousel-ads-testing">4. Carousel ads testing</h2>



<p>Although carousel ads aren’t as immersive as video, the interactive element has provided a nice blend of user engagement and a narrative-friendly format for advertisers.</p>



<p>When we develop carousel ads for our clients, we test a few content themes:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Highlighted features of our clients’ product or service, with real use cases.</li>



<li>Data or insights-driven slides that include stats or quantifiable results.</li>



<li>A problem/solution journey that starts with a pain point and explains how the brand’s product or solution solves it.</li>
</ul>



<p>For all of these, the last slide of the carousel has a CTA, which we decide on thanks to our last test.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-5-offer-testing">5. Offer testing</h2>



<p>Remember that you’re living primarily at the top of the funnel with the ads I just mentioned, and align your offer accordingly (very, very few users are going to “sign up for a free demo” with a brand they just learned about).</p>



<p>We’ve seen good conversion rates with low-friction CTAs like “learn more,” “see how,” and an offer to engage with calculators or other interactive features.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Test a few offers to see what works; from there, make sure you’ve got strategically planned email sequences that align with the content the lead has engaged with.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/5-underrated-tools-to-boost-your-b2b-ppc-performance-in-2025-451837">5 underrated tools to boost your B2B PPC performance in 2025</a></em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-final-thoughts">Final thoughts</h2>



<p>The most important consideration to keep front and center for LinkedIn ads is their relative strength in the customer journey.</p>



<p>They’re great for building engagement and awareness, not closing the deal.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Although we have definitely reaped the benefits of targeting in-market users, from decision-influencers to decision-makers.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Approached with the right mentality, strategic LinkedIn tests will introduce some productive options for bringing high-value users into your funnel.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Make sure you’ve locked down your nurture strategy and your measurement strategy, including the CAPI and revenue attribution tools mentioned above, to help you get a clearer picture of the ultimate impact of LinkedIn ads in your bottom-funnel metrics.&nbsp;</p>



<p>My well-informed hunch is that you’ll realize that adding LinkedIn to your channel mix is a great way to mitigate Google’s increasing costs and keep your funnel supplied with new users.</p>

Convincing B2B brands to test LinkedIn Ads is getting easier as Google’s CPCs continue to rise. 
For its part, LinkedIn has helped make a case for itself with some much-needed updates lately, including UX improvements in Campaign Manager and some measurement functionality, including CAPI (finally) and a new revenue attribution report.
So, assuming you’re working with (or for) a brand that’s willing to see what kind of results LinkedIn can produce, here are the tests to prioritize, including:
Thought leader ads.
Conversation ads.
Video ads.
Carousel ads.
Different offers.
Let’s lay out the reasoning and some recommendations for each.
1. Thought leader ads testing
Thought leader ads (TLAs) have produced great engagement for our clients since we began testing them shortly after LinkedIn introduced them in 2023. 
The engagement makes sense. 
Content coming from personal accounts is far more human and appealing than content coming from faceless corporate accounts.
Thought leader ads, especially given that they have only an indirect association with a brand, are perhaps LinkedIn’s ultimate top-of-funnel play.
Advertisers need to be aware of that when they test the ad type. They’re highly effective in conveying information in longer-form content and work best under the following conditions:
A focus on customers and their problems and challenges, not your product.
A poster with a relatively high profile, a senior title, and a good base of followers.
An engaging hook, an authoritative but authentic tone, and highly readable formatting (e.g., short paragraphs and plenty of vertical spacing).
Emoji usage when appropriate (but beware patterns of clearly AI-generated content).
Images or video included.
You can use TLAs to promote assets to get lead information (you’ve all seen the “DM me to get a copy” or “Comment with {prompt}” to request a copy). 
If you’d prefer to stay squarely focused on thought leadership, you can measure the effectiveness of your TLAs through engagements and impressions, particularly those from brands in your ICP. 
Dig deeper: Top 6 B2B paid media platforms: Where and how to advertise effectively
2. Conversation ads testing
TLAs are great for getting in front of a fairly good-sized, less-targeted audience for little cost.
On the other hand, conversation ads are good for very small audiences, with precise targeting of users in your ICP and tightly aligned, customized messaging.
Even with their small scale, conversation ads are much more cost-effective at engaging qualified leads than sponsored content. 
Our clients use them for prospecting, but not just with decision-makers. 
With a strong enough message, conversation ads can spark engagement with decision influencers that may catalyze internal conversations within the brand’s team.
Conversation ads have several elements to test: 
CTAs.
Messaging angles and length.
Different senders (e.g., a company’s CEO vs. a director of business development).
Subject lines.
Etc. 
Test one of these at a time to keep results clear.
Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.
  
				
								
					MktoForms2.loadForm("https://app-sj02.marketo.com", "727-ZQE-044", 16298, function(form) {
						// form.onSubmit(function(){
						// });
						
						// form.onSuccess(function (values, followUpUrl) {
						// });
					});
				
			
See terms.
3. Video ads testing
LinkedIn has introduced more functionality for video ads in the past year-plus. This has been a win-win for the platform and its advertisers. 
Video has proven effective at the top of the funnel because people come to LinkedIn to engage with content, not to find solution providers, and video is a highly digestible, immersive format.
LinkedIn was later to the video game than Meta (as well as YouTube and TikTok), but its users are showing similar preferences for playfulness and authenticity. 
Our clients have had more success with less-produced videos and animations than slicker, more corporate-looking content, so save yourself some budget and go for a more UGC angle.
Dig deeper: How to test UGC and EGC ads in Meta campaigns
4. Carousel ads testing
Although carousel ads aren’t as immersive as video, the interactive element has provided a nice blend of user engagement and a narrative-friendly format for advertisers.
When we develop carousel ads for our clients, we test a few content themes:
Highlighted features of our clients’ product or service, with real use cases.
Data or insights-driven slides that include stats or quantifiable results.
A problem/solution journey that starts with a pain point and explains how the brand’s product or solution solves it.
For all of these, the last slide of the carousel has a CTA, which we decide on thanks to our last test.
5. Offer testing
Remember that you’re living primarily at the top of the funnel with the ads I just mentioned, and align your offer accordingly (very, very few users are going to “sign up for a free demo” with a brand they just learned about).
We’ve seen good conversion rates with low-friction CTAs like “learn more,” “see how,” and an offer to engage with calculators or other interactive features. 
Test a few offers to see what works; from there, make sure you’ve got strategically planned email sequences that align with the content the lead has engaged with.
Dig deeper: 5 underrated tools to boost your B2B PPC performance in 2025
Final thoughts
The most important consideration to keep front and center for LinkedIn ads is their relative strength in the customer journey.
They’re great for building engagement and awareness, not closing the deal. 
Although we have definitely reaped the benefits of targeting in-market users, from decision-influencers to decision-makers. 
Approached with the right mentality, strategic LinkedIn tests will introduce some productive options for bringing high-value users into your funnel. 
Make sure you’ve locked down your nurture strategy and your measurement strategy, including the CAPI and revenue attribution tools mentioned above, to help you get a clearer picture of the ultimate impact of LinkedIn ads in your bottom-funnel metrics. 
My well-informed hunch is that you’ll realize that adding LinkedIn to your channel mix is a great way to mitigate Google’s increasing costs and keep your funnel supplied with new users.

LinkedIn’s not just an awareness play anymore. Try these five ad types, tune your offer, and start pulling qualified leads into your funnel.

5 LinkedIn Ads tests to run to drive growth

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Your top affiliates might be stealing from you. Discover the hidden tactics behind $84 billion in ad losses: cloaking, fake coupons, ad hijacking, and others.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header.png" alt="Fraud alert warning" class="wp-image-456531" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-header-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></figure>



<p>Affiliate marketing is widely used by companies in different niches: from travel agents to ecommerce giants like Amazon and tech platforms like Shopify. No wonder, as affiliate marketing is a win-win strategy for both affiliates and brands. Brands get better results, while affiliates earn fair commissions.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Everyone benefits – but only when the system is used fairly.</p>



<p>Affiliate fraud refers to deceptive techniques used by affiliate partners who cheat to earn commissions they do not deserve. This threat hasn’t gone away in 2025 – it’s evolved.</p>



<p>Before, affiliate fraud was mostly about basic click farms or fake purchases. Today, it’s far more sophisticated: ad hijacking, cloaked sites, and smart redirects. These tactics are harder to detect and far more damaging forms of ad fraud.</p>



<p>Over 22% of global digital ad spend was lost to ad fraud in 2023, totaling around $84 billion, according to Juniper Research. What’s more, fraudsters are blending in as high-performing affiliates. You see “great” results while partners are quietly stealing from you and inflating costs using affiliate marketing fraud techniques.</p>



<p>This guide breaks down the most common affiliate fraud tactics, how they impact your business, and – most importantly – what you can do to spot and stop them using affiliate fraud prevention strategies.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-modern-affiliate-fraud-tactics-and-how-they-avoid-detection">Modern affiliate fraud tactics and how they avoid detection</h2>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="800" height="285" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-1.png" alt="Affiliate fraud playbook 2025" class="wp-image-456532" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-1.png 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-1-768x274.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></figure></div>


<p>Here are the most common tactics used today and how they stay under the radar:</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ad-hijacking">Ad hijacking</h3>



<p>Fraudulent affiliates run paid search ads using your brand name, mimicking your official messaging. To the average user, the ad looks like yours – but it’s actually theirs, redirecting traffic through their affiliate link.</p>



<p>To hide the violations, affiliates use geotargeting, dayparting, and IP exclusions to avoid being caught by your own team.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-url-hijacking">URL hijacking</h3>



<p>Scammers register domain names that closely resemble your brand (e.g. brandnmae.com) and funnel visitors through affiliate links.</p>



<p>How do they hide it? The sites are often auto-redirects with no visible content, making them harder to track unless you’re actively scanning for variants.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-website-cloaking">Website cloaking</h3>



<p>This involves showing different content to users and to tracking tools or moderators. A landing page may appear compliant to you – but users see aggressive or misleading content.</p>



<p>Cloaking tools detect bots, IPs, and browser fingerprints, serving “clean” versions only to reviewers – bypassing basic detection systems not built for affiliate fraud prevention.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-trademark-abuse">Trademark abuse</h3>



<p>Fraudulent affiliates use your registered brand name in unauthorized ways to hijack traffic and appear as official partners. Violations may take place in domain names, ad copy, or meta descriptions.</p>



<p>To hide it, they often operate from regions with weak enforcement, use lookalike domains, or launch short-term campaigns to avoid detection before takedowns can happen.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-coupon-fraud-and-last-click-theft">Coupon fraud and last-click theft</h3>



<p>Fraudsters use fake coupon codes or browser extensions that trigger affiliate cookies seconds before checkout, even when the user came from another channel.</p>



<p>How do they hide it? The theft happens in the final step of the funnel, making it difficult to detect without proper attribution modeling and affiliate fraud detection tools.</p>



<p>Despite all the fraudsters’ efforts to hide the violations, you can still spot that something is wrong with your brand’s advertising. There are eight red flags that indicate affiliate marketing fraud:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Too many leads from a single traffic source.</li>



<li>A short time gap between an ad click and the target action. </li>



<li>Patterned user behavior.</li>



<li>Different GEOs for the same user.</li>



<li>Low conversion rates with significant traffic volume. </li>



<li>Conversion rates at 100% or close to it.</li>



<li>Suspicious activity at nighttime.</li>



<li>Users are active for no more than three days.</li>
</ul>



<p>Learn more about <a href="https://bluepear.net/blog/8-red-flags-of-affiliate-marketing-fraud?utm_source=searchengineland&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=8_billion_lost_to_a_ad_fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener sponsored nofollow">affiliate fraud detection</a> red flags in our in-depth guide.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-hidden-business-costs-of-affiliate-fraud">The hidden business costs of affiliate fraud</h2>



<p>Affiliate fraud may seem like just a few lost commissions, but the real damage goes far deeper. Brands that do not stop affiliate abuse may face long-term financial and reputational losses due to unchecked ad fraud.</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="800" height="234" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-2.png" alt="Affiliate fraud playbook 2025" class="wp-image-456533" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-2.png 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear-202506-2-768x225.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></figure></div>


<p>Let’s see in detail what hidden costs affiliate marketing fraud causes:</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wasted-marketing-budgets">Wasted marketing budgets</h3>



<p>Fraudulent affiliates often steal your own organic traffic through brand bidding, fake coupon codes, or ad hijacking. Over time, this artificially inflates your cost-per-acquisition (CPA). You pay commissions for your loyal customers instead of attracting new clients.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-skewed-analytics-data">Skewed analytics data</h3>



<p>When scammers manipulate cookies or hijack last-click attribution, your reporting becomes unreliable. As a result, budgets get shifted to channels or affiliates that don’t actually perform, while real value drivers are underfunded or cut.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-damaged-brand-reputation">Damaged brand reputation</h3>



<p>Shady affiliates often use misleading ads, fake discount sites, or low-quality landing pages. Customers might not even realize the affiliate was a third party. They leave negative feedback, driving potential clients (and their money) away from your brand.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-higher-internal-costs">Higher internal costs</h3>



<p>Affiliate fraud forces your team to spend time on damage control: cleaning up tracking issues, handling complaints, auditing conversions, or chasing down bad actors. These hidden labor costs add up fast, and they don’t show up in your monthly performance reports.</p>



<p>This is how untracked affiliate abuse drains the company’s budget and keeps the brand from growth.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-affiliate-fraud-goes-unnoticed-even-by-great-teams">Why affiliate fraud goes unnoticed even by great teams</h2>



<p>Even the most experienced affiliate managers and marketing teams can miss affiliate fraud. Not because they aren’t skilled, but because modern affiliate marketing fraud is designed to stay hidden.</p>



<p>Today’s fraudulent affiliates use highly targeted tactics like geo-fencing, device filtering, language targeting, and time-based ad rotation. That’s why smart brands rely on affiliate fraud prevention solutions.</p>



<p>Let’s do some math:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>You have about <strong>30</strong> branded search queries.</li>



<li>You need to check them at least once in two hours, <strong>12</strong> times a day.</li>



<li>To combat geotargeting, you will do it from at least <strong>3</strong> different geos.</li>



<li>You need to check the SERPs from <strong>2</strong> search engines. </li>



<li>Plus, it is better to use <strong>3</strong> different browsers.</li>
</ul>



<p>30 search queries х 12 times a day х 3 geos х 2 search engines х 3 browser = <strong>6,480</strong></p>



<p>That’s the number of queries that your team needs to cover per day to keep up with the fraudsters. Let’s be honest: it’s not realistic. And that’s exactly what fraudsters count on.</p>



<p>What teams need isn’t more hours; it’s better tools built for real-time affiliate fraud protection.<strong> </strong>Affiliate fraud detection tools simulate real user behavior, scan global search results from multiple environments, and uncover what human review simply can’t reach.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-smarter-monitoring-a-reliable-way-to-stop-affiliate-abuse">Smarter monitoring: A reliable way to stop affiliate abuse </h2>



<p>Let’s break down how automated monitoring works. Bluepear is fraud-detecting software that protects branded search:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>You set branded keywords for Bluepear to watch in search results.</li>



<li>The system continuously scans SERPs and flags suspicious placements.</li>



<li>It mimics real users – switching devices, locations, browsers, and languages – to uncover hidden violations.</li>



<li>Each finding includes full details: ad text, destination URL, redirect chain, time, and geo.</li>



<li>Bluepear captures screenshots and logs everything in a clear, actionable report – making it a powerful tool for affiliate fraud protection.</li>



<li>You get notified the moment a violation is found – no guesswork, no delay.<br></li>
</ul>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="800" height="450" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear0202506-3.png" alt="" class="wp-image-456534" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear0202506-3.png 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/Bluepear0202506-3-768x432.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></figure></div>


<p>As you see, automated tools make it a lot easier to spot and stop violations, even the most sophisticated ones. Great news: <a href="https://bluepear.net/?utm_source=searchengineland&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=8_billion_lost_to_a_ad_fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener sponsored nofollow"><strong>Bluepear provides a free 7-day trial</strong></a><strong>, so that you can check if the tool meets your needs or not.</strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-final-thoughts">Final thoughts</h2>



<p>Affiliate fraud is a real and growing threat, even for skilled and well-resourced marketing teams. As fraud tactics become more advanced and harder to detect, ignoring the problem is no longer an option.</p>



<p>The fact that you read this line is already a good sign. Understanding how affiliate scams work is a first step to effective brand protection. Awareness creates clarity, and clarity leads to smarter decisions.</p>



<p>We recommend taking a moment to watch your traffic more closely:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Consider how transparent your affiliate program really is.</li>



<li>Think about where automation might help you see what manual checks can’t.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong><a href="https://bluepear.net/?utm_source=searchengineland&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=8_billion_lost_to_a_ad_fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener sponsored nofollow">Bluepear is here to help — get a 7-day free trial</a> to see how effective automated monitoring is.</strong></p>



<p>Think about where automation might help you see what manual checks can’t – it’s a key to building solid affiliate fraud protection strategies.</p>


Affiliate marketing is widely used by companies in different niches: from travel agents to ecommerce giants like Amazon and tech platforms like Shopify. No wonder, as affiliate marketing is a win-win strategy for both affiliates and brands. Brands get better results, while affiliates earn fair commissions. 
Everyone benefits – but only when the system is used fairly.
Affiliate fraud refers to deceptive techniques used by affiliate partners who cheat to earn commissions they do not deserve. This threat hasn’t gone away in 2025 – it’s evolved.
Before, affiliate fraud was mostly about basic click farms or fake purchases. Today, it’s far more sophisticated: ad hijacking, cloaked sites, and smart redirects. These tactics are harder to detect and far more damaging forms of ad fraud.
Over 22% of global digital ad spend was lost to ad fraud in 2023, totaling around $84 billion, according to Juniper Research. What’s more, fraudsters are blending in as high-performing affiliates. You see “great” results while partners are quietly stealing from you and inflating costs using affiliate marketing fraud techniques.
This guide breaks down the most common affiliate fraud tactics, how they impact your business, and – most importantly – what you can do to spot and stop them using affiliate fraud prevention strategies.
Modern affiliate fraud tactics and how they avoid detection

Here are the most common tactics used today and how they stay under the radar:
Ad hijacking
Fraudulent affiliates run paid search ads using your brand name, mimicking your official messaging. To the average user, the ad looks like yours – but it’s actually theirs, redirecting traffic through their affiliate link.
To hide the violations, affiliates use geotargeting, dayparting, and IP exclusions to avoid being caught by your own team.
URL hijacking
Scammers register domain names that closely resemble your brand (e.g. brandnmae.com) and funnel visitors through affiliate links.
How do they hide it? The sites are often auto-redirects with no visible content, making them harder to track unless you’re actively scanning for variants.
Website cloaking
This involves showing different content to users and to tracking tools or moderators. A landing page may appear compliant to you – but users see aggressive or misleading content.
Cloaking tools detect bots, IPs, and browser fingerprints, serving “clean” versions only to reviewers – bypassing basic detection systems not built for affiliate fraud prevention.
Trademark abuse
Fraudulent affiliates use your registered brand name in unauthorized ways to hijack traffic and appear as official partners. Violations may take place in domain names, ad copy, or meta descriptions.
To hide it, they often operate from regions with weak enforcement, use lookalike domains, or launch short-term campaigns to avoid detection before takedowns can happen.
Coupon fraud and last-click theft
Fraudsters use fake coupon codes or browser extensions that trigger affiliate cookies seconds before checkout, even when the user came from another channel.
How do they hide it? The theft happens in the final step of the funnel, making it difficult to detect without proper attribution modeling and affiliate fraud detection tools.
Despite all the fraudsters’ efforts to hide the violations, you can still spot that something is wrong with your brand’s advertising. There are eight red flags that indicate affiliate marketing fraud:
Too many leads from a single traffic source.
A short time gap between an ad click and the target action. 
Patterned user behavior.
Different GEOs for the same user.
Low conversion rates with significant traffic volume. 
Conversion rates at 100% or close to it.
Suspicious activity at nighttime.
Users are active for no more than three days.
Learn more about affiliate fraud detection red flags in our in-depth guide.
The hidden business costs of affiliate fraud
Affiliate fraud may seem like just a few lost commissions, but the real damage goes far deeper. Brands that do not stop affiliate abuse may face long-term financial and reputational losses due to unchecked ad fraud.

Let’s see in detail what hidden costs affiliate marketing fraud causes:
Wasted marketing budgets
Fraudulent affiliates often steal your own organic traffic through brand bidding, fake coupon codes, or ad hijacking. Over time, this artificially inflates your cost-per-acquisition (CPA). You pay commissions for your loyal customers instead of attracting new clients.
Skewed analytics data
When scammers manipulate cookies or hijack last-click attribution, your reporting becomes unreliable. As a result, budgets get shifted to channels or affiliates that don’t actually perform, while real value drivers are underfunded or cut.
Damaged brand reputation
Shady affiliates often use misleading ads, fake discount sites, or low-quality landing pages. Customers might not even realize the affiliate was a third party. They leave negative feedback, driving potential clients (and their money) away from your brand.
Higher internal costs
Affiliate fraud forces your team to spend time on damage control: cleaning up tracking issues, handling complaints, auditing conversions, or chasing down bad actors. These hidden labor costs add up fast, and they don’t show up in your monthly performance reports.
This is how untracked affiliate abuse drains the company’s budget and keeps the brand from growth.
Why affiliate fraud goes unnoticed even by great teams
Even the most experienced affiliate managers and marketing teams can miss affiliate fraud. Not because they aren’t skilled, but because modern affiliate marketing fraud is designed to stay hidden.
Today’s fraudulent affiliates use highly targeted tactics like geo-fencing, device filtering, language targeting, and time-based ad rotation. That’s why smart brands rely on affiliate fraud prevention solutions.
Let’s do some math:
You have about 30 branded search queries.
You need to check them at least once in two hours, 12 times a day.
To combat geotargeting, you will do it from at least 3 different geos.
You need to check the SERPs from 2 search engines. 
Plus, it is better to use 3 different browsers.
30 search queries х 12 times a day х 3 geos х 2 search engines х 3 browser = 6,480
That’s the number of queries that your team needs to cover per day to keep up with the fraudsters. Let’s be honest: it’s not realistic. And that’s exactly what fraudsters count on.
What teams need isn’t more hours; it’s better tools built for real-time affiliate fraud protection. Affiliate fraud detection tools simulate real user behavior, scan global search results from multiple environments, and uncover what human review simply can’t reach.
Smarter monitoring: A reliable way to stop affiliate abuse 
Let’s break down how automated monitoring works. Bluepear is fraud-detecting software that protects branded search:
You set branded keywords for Bluepear to watch in search results.
The system continuously scans SERPs and flags suspicious placements.
It mimics real users – switching devices, locations, browsers, and languages – to uncover hidden violations.
Each finding includes full details: ad text, destination URL, redirect chain, time, and geo.
Bluepear captures screenshots and logs everything in a clear, actionable report – making it a powerful tool for affiliate fraud protection.
You get notified the moment a violation is found – no guesswork, no delay.






As you see, automated tools make it a lot easier to spot and stop violations, even the most sophisticated ones. Great news: Bluepear provides a free 7-day trial, so that you can check if the tool meets your needs or not.
Final thoughts
Affiliate fraud is a real and growing threat, even for skilled and well-resourced marketing teams. As fraud tactics become more advanced and harder to detect, ignoring the problem is no longer an option.
The fact that you read this line is already a good sign. Understanding how affiliate scams work is a first step to effective brand protection. Awareness creates clarity, and clarity leads to smarter decisions.
We recommend taking a moment to watch your traffic more closely:
Consider how transparent your affiliate program really is.
Think about where automation might help you see what manual checks can’t.
Bluepear is here to help — get a 7-day free trial to see how effective automated monitoring is.
Think about where automation might help you see what manual checks can’t – it’s a key to building solid affiliate fraud protection strategies.

Your top affiliates might be stealing from you. Discover the hidden tactics behind $84 billion in ad losses: cloaking, fake coupons, ad hijacking, and others.

$84 billion lost to ad fraud: What you missed about affiliate abuse in 2025 by Bluepear

<div><img width="800" height="450" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-800x450.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Microsoft Ads" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-800x450.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-600x338.jpg 600w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-200x113.jpg 200w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-768x432.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>Microsoft Advertising's latest updates bring smarter reporting, more flexible campaign controls, and streamlined cross-platform tools.

<div><img width="800" height="450" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-800x450.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Microsoft Ads" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-800x450.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-600x338.jpg 600w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-200x113.jpg 200w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-768x432.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/01/Microsoft-Ads.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>
<p>Microsoft Advertising just dropped a fresh wave of product updates, with major changes to reporting, Performance Max, import tools, and Shopify integration — all designed to help advertisers stay agile in a shifting economic and consumer landscape.</p>



<p><strong>Reporting gets a full redesign</strong>. Microsoft has overhauled the Reporting homepage and launched a powerful new Custom Report Builder. </p>



<p>Why it matters &#8211; Faster access to key metrics and recommended templates. Full customization with filters, breakdowns, and scheduling. More flexibility to analyze what matters most — with less effort. </p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="833" height="482" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/blog-73124-bodyimage01-833x467-1.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-456910" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/blog-73124-bodyimage01-833x467-1.webp 833w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/06/blog-73124-bodyimage01-833x467-1-768x444.webp 768w" sizes="(max-width: 833px) 100vw, 833px" /></figure>



<p><strong>Performance Max</strong>. Performance Max campaigns now follow standard auction dynamics when overlapping with Standard Shopping campaigns — meaning the highest Ad Rank wins, not just default PMax priority. </p>



<p>Why it matters &#8211; More flexibility and control in mixed-campaign accounts. Smoother testing with fewer surprises in delivery. </p>



<p>Microsoft reports that PMax campaigns deliver 39% higher conversion rates than Standard Shopping (US, Feb–Apr 2025). Other new PMax features include support for scripts, automated rules, asset group copy-paste, new customer acquisition goals (in pilot), and enhanced conversion diagnostic tools directly in the UI.</p>



<p><strong>Google &amp; Meta Import: Smarter, faster setup</strong>. Importing carousel ads? Now you can bring the first image from Google or Meta ads into Microsoft Audience ads as native creatives. Coming soon in June: Smart import issue detection with quick-fix recommendations for faster campaign troubleshooting. </p>



<p>Why it matters &#8211; Less manual work, faster cross-platform scaling, and more consistent brand performance.</p>



<p><strong>Shopify + Microsoft: Global reach, simplified</strong>. The Microsoft Channel app on Shopify now supports more markets — including the UK, Japan, Australia, and key EU countries. Merchants can connect Microsoft Ads directly from Shopify, sync product catalogs to Bing/MSN Shopping, and launch and manage Performance Max campaigns natively. </p>



<p>Why it matters &#8211; Shopify merchants can now expand reach and conversions without leaving their store interface.</p>



<p><strong>Why we care.</strong> These updates give advertisers more control, efficiency, and visibility. The redesigned reporting tools make it easier to track performance and optimize faster. Performance Max campaign improvements allow smarter bidding and more flexibility, while enhanced import features and Shopify integration help streamline cross-platform efforts and expand reach—all with less manual work.</p>



<p><strong>The bottom line</strong>. These updates give advertisers more control, clearer insights, and faster ways to scale campaigns — helping them drive better performance across Microsoft’s growing ad ecosystem.</p>


Microsoft Advertising just dropped a fresh wave of product updates, with major changes to reporting, Performance Max, import tools, and Shopify integration — all designed to help advertisers stay agile in a shifting economic and consumer landscape.
Reporting gets a full redesign. Microsoft has overhauled the Reporting homepage and launched a powerful new Custom Report Builder. 
Why it matters – Faster access to key metrics and recommended templates. Full customization with filters, breakdowns, and scheduling. More flexibility to analyze what matters most — with less effort. 




Performance Max. Performance Max campaigns now follow standard auction dynamics when overlapping with Standard Shopping campaigns — meaning the highest Ad Rank wins, not just default PMax priority. 
Why it matters – More flexibility and control in mixed-campaign accounts. Smoother testing with fewer surprises in delivery. 
Microsoft reports that PMax campaigns deliver 39% higher conversion rates than Standard Shopping (US, Feb–Apr 2025). Other new PMax features include support for scripts, automated rules, asset group copy-paste, new customer acquisition goals (in pilot), and enhanced conversion diagnostic tools directly in the UI.
Google & Meta Import: Smarter, faster setup. Importing carousel ads? Now you can bring the first image from Google or Meta ads into Microsoft Audience ads as native creatives. Coming soon in June: Smart import issue detection with quick-fix recommendations for faster campaign troubleshooting. 
Why it matters – Less manual work, faster cross-platform scaling, and more consistent brand performance.
Shopify + Microsoft: Global reach, simplified. The Microsoft Channel app on Shopify now supports more markets — including the UK, Japan, Australia, and key EU countries. Merchants can connect Microsoft Ads directly from Shopify, sync product catalogs to Bing/MSN Shopping, and launch and manage Performance Max campaigns natively. 
Why it matters – Shopify merchants can now expand reach and conversions without leaving their store interface.
Why we care. These updates give advertisers more control, efficiency, and visibility. The redesigned reporting tools make it easier to track performance and optimize faster. Performance Max campaign improvements allow smarter bidding and more flexibility, while enhanced import features and Shopify integration help streamline cross-platform efforts and expand reach—all with less manual work.
The bottom line. These updates give advertisers more control, clearer insights, and faster ways to scale campaigns — helping them drive better performance across Microsoft’s growing ad ecosystem.

Microsoft Advertising's latest updates bring smarter reporting, more flexible campaign controls, and streamlined cross-platform tools.

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Read the Latest Trends and Headlines in Digital Marketing.

Here are some of the latest headlines on digital marketing insights, search, and ecommerce:

Free Consultation

Reach out with any questions you might have regarding how RSO can help you with digital marketing.

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