The dust has settled on Google Marketing Live 2026, and there are a lot of take-aways for PPC teams. From AI Max for Shopping, to Business Agent for Leads, Lead Intent Scores, journey-aware bidding, demand-led pacing, a refresh on Asset Studio and a raft of measurement changes. A host of new features all essentially point to one main outcome.
It is becoming clear that beyond all the announcements, Google is making a push for advertisers to supply it with richer data, with clearer goals, and to step away from solely focusing on clicks and form completions. These are all critical lessons for any ecommerce or lead generation business that has yet to have a thorough audit of their PPC activity.
Ascensor’s paid media specialist, Conor Crummey, summarised this perfectly, saying: "The trend of the updates is clear. Google will be taking over more of the campaign management process. The signals you feed into the machine now truly do make a difference. A faulty tracker, poorly completed product information or vague conversion targets means AI is simply showing you how bad your current data is."
The trouble with viewing campaigns through the prism of quantity
If your monthly PPC report still primarily tracks clicks, sessions, impressions and cost per click, you're missing the overall picture of how your campaign is actually performing.
A campaign can attract significant traffic but not lead to any sales, while a lead generation account can attract low cost per lead but send uninterested leads to sales teams. Both these scenarios can mask poor performance at the top level.
The important metrics are to be found deeper within the conversion funnel. These include things like revenue per click, margin per order, qualified lead rate, sales accepted leads, and close rates, to name just a few. It's only when you examine these metrics that you can determine the true impact of your ad spend, and all this is far from a new concept.
What’s changing for ecommerce
Shopping was a significant focus at Google Marketing Live 2026. AI Max for Shopping works by using the information available in the Merchant Centre product feed – such as title, description, attributes and image – to match with conversational searches. Effectively, the platform is now reading your feed as though it were ad copy itself.
This will be a huge problem for those that haven’t paid attention to their product feed for some time. Vague product titles, missing attributes, weak images and incorrect stock information mean Google has a harder time finding the right buyers. As AI plays a larger part in how campaigns perform, this has a direct impact on your ability to showcase the products you want to sell.
In Conor’s words: "For ecommerce, neglecting your product feed is no longer an option. It has to be considered a key aspect of your overall paid media activity. Without accurate and compelling information within the feed, you will be paying to drive traffic that is never likely to convert."
Check the following prior to your next round of campaign reviews:
* Are your product titles optimised for what people actually search for?
* Are your descriptions and attributes detailed enough to highlight things like sizing, materials, and use-case?
* Is pricing and stock information real-time or a slow update?
* Are your campaigns being optimised for revenue and margin, rather than solely for CPC targets?
* Is the landing page or product page optimised to help shoppers make purchasing decisions?
All these questions appear very basic but will not be addressed accurately in many existing accounts.
What’s changing for lead generation
Lead generation accounts have also received an update in the form of Business Agent for Leads. This offers a conversational element in the search ad, with the bot being able to answer questions posed by users without requiring them to access the website first. Lead Intent Scores will enable the sales team to identify more promising leads, while Journey-aware bidding starts taking into account how a potential customer navigates the path to purchase.
The common element for these updates is that Google wishes to gain a better understanding of the entire lead generation process, and not just the form completion aspect of it.
For agencies and internal teams, there needs to be a shift towards feeding more accurate data back into Google Ads. If all Google knows is how many forms have been completed, then that's exactly what it's going to optimise for. By feeding the system sales qualified leads, opportunities and revenue data, the platform has something to work towards more effectively.
Similarly, cost per lead will no longer be a realistic measure of success. Qualified lead rate, sales accepted leads, close rate and revenue per lead are all elements that must be part of the conversation. Landing pages and service pages are also to carry more weight in this, as ad content becomes more conversational, and thin content sites become quickly irrelevant. Sales feedback needs to be passed onto campaigns.
As Conor put it: "We've been optimising for the lowest conversion to see, and it's only now that lead quality has started to come up to speed. Clients want to see campaign results that correspond to actual opportunities, rather than just enquiries, and the latest updates from Google have certainly provided us with more effective ways to do this."
AI demands strong foundations
It's tempting to believe that AI will come in and fix messy campaigns for you. It will not. If your tracking is broken, it's broken data for the AI. If your product feed is patchy, it's signals for the AI. If your landing page is poorly designed, the AI will simply send people to a poorly designed page.
The process of running a PPC campaign is constantly evolving, but the fundamentals remain crucial. Clean tracking, clear goals, effective creative and well-designed landing pages all play a vital role. AI will simply amplify the efforts you're making, or highlight where improvements are needed.
So, what action should you take?
Your biggest takeaway from Google Marketing Live 2026 should be to thoroughly review your PPC fundamentals before getting ahead of yourself with any of the new features.
For ecommerce, this means assessing your product feed, tracking, product pages and the primary optimisation target. Consider revenue and margin more, rather than relying solely on click data.
For lead generation, it involves integrating your CRM data, refining conversion targets, and ensuring sales feedback is channelled into campaigns effectively. Landing page content must also be examined for suitability.
The new features are all going to play a part, AI Max for Shopping, Business Agent, Journey-aware bidding and Asset Studio will all see their place over the coming year. However, these features will not miraculously fix a campaign built on a foundation of bad data and inaccurate objectives. The businesses who can leverage AI advertising the most will be the ones who are already aware of who a high quality customer and sales opportunity are.
Interested in a full assessment of your PPC setup prior to Google's next major announcement? Our team specialises in working with ecommerce and lead generation businesses to maximise their paid media results with robust tracking, precise strategy and reporting directly linked to revenue.
Contact our PPC specialists today.
