The year leading up to 2026 felt like a blur for pay‑per‑click (PPC) marketers. Platforms evolved at breakneck speed, artificial intelligence (AI) tools flooded the market and Google’s “max” campaigns multiplied. At the SMX Next event, three seasoned PPC experts – Ameet Khabra of Hop Skip Media, Chris Ridley of Evoluted and Reva Minkoff of Digital4Startups – gathered to make sense of the chaos. Their candid conversation revealed what worked in 2025, what didn’t and how advertisers can prepare for a future where the only certainty is change.
A Year of Unprecedented Change
Khabra opened the discussion by calling 2025 “interesting” because Google finally listened to advertiser feedback. She was especially impressed by the company’s willingness to provide channel reporting for Performance Max campaigns. Ridley agreed that 2025 wasn’t just about Google listening – it was the year AI and AI‑driven search went mainstream. Tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT and Gemini dominated the conversation, and AI Overviews started appearing everywhere. Minkoff summed up the feeling by dubbing 2025 “the year of the max,” noting that new campaign types like Performance Max and AI Max launched faster than any features she’d seen in her 20‑year career.
This whirlwind of product releases forced advertisers to rethink their strategies. The experts agreed that staying grounded in the fundamentals while embracing innovation was the key to success. That theme wove through every story they told.
Returning to Fundamentals: What Worked in 2025
Strong campaign structure and quality signals
Minkoff stressed that no amount of automation can replace a well‑structured search campaign. Advertisers still need to pick the right keywords, craft compelling ads and send traffic to relevant audiences. Performance Max produces solid results, she said, but only when the underlying signals are good – “if you’re not putting good stuff in, you won’t get good stuff out”.
Demand Gen campaigns (formerly Video Action) and authentic influencer or user‑generated content also stood out. Audiences want to hear from real people, and social‑style videos performed better than slick, overly polished ads. To keep systems in check, Khabra’s team relied on automation scripts and anomaly detectors. Scripts that flag broken URLs or sudden performance shifts are “lifesavers,” she said, allowing marketers to catch issues before they cause budget waste.
The human touch in creative
AI makes it easy to churn out assets, but Ridley reminded attendees that genuine stories still resonate. His team saw strong results from authentic user‑generated content compared to polished creative, especially because consumers increasingly question whether AI‑generated ads are real. Pairing AI with a human voice was a recurring theme throughout the panel.
Better client communication
Beyond the tactical considerations, Ridley emphasized that communicating business objectives matters just as much as chasing return‑on‑ad‑spend (ROAS) or cost‑per‑acquisition (CPA). Understanding a client’s broader goals allows advertisers to build campaigns that support the entire funnel.
Pitfalls and Missteps: What Didn’t Work
Automatically created assets (ACAs)
All three experts expressed deep skepticism toward automatically created assets. Khabra lamented that advertisers can’t set guidelines or approve creative before it goes live, leaving them to hope the system follows brand rules. Quoting strategist Amy Hebdon, she noted that AI is a pattern matcher, not a creator – it generates the most likely version of something, not something original or accurate. Minkoff worried that ACAs ignore business nuance, such as which products deserve budget or which messages align with brand voice. For brands that must carefully control messaging, this lack of oversight is a dealbreaker.
User‑interface and UX challenges
Ridley vented frustration with platform user‑interface (UI) changes, describing the need to click through endless menus as counterproductive. He found it easier to work in Google Ads Editor or third‑party tools that bypass the UI. The disconnect between the web interface and the Editor forces advertisers to jump back and forth, slowing work and increasing the chances of errors.
Lengthy learning periods and limited flexibility
Another sticking point was the length of campaign learning periods. Minkoff said it’s harder to run short‑term promotions like Black Friday or Cyber Monday when algorithms take days or weeks to “learn”. If platforms can’t adapt quickly to new signals, small or time‑sensitive campaigns suffer.
Measurement and modeling difficulties
Khabra underscored that measurement remains a headache, especially for small businesses with limited data. Automation requires robust conversion data, but privacy rules and fragmented tracking make this difficult. Google’s modeled conversions often represent a best‑case scenario, which some business owners mistakenly treat as reality.
Surprises That Shaped 2025
Google Marketing Live announcements
Ridley’s biggest surprise came from the Google Marketing Live event. Google introduced A/B testing on product feeds and drastically lowered the minimum audience size for customer lists—from 1,000 to just 100 approved users. He called these changes game‑changing for small and medium businesses, giving them tools previously reserved for larger advertisers.
Performance Max channel reporting
The rollout of channel reporting for Performance Max caught Minkoff off guard. While excited about the transparency, she noted that the next challenge is actionable control: knowing where your ads appear is only helpful if you can adjust the mix accordingly.
Waze pins in Performance Max
Khabra was surprised to see Waze pins added as a placement option within Performance Max. She admitted she never expected to advertise in a navigation app via PMax, underscoring how quickly Google’s network is expanding.
The speed of AI/LLM rollout
Minkoff marveled at how quickly AI overviews and large language models (LLMs) went from pilot programs to ubiquitous features. She likened the change to letting a cat out of the bag—once out, it doesn’t go back in.
Debating Channel Reporting: Transparency vs. Control
As more data flows out of Performance Max, advertisers are grappling with how to use it. Many campaigns now see 95 % or more of their budget funneled into one placement, usually display. Minkoff argued that this defeats the purpose of PMax, which was supposed to cover the entire funnel. On the other hand, Khabra reminded everyone that PMax was designed as a “black box.” She worried that advertisers might use channel reporting to manipulate the system instead of focusing on quality signals.
The panel explored potential solutions. Ridley suggested giving advertisers media‑mix controls that let them allocate percentages across placements – for example, 20 % search and 30 % display. Minkoff favored bid adjustments: small nudges up or down to encourage the algorithm without imposing hard limits. Until Google implements something similar, all three agreed that the best course is to feed the system accurate data and trust it to optimize.
Persistent Struggles: Hidden Settings and AI Automation
Controlling automated features remains the biggest pain point. Ridley described the frustration of disabling a recommendation only to find it automatically re‑enabled during campaign setup. Hidden toggles and deeply nested settings make it easy to miss important options, leading to wasted spend and lost control.
Measurement challenges continue as privacy regulations tighten. Khabra expects tracking to become even harder, forcing marketers to rely on sparse data to power machine‑learning models. This tension between automation and measurement is likely to persist.
Peering into 2026: What Comes Next?
Embracing the unknown
When asked what we’ll be talking about in 2026, Minkoff candidly admitted she didn’t know. For the first time, she felt things were changing so quickly that the next big trend may not even be on the radar yet. She urged advertisers to keep budgets flexible and be ready to pivot when new technologies emerge.
Watching the antitrust trial
Khabra is closely following the ongoing Google antitrust trial. The first part of the case has already gone against Google, and the outcome could reshape the PPC landscape. Depending on the verdict, advertisers might see new rules or competitive dynamics in search advertising.
Ads inside AI platforms
Ridley expects AI to remain the star of the show, but with a twist: ads embedded inside AI platforms themselves. He envisions a world where ads run within chatbots and generative interfaces, and platforms like Google partner with AI tools to serve advertising.
Conclusion: Flexibility, Fundamentals and the Human Touch
The only certainty in PPC is uncertainty. The experts agreed that 2025 changed faster than any year before, with Google listening to advertisers while doubling down on automation. Those who thrived embraced automation without surrendering strategic control. They prioritized quality signals over sheer volume and stayed nimble enough to adapt to weekly – not quarterly – changes.
As 2026 dawns, platforms will evolve even faster. Advertisers who build flexibility into their planning, maintain strong campaign fundamentals and supply high‑quality signals to automated systems will be best positioned to succeed – no matter what surprises lie ahead.
Watch: The full panel discussion from SMX Next 2026
