Imagine a world where your marketing campaigns adapt in real-time to complex customer behaviors, predict trends before they happen, and deliver personalized experiences at scale.
This isn’t science fiction—it’s the reality of AI-powered eCommerce marketing in 2025.
As search queries evolve from simple keywords to complex, conversational requests, and visual searches explode in popularity, eCommerce businesses face a critical choice: harness the power of AI or risk being left behind.
In a recent webinar hosted by Agital, Google experts shared valuable insights on harnessing AI for eCommerce success.
Jenny Whitehead, Google’s Performance Product Lead, highlighted how AI is changing search behavior. “Every day 15% of Google searches we see are completely new,” she noted.
This statistic has remained constant for over a decade, demonstrating the dynamic nature of consumer queries.
“Search is a reflection of us, right? And it’s also a reflection of your consumer base,” Jenny explained. “We search on Google for what we need, what we want, and even what we’re thinking.”
With the introduction of AI-powered search features like Google’s AI overviews, users are now submitting longer, more complex queries. Jenny explained, “People aren’t searching things like ‘king size mattresses’ anymore.
Instead, they’re asking Google AI ‘what is the best affordable king mattress that’s hypoallergenic and good for side sleepers?'”
This shift in search behavior creates new opportunities for advertisers to connect with highly engaged audiences. AI overviews now reach more than 1 billion global users every month, offering a vast potential for businesses to showcase their products and services.
Another significant development in search technology is Google Lens, which enables users to search for products using images.
Jenny revealed, “Google Lens is used for 20 billion visual searches every month, and the majority of these are incremental.” This means that these searches wouldn’t have occurred without this visual search capability.
Importantly for eCommerce businesses, one out of every four Lens searches has commercial intent. This presents a valuable opportunity for advertisers to capture potential customers at crucial moments in their shopping journey.
To capitalize on these evolving search behaviors, advertisers need to embrace AI-powered tools within Google Ads. The webinar highlighted three key components:
Broad Match Keywords
Broad match allows ads to show on searches relevant to the keyword, including queries that may not contain the exact keywords in the account. Jenny emphasized, “Broad match is the only match type that utilizes AI and the full extent of all the signals available to understand that intent.”
For broad match keywords, our experts recommended:
• Including phrases like “best”, “how to”, etc. to match modern search behavior
• Using broad match as a discovery tool to identify top-performing searches
• Maintaining negative keyword lists for nuanced exclusions
Logan emphasized the importance of human oversight: “This is where the human touch comes in. You still want to control negative keywords with broad match.”
Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max (PMax) campaigns leverage AI to optimize bids, creatives, and audiences across multiple Google advertising channels. This approach helps capture valuable searches from customers throughout their non-linear journey.
Smart Bidding
By pairing broad match with smart bidding, advertisers can leverage billions of signals at auction time to determine the best bid for every query, maximizing return on ad investment. and give them compelling reasons to choose your DTC store over marketplaces.
The experts addressed common concerns about adopting AI in marketing:
Laura Levine stated: “I think the most common misconception that we hear is that AI is set it and forget it. So, I think people often think that our solutions are totally hands-off when in reality they are very powerful AI tools, but they require strategic guidance.” like styling tips, product care instructions, or behind-the-scenes brand stories.
Jenny added, “You’re not competing with AI. You’re going to be competing with other marketers that are using AI. And so in order to stay on top and be competitive and get the most for you and your advertisers’ media dollars, it’s really important to lean in.”
Key strategies for building trust in AI include:
• Start with small tests and follow best practices
• Focus on core metrics like ROAS/CPA rather than just CPC
• Ensure you’re using clean, high-quality data
Jenny advised, “Test, retest, and learn. Even if you’ve tested something in the past, our AI is changing a lot. And, for example, broad match is a completely overhauled product than it was 2 years ago.”
Laura addressed concerns about AI replacing human creativity: “AI is not intended to replace the human element of your campaign. AI can be a powerful tool, not just for creating the assets, but also facilitating the creative process.”
She added, “Maintaining human oversight and control is still extremely important. So, setting clear brand guidelines, reviewing the content that’s created, and making the final decisions. I think ultimately it’s making sure you’re leveraging AI as a tool to aid the process of creative development but not replace it.”
Logan shared insights into Agital’s AI developments: “We’re working on a bunch of AI tools right now. And the big goal here is to take our already expert paid search team and kind of supercharge them. Surfacing insights faster will be a huge thing, taking like large chunks of data and synthesizing them into key takeaways and action items is something that we’re actively working on.”
He also mentioned tools leveraging large language models to analyze search query data: “We’re getting all these great search insights, search categories, search terms in these campaigns, and we’re building tools to get better equipped to identify patterns and capitalize on those patterns.”
While the benefits of AI in eCommerce marketing are clear, businesses often face challenges in implementation. Here are some common obstacles and how to overcome them:
• Data Quality Issues: Ensure your data is clean and up-to-date. Regularly audit your data sources and implement data governance practices.
• Skill Gap: Invest in training for your team or consider partnering with agencies experienced in AI-powered marketing.
• Integration with Existing Systems: Start with smaller, standalone AI projects before attempting full-scale integration.
• Budget Constraints: Begin with cost-effective AI solutions and scale as you see results.
• Privacy Concerns: Stay informed about data protection regulations and implement robust privacy policies.
Jelly Belly, a client of Agital, leveraged Performance Max campaigns to drive significant growth. By implementing strategic product segmentation and optimizing their product feed, they saw:
• 35% increase in ROAS
• 28% growth in online sales
• 15% reduction in customer acquisition costs
This success demonstrates the real-world impact of effectively implementing AI-powered strategies in eCommerce marketing.
The webinar provided several actionable insights for eCommerce advertisers looking to implement AI-powered strategies:
Product Segmentation in Performance Max
Logan Durant advised segmenting products based on performance data, not just categories. “If you can have product Category XYZ, but some top sellers within those categories… that can really help you allocate your ad dollars for maximum impact,” he explained.
Leveraging Custom Labels
Durant recommended using custom labels in product feeds to codify strategies based on business impact, such as top sellers, seasonality, or margin data.
Testing and Learning
Continuously test different creative and audience combinations within Performance Max campaigns. Durant noted, “This is where we get a chance to test how custom intent audiences work versus in-market audiences, or how various creatives work against others.”
Negative Keyword Management
While broad match has improved significantly, human oversight in managing negative keywords remains important. Durant explained, “There are just certain things where the AI is still not going to catch it.”
Allow Adequate Learning Time
Jenny Whitehead emphasized the importance of giving AI systems time to learn and optimize: “After 2 weeks, start your experiment phase. This should be at least 4 weeks’ worth of data where you can play around with the targets to get that sweet spot between volume and efficiency.”
As AI continues to shape the eCommerce landscape, advertisers must adapt their strategies to stay competitive. By leveraging AI-powered tools like broad match keywords, Performance Max campaigns, and smart bidding, businesses can connect with customers more effectively throughout their shopping journey.
However, the human element remains crucial in guiding these AI tools, ensuring clean data input, and maintaining creative oversight.
For eCommerce businesses looking to thrive in this AI-driven environment, the key lies in striking the right balance between automation and human expertise. By embracing AI as a powerful tool while maintaining strategic guidance and creativity, advertisers can unlock new opportunities for growth and success in the evolving digital marketplace.
Ready to learn more? Reach out to us for a free 1:1 consult.
