Should you turn on AI Max? Yes, if your Search campaign already has solid conversion data, you have hit a volume ceiling on your existing keywords, and you read the search terms report every week. No, if you are a new account, your data is thin, or you are not willing to do aggressive negative keyword work, because AI Max matches broadly by design and will spend your money finding that out.
AI Max is not a campaign type. It is an optional feature suite you toggle on inside an existing Search campaign, which means the decision is reversible and the sensible way to answer it for your own account is to treat the first month as a paid experiment, per campaign, with the search terms read weekly. Everything else on this page is how you build the account that makes the answer a yes.
Google Ads puts you in front of people who are actively searching for what you sell, which is why it is expensive and why it works. This guide covers setting up a Search campaign properly in 2026, keeping Google's increasingly enthusiastic automation on a leash, and knowing when Performance Max or AI Max deserve your money. Written for a founder running their own account.
Conversion tracking first, always
Google's bidding is machine learning, and machine learning trained on garbage produces expensive garbage. Before building any campaign:
- Install the Google tag on your site (or via Google Tag Manager) and define conversion actions for things that make you money: purchases, qualified leads, booked calls. Not pageviews, not "time on site."
- If leads close offline, import offline conversions or use enhanced conversions for leads so the system learns which clicks became revenue.
- Set conversion values where you can, even rough ones. A plumber's emergency call is not worth the same as a newsletter signup, and value data is what makes value-based bidding possible later.
Test that a conversion actually records before spending. This is the single most common thing broken in small accounts.
Set up your first Search campaign
- Create a campaign with the objective that matches your goal (Sales or Leads), type Search. Skip Google's "let us build it for you" express flows.
- Untick the Display Network and, at first, the Search Partners checkbox. You want clean search data before expanding.
- Set location targeting to "presence" (people in your locations), not the default "presence or interest," unless you genuinely serve people planning trips to your city.
- Structure ad groups around tight themes: one ad group per distinct intent, for example "emergency plumber" separate from "boiler installation." 5 to 20 keywords per ad group is plenty.
- Write responsive search ads with headlines that actually include the keyword theme, a concrete benefit, a number and a call to action. Pin sparingly. Fill in sitelinks, callouts and structured snippets; they are free real estate.
- Send each ad group to the most relevant page, not the homepage.
Start with a budget you can hold steady for a month. Search needs a few weeks of data before its numbers mean anything.
Keywords and match types in 2026
There are three match types, and all of them now match on meaning and intent rather than literal strings, per Google's own documentation:
- Exact match, written [buy running shoes]: shows for searches with the same meaning or intent. Tightest control, least reach.
- Phrase match, written "running shoes": shows for searches that include the meaning of your keyword.
- Broad match, no punctuation: shows for related searches, which may not contain your keyword's direct meaning at all. It uses signals like landing page content and your other keywords.
A sane 2026 starting point for a small account: phrase and exact match on your proven money terms, and broad match only once conversion tracking is solid and you are on Smart Bidding, because broad plus a bidding target is how Google intends it to be used. Broad match on manual bidding with thin data is a donation to Alphabet shareholders. Whatever you pick, the search terms report, not the keyword list, tells you what you actually bought.
Negative keywords and search term hygiene
Negatives are half the job. Two things to know from Google's negative keyword documentation: negatives come in broad, phrase and exact forms too, and unlike positive keywords they do not match close variants, so you must add plurals, misspellings and synonyms yourself ("free" does not block "freebie"). You can apply them at ad group, campaign or account level, and shared negative keyword lists let you maintain one master list across campaigns.
The weekly ritual, 15 minutes, non-negotiable:
- Open the search terms report, which shows the real queries that triggered your ads. Note that low-volume terms are omitted for privacy, so you will never see everything.
- Sort by cost. Anything irrelevant with spend becomes a negative, at the right level and match type.
- Anything converting that you are not explicitly targeting becomes a new exact or phrase keyword in the right ad group.
Build a starter negative list on day one: "free", "jobs", "careers", "DIY", "how to", competitor names you do not want, and whatever your niche's junk queries are.