There is a thread on r/PPC right now with 61 upvotes and a title that reads: "At this point Google is just robbing the advertisers." The comments are not angry in the way Reddit usually gets angry. They are tired. Resigned. The kind of frustrated that comes from watching your numbers slide for months and not being able to point to a single thing you did wrong.
If you have noticed a Google Ads CTR decline on non-branded keywords, if your impression share looks stable but clicks are down, if your cost per acquisition has crept up without any obvious change in your account, you are probably not imagining it.
Google's AI Overviews are absorbing the clicks that used to be yours. The AI Overviews impact on Google Ads is measurable, and the problem is structural.
This is not a rant. This is a practical guide to figuring out how exposed you are, and what to do about it. If you do not already have a regular audit process, our Google Ads account audit guide covers the baseline checks.
How AI Overviews are changing the Google Ads SERP
Google's AI Overviews answer the user's question directly on the search results page. Before the user ever sees your ad. Before they ever reach your landing page. The query gets resolved at the top of the SERP, and the rest of the page becomes optional.
This hits hardest on informational and mid-funnel queries. "Best project management software for agencies." "How to reduce Google Ads cost per lead." "CRM comparison for small teams." These are the queries where you used to earn consideration. Now Google synthesises an answer from multiple sources, the user gets what they need, and they never scroll down.
The effect of AI Overviews on paid search is measurable. CTR drops on previously stable keywords. Impressions hold steady (you are still showing), but fewer people click through. Your ads are visible. They are just less relevant when the answer is already sitting above them.
And it is getting worse. Google is rolling AI Overviews out to more query types, more markets, and more devices. The share of searches where this happens is growing, not shrinking.
| Metric | Before AI Overviews | After AI Overviews |
|---|---|---|
| Impression share | Stable | Stable |
| CTR (non-branded) | Baseline | Declining |
| CPA | Baseline | Rising |
| Conversion rate per click | Baseline | Higher (higher intent) |
| Click volume | Baseline | Declining |
How to audit your Google Ads account for AI Overview impact
Before you change anything, measure the damage. Understanding the AI Overviews impact on Google Ads starts with measuring the damage in your own account. Here is what to look for.
Check impression share trends on non-branded keywords. If your impression share is stable but clicks are dropping, the problem is not competition. The problem is that fewer people are clicking on anything below the AI Overview.
Monitor CTR at the keyword level. Look at your top 50 non-branded keywords over the last 6 months. Plot the CTR month over month. If you see a steady decline without corresponding changes in ad copy, bidding, or competition, AI Overviews are the likely cause. If you are unsure what baseline to compare against, see our breakdown of what counts as a good CTR in Google Ads. This is exactly the kind of signal that gets buried in the default Google Ads interface. Tools like aubado's Google Ads Manager surface impression share, quality score, and CTR trends in one view so you can spot these declines without building custom reports.
Review your search term reports. Watch for a shift toward longer-tail, conversational queries. These are the queries AI Overviews are designed for. If your search terms are getting longer and more question-like, your traffic is moving into AI Overview territory. This is also a good time to tighten your negative keyword lists.
Compare branded versus non-branded performance. Branded queries are largely protected. People searching for your company name want your company, not an AI summary. Non-branded is where the bleed happens. If your branded metrics are stable and your non-branded metrics are declining, you have your answer.
Document everything. Pull the data into a spreadsheet. You will need it to make the case internally, and you will need a baseline to measure whatever you do next.
Why Performance Max and AI Max make the CTR decline worse
Here is where it gets uncomfortable, and where Performance Max problems become most visible.
Google's AI campaigns, Performance Max and the newer AI Max, optimise for Google's revenue. Not your margin. This is not a conspiracy. It is how the incentive structure works. Google's system allocates your budget across its network to maximise conversions at the target you set. But you cannot see where the money actually goes.
Performance Max obscures placement data. You do not know how much of your budget is going to Search versus Display versus YouTube versus Discover versus Gmail. You definitely do not know how much is landing on AI Overview-adjacent placements where CTR is suppressed.
When you cannot see inside the black box, the next best thing is seeing the edges clearly. Tracking your total spend and pacing against budget across every channel, every day, at least tells you whether the money is delivering results proportional to what you are putting in. That is the starting point for any honest audit of PMax performance.
Marketers in the Reddit thread report something even more specific: PMax cannibalising their own branded traffic. Google's AI campaign bids on your own brand terms, takes credit for conversions that would have happened anyway, and reports a strong ROAS. Meanwhile, your actual new customer acquisition is flat or declining.
The platform's incentives and the advertiser's incentives are diverging. Google wants you to give it your budget and trust the algorithm. But the algorithm serves Google's goals first.
This does not mean Performance Max is useless. It means you need to understand what it is actually doing, and stop treating its reporting at face value.
How to adapt your Google Ads strategy in 2026
None of this is unfixable. It requires adjustments, not a full rewrite of your strategy.
Shift budget toward high-intent, bottom-of-funnel keywords
AI Overviews struggle with transactional queries. "Buy standing desk under $500" does not get a useful AI summary. "Schedule demo for CRM" does not either. Move budget toward exact match keywords with clear purchase intent. Pair this with the right bidding strategy for your margin targets. These queries still produce clicks because the user is past the information-gathering phase.
Diversify your channels
If 80% of your paid budget is on Google, you are overexposed. Microsoft Ads often delivers lower CPCs on the same audiences. Meta remains strong for demand generation and retargeting. LinkedIn works for B2B where the audience is narrow and the deal size justifies the cost. Email, if you have a list, costs almost nothing per touch.
Reducing Google dependency is not defeatist. It is basic risk management. The hard part is keeping track of spend across all those platforms without it becoming a second job. aubado's Ad Spend Tracker pulls budget data from Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Reddit into one view, so you can diversify confidently without losing visibility. For practical guidance on running campaigns across platforms, see our cross-platform campaign management guide.
Adjust your CPA and ROAS targets
The math has changed. Clicks from Google are more expensive than they were a year ago because there are fewer of them. But the clicks that do come through are often higher intent. The user who scrolls past the AI Overview and clicks your ad has made a deliberate choice. They convert better. For tactics to counter rising costs, see our guide to reducing Google Ads costs.
Recalculate your targets with this in mind. Our ROAS calculation guide walks through the full formula. Your CPA might be higher, but your conversion rate from click to sale might also be higher. Look at the full funnel, not just the top.
Build landing pages that beat AI Overviews
An AI Overview can summarise text. It cannot run an interactive calculator. It cannot show a personalised product recommendation based on the user's inputs. It cannot give a real-time quote.
If your landing pages are walls of text that answer a question, they are AI Overview bait. Build experiences instead. Interactive tools, configurators, assessments, ROI calculators. Give the user a reason to click through that a text summary cannot replace.
Track AI Overview impact with your own reporting
Do not rely on Google's reporting to tell you what Google's AI is doing to your performance. Build your own tracking. Compare Google Analytics landing page data against Google Ads click data. Track discrepancies. Watch for sessions that should be there but are not.
Create a monthly report that specifically tracks AI Overview impact: CTR trends, impression-to-click ratios, non-branded performance, and cost efficiency by query type. You will need this data to make smart budget pacing decisions over the next 12 months. If you would rather not build this from scratch, aubado's Marketing Dashboard and Performance Reporter can automate the cross-platform comparison. Pull the data once. Let the tool update it.
Why Google Ads costs are rising (and will keep rising)
Here is the part that matters most.
Google is simultaneously the advertising platform and the AI product. Those two roles are increasingly in conflict. Every query that AI Overviews resolve without a click is a query that advertisers paid to be visible on, but got nothing from.
Advertisers are, in a real sense, funding the AI that is eating their traffic. Your ad spend pays for Google's revenue. Google's revenue funds AI development. AI development produces AI Overviews. AI Overviews reduce your click volume. The loop is closed.
This is not going away. It is not a bug or a temporary experiment. It is Google's strategic direction. They believe AI Overviews improve user experience, and they are probably right about that. But improving user experience and protecting advertiser value are no longer the same thing. These platform-level shifts are exactly why staying current on algorithm and policy changes matters. The marketers who hear about changes when they ship, rather than when their numbers dip, have a meaningful head start.
The marketers who adapt now will have a structural advantage. They will have diversified channels, adjusted targets, stronger landing pages, and better data. The marketers who wait will keep watching their CPAs climb and their CTRs fall, and they will keep asking Reddit what went wrong.
Any Google Ads strategy for 2026 needs to account for this structural shift. The AI Overviews impact on Google Ads is not temporary -- it is Google's strategic direction. You do not have to like what is happening. But you do have to respond to it.
Quick-reference checklist
Use this to audit your exposure and plan your response.
- Pull 6-month CTR trends on your top 50 non-branded keywords
- Compare branded vs non-branded impression share and click-through rates
- Review search term reports for shifts toward longer, conversational queries
- Audit Performance Max placement data (what little is available)
- Check if PMax is bidding on your own branded terms
- Identify bottom-of-funnel, transactional keywords to prioritise
- Calculate current channel mix (% of budget on Google vs other platforms)
- Set a target for channel diversification (e.g., reduce Google from 80% to 60%)
- Recalculate CPA/ROAS targets using full-funnel conversion data
- Audit landing pages for AI Overview vulnerability (text-heavy = exposed)
- Plan at least one interactive landing page element (calculator, tool, quiz)
- Build a monthly AI Overview impact tracking report
How aubado helps you monitor Google Ads performance across channels
The strategy described in this article is sound. The hard part is doing it consistently. Checking multiple dashboards every day, tracking budget pacing across six platforms, watching CTR trends at the keyword level, building reports that compare branded and non-branded performance. It is the right work. It is also the work that does not get done when you are busy running campaigns.
aubado was built for exactly this problem. Here is how it maps to what we just covered.
Spot the decline before it costs you. The Google Ads Manager tracks impression share, CTR, quality score, and dimension breakdowns. When your non-branded keywords start losing clicks, you see it in one view. No spreadsheets. No manual exports.
Track spend across every channel. The Ad Spend Tracker pulls budget data from Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Reddit. As you diversify away from Google, you keep visibility across all platforms in one place. Budget pacing, overspend alerts, daily monitoring.
Build the report once. The Marketing Dashboard and Performance Reporter automate the cross-platform reporting that makes diversification manageable. Instead of logging into six platforms every morning, you check one.
Watch for platform changes. Google's AI Overviews are just one shift among many. The Algorithm Monitor tracks changes across Google, Meta, and other platforms so you hear about updates when they happen, not when your numbers drop.
Keep your tracking clean. If you are running campaigns across more platforms, your attribution gets more complex. The UTM Organizer and Pixel Organizer keep your campaign URLs and conversion tracking consistent as you scale.
The common thread: aubado handles the monitoring so you can focus on the strategic decisions. Check once a day. Stay in control. Then close the tab and do your real work. See all features.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Resources
Stop guessing. Start monitoring.
aubado tracks your Google Ads performance, budget pacing, and cross-platform spend in one dashboard. Check once a day. Stay in control.