In a Q&A session for smec about AI Max, Google's Google Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin, said: "When using AI Max, [. . .] you want to be sure your website and landing pages are accurate and up-to-date." Ginny goes on to say, "Make sure your page titles read like relevant ad copy, that the page revolves around one theme that's relevant."

This is a challenge for most home furnishings retailers, especially those whose websites are primarily populated by ubiquitous manufacturer content. Such content doesn't specifically explain your products, your business advantages, the area that's geographically meaningful to you, or anything unique. And most websites don't have one page for each relevant theme - which means one page for each query you'd want your website to show up for - furniture store near me, furniture store in [city], Labor Day furniture sales, who has the best selection of leather sectionals, etc. Each query you'd want to appear for requires its own specific web page - nobody in home furnishings is doing that - the effort would be tremendous. This leads to your ads being served for all sorts of irrelevant searches based on the generic content of the website.

For example, most home furnishings websites include content about delivery policies - when AI Max serves ads on your behalf, it doesn't distinguish that your delivery policies are any less important than your promotional offers. Your ads can serve to people looking for delivery details equally as often as they serve to people looking for furniture sales, diluting your budget by paying for traffic that's unlikely to lead to an imminent sale.

To AI Max, content is content. Your ads could be just as likely to appear for searches for "bed frames" as they are for "bed stores," and one of those is significantly more valuable to your business than the other.

If you are supremely confident in the uniqueness and completeness of your website content, and that it clearly attracts only shoppers, and that it guides them along a path where the only obvious destination is to purchase from your store, then you could consider testing Google's AI Max. Otherwise, it's not a sure way to get the most from your advertising dollars, but it is a sure way to separate you from your cash.

"But my friend tried AI Max and got lots of conversions." We hear this often, and to determine its value, one must know what is being measured as a Conversion. For many home furnishings retailers, since very little business is transacted online, a Conversion is someone getting directions to the store or calling the store. Those two actions are largely performed by someone who is already familiar with the store's name. The AI detects that searches for the store's name are likely to lead to a Conversion, so the AI increasingly shows ads to only people searching for the store's name, at any cost. The store experiences a quick increase in "Conversions" while sales diminish over time because you're not reaching any people who don't already know who you are.

Ginny Marvin: "And a shorter conversion delay is also highly recommended for AI Max campaigns because it enables the system to make faster, more accurate bidding adjustments, leading to improved campaign performance."

This too poses a challenge for home furnishings retailers because the conversion delay is quite long. In May 2024 Furniture Today reported: "60% of consumers who recently purchased a new furniture item extended that buying process over several days or weeks." Without lots of quick, meaningful, online Conversions, AI Max cannot predict which searches are most likely to lead to someone coming into the store to buy. The AI Max campaign won't tell you it cannot accurately predict Conversions; it will just spend your budget trying.

Using traditional Google Search campaigns, you can beat your competitors without simply outspending them. Using AI Max search campaigns will lead to the advertiser with the biggest budget and most resources for developing their website being unbeatable by other advertisers using AI Max.