After Google’s earnings report came out, an advertiser’s “prediction post” from this summer resurfaced—and it was eerily accurate.
The guy said he spends over $500,000 a month on Google ads. Even then, he said traditional search volume was being siphoned off by AI chatbots and large language models, and that Google Search’s revenue growth was “manufactured” and deeply unhealthy in the long run.
He called out a few tactics: quietly scrapping second-price auctions and charging advertisers up to their maximum bid; broadening “exact match” to include “close variants”—so if you’re advertising beginner tennis rackets, someone searching for just “racket” could still cost you money; and letting campaigns with a $1,000 daily budget spend over $2,000 in a day, with no refund.
Using advertisers’ money to fund massive AI investments may make the numbers look good in the short term, but it hurts the entire advertising ecosystem. This time, the pressure on the Search business seems to have proved him right. $GOOGL
The guy said he spends over $500,000 a month on Google ads. Even then, he said traditional search volume was being siphoned off by AI chatbots and large language models, and that Google Search’s revenue growth was “manufactured” and deeply unhealthy in the long run.
He called out a few tactics: quietly scrapping second-price auctions and charging advertisers up to their maximum bid; broadening “exact match” to include “close variants”—so if you’re advertising beginner tennis rackets, someone searching for just “racket” could still cost you money; and letting campaigns with a $1,000 daily budget spend over $2,000 in a day, with no refund.
Using advertisers’ money to fund massive AI investments may make the numbers look good in the short term, but it hurts the entire advertising ecosystem. This time, the pressure on the Search business seems to have proved him right. $GOOGL