Navigating the Next Era of Performance Marketing: Insights from Google Think 2025

The recent Think Events in New York offered the clearest signal yet from Google that the future of marketing is all about preparing your organization to swiftly navigate and thrive in an environment where AI, data fidelity, and audience understanding are inseparable and critical for driving growth. 

Whether in retail or B2B lead generation, Google is urging marketers to embrace a more fluid, signal-rich, AI-supported ecosystem. Platforms that have worked in concert with traditional frameworks, such as clean funnel stages or last-click measurement, are giving way to journey-aware optimization, deeper value alignment, and predictive planning. Across these events, several key takeaways and strategic considerations emerged for marketers across brands of all categories and sizes.

For lead generation, Google’s narrative has shifted from volume to quality and longevity. This is especially true in verticals like Financial Services and Healthcare, where a single lead event is no longer sufficient. The emphasis now is on building a data-rich foundation that enables AI to optimize toward meaningful business outcomes rather than just surface-level ad metrics. 

At PMG, this has long been a guiding principle. Through Alli Augmented Bidding, our proprietary framework within the Alli platform, we incorporate first-party signals, model custom outcomes, and apply bidding logic tailored to each client’s unique goals. This allows us to scale lead volume while simultaneously improving lead quality, accelerating funnel progression, and maximizing long-term value.

Upgraded capabilities include: 

Google’s AI Max and Demand Gen are must-have tools, with early adopters gaining enhanced control features like phrase negation and persona targeting.

New optimization layers include Journey-Aware Bidding, CRM integrations, and training models that assign future value to leads.

Tools like Persona Generation powered by Gemini, Enhanced Conversions for Leads, and Lead Qualification Reports help close the loop between upper-funnel engagement and sales-qualified outcomes.

Smart Bidding Exploration and value-based bidding continue to show strong performance gains, with one benchmark citing a 19% increase in conversions.

In a space where users often don’t know exactly what they need yet, building credibility through helpful, educational content is critical. Google’s Think event positioned YouTube as a key discovery platform, where creators are deemed more trustworthy than other media sources. Google highlighted how Shorts and Search are now driving mutual lift in consideration and conversion. This means that users are arriving at conversion more informed than ever, a trend attributed by Google to AI Overviews and multimodal experiences.

One standout example was Toast, whose full-funnel B2B strategy leveraged Demand Gen and YouTube to move upstream in the customer journey. By investing in storytelling and brand positioning before a “demo request” was ever made, Toast has been able to successfully influence decision-making earlier and drive a 20 percent lift in new customer acquisition. This case highlights the importance of aligning video content with business outcomes, rather than just focusing on brand metrics.

The search landscape is rapidly changing. This isn’t the first time marketers have heard this sentiment, but we’re seeing what may be one of the more significant shifts in years. Search queries are becoming longer-tailed and more conversational thanks to user dependence on AI agents like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri. Users now seek personalization and specificity in their searches, as they have a specific problem or need, and they’re looking to Google for a tailored solution. One source at the Think events cited that Google sees a 15% daily increase in net-new search queries. There’s also been a significant shift into completely keywordless searches with tools like Circle to Search on Google.

Within the Lead Gen space, this is especially impactful as the research phase for searchers is a bit more robust. It’s also more issue-oriented, attempting to identify a solution or service to resolve the issue. A lot of the time, consumers aren’t even sure what they are looking for yet, and they seek education and insights before narrowing in on their exact need. This is where utilizing AI-oriented solutions, such as AI Max, PMAX, and DemandGen, can unlock a significant advantage. If advertisers aren’t comfortable with the lack of control from PMAX and don’t have that budget fluidity, they can use AI Max and DemandGen instead. Both are rolling out more and more controls thanks to ongoing industry feedback.

AI-forward strategies now demand a fundamentally different approach to feed and format readiness. The integrity, completeness, and structure of your product feed have evolved from being an operational hygiene issue to a core performance driver. High-quality feeds are now central to unlocking the full capabilities of AI-powered tools like Google’s Performance Max and AI Max, which heavily rely on structured product attributes, first-party data signals, and audience annotations to deliver relevant, personalized experiences.

The effectiveness of creative modularity is similarly dependent on the robustness of your feed. Tools like Product Studio and Asset Studio are being positioned as essential to creative iteration and alignment across platforms, with Merchant Center’s Suggested Pricing insights helping inform dynamic offer strategies in near real time.

New campaign modes, such as Prospecting Mode and Retention Mode, enable marketers to align objectives and optimizations with audience intent while maintaining flexibility within the campaign structure. These modes reflect Google’s broader shift toward campaign strategies that are more adaptable to the unpredictable nature of consumer behavior.

YouTube’s role in the media mix is rapidly evolving from being viewed primarily as a top-of-funnel awareness tool to a full-funnel, performance-oriented platform. Google’s updates at Think reinforced this narrative, positioning YouTube as both a demand capture and demand generation engine—with native shopping integrations and creator-driven content playing central roles.

Walmart was one example of a brand thinking outside the box to turn its YouTube content into a capture moment. After researching what type of YouTube content its consumers are most likely to consume, Walmart discovered a significant overlap between users looking for holiday ambiance videos on YouTube, like a scene of a crackling fire or snow falling outside the window. Walmart then focused its campaigns on creating shoppable ambiance videos for the holiday season. For example, one video showcased the exterior of a home decorated for the holidays as Santa’s reindeer fly over. Users could then click on the character inflatables or the house lights and shop directly from the video. 

Further enabling this evolution, Google expanded shoppable ad placements across the YouTube Masthead and introduced the Creator Partnerships Hub. This new hub empowers advertisers to identify creators who are already engaging with their brand and streamline co-creation workflows directly within Google Ads. As creator content becomes more performance-aligned, the barrier between branding and conversion continues to erode, opening up a critical path for marketers to deliver influence, trust, and commerce in a single experience.

Google’s Campaign Total Budgets introduce new flexibility by enabling spend to shift fluidly across time-bound peaks in demand. This is especially useful for retailers navigating seasonal cycles or unpredictable moments of heightened interest. Campaign Total Budgets enables advertisers to maintain strategic budget alignment without micromanaging daily limits, providing a mechanism to capitalize on short-term opportunities without compromising longer-term efficiency.

PMG has been preparing for the new era of AI-powered consumer experiences by building the foundational components necessary for future-ready marketing. Our proprietary total search approach intentionally breaks down traditional silos between paid and organic programs, enabling more seamless, insight-driven connections across surfaces and consumer touchpoints. We’ve architected strategies that prioritize performance and discoverability in tandem, recognizing that impact is increasingly measured beyond the last click.

Through Alli, our marketing intelligence platform, we’ve developed Presence Score, a proprietary diagnostic that helps brands assess and optimize their visibility across Google surfaces in real time. Additionally, Alli powers Augmented Bidding, which connects first-party data directly to conversion signals for smarter optimization, and Alli Audiences, which enables marketers to translate complex persona frameworks into activated audience segments within Google. These capabilities ensure that our customers are not only present across channels but intelligently prioritized in the right moments, for the right users, with the right message. This framework provides marketers with a unified view of their paid and organic footprint, enabling better decision-making as the search landscape becomes increasingly personalized and multimodal.

Additionally, PMG is already one of the leading adopters of AI Max in the agency space. We’ve leaned in early, actively shaping implementation best practices through close collaboration with Google. This has allowed us to apply AI Max across verticals, from demand capture in retail to lead qualification in complex funnel environments.

At the core of our approach is the belief that sustainable growth stems from meaningful connections. That requires clean, structured data, cross-functional alignment, and a deep understanding of user behavior—not just reactive performance tactics. Our teams continue to evolve our solutions to meet the moment and help brands thrive in this next era of search and media.