Navigating the New Search Landscape: Paid Search Strategies for Holiday 2025

The 2025 holiday season presents a complex yet opportunity-rich landscape for paid search. AI-driven campaign evolution, more price-conscious consumers, and shifting platform dynamics are all reshaping how brands should strategize their marketing efforts. It’s more crucial than ever to develop a plan that supports the entire customer journey, not just last-click demand. Consumer behavior within search is evolving alongside technological advances and macroeconomic factors. Price-sensitive searchers are spending more time researching before converting, while AI influences their engagement through the rise of generative search prompts. These shifts require program adjustments now to secure presence and data as paid placements in AI environments expand. Paid search must appear earlier in the funnel to support discovery and consideration, with messaging and placement strategies that adapt throughout the season.

The growing role of AI in paid search campaign management highlights the need to prioritize audience targeting and business conversion signals. As programs like Performance Max aim at in-market consumers throughout the mid- and lower-funnel, sending key signals through first-party and publisher-based audiences will help these campaigns move in the right direction earlier in the holiday season. Providing strong business conversion signals will ensure these AI-driven solutions deliver true business value, aligning the Google ecosystem with tangible business impact.

Year-over-year growth in paid search investment isn’t just about increasing spending, but involves recognizing the growth opportunities from new searches and the ongoing rise in CPCs across both branded and non-branded terms, driven by evolving SERP layouts, new placements, and changing consumer discovery patterns. Budget planning should account for inflation trends in the auction, competitive bidding on brand terms, and the need for consistent coverage across multiple formats. This requires working closely with finance teams early to ensure sufficient budget is allocated and approved well before Q4.

Auction dynamics will further shift as Google expands its AI-powered solutions, such as Performance Max and AI Max. These campaign types gather signals across surfaces and optimize for conversions, but they also reduce control and transparency. Brands should prepare for flexible budget reallocation based on real-time performance, with increased investments early in the season to support awareness and research behaviors that lead to downstream conversions. Ensuring audience lists are updated before and during the holiday season will enable faster learning and more precise targeting.

AI-driven campaign types will remain essential. Performance Max, AI Max, and Demand Gen are central to today’s paid search strategy. However, these campaign types require early testing as soon as possible to gather sufficient signals and data for Q4 growth.

Besides campaign tactics, brands should focus on maintaining healthy product feeds and start refining creative assets early. Organic content strategies should be aligned to enhance relevance across all platforms. These efforts not only enhance the quality of AI placements but also create a positive halo effect across paid and organic efforts, thereby boosting visibility in generative search experiences. When it comes to organic content, maintaining good product feed health is crucial, as LLM searches are expected to increase over the holiday season. LLMs might include more product results, and having current, detailed product feed data can help ensure products get noticed.

Brand term protection is expected to become a bigger focus in 2025. We anticipate continued growth in competitor conquesting because bidding on another brand’s terms remains relatively inexpensive. This approach remains effective in attracting new customers, particularly during peak retail periods when switching behavior is more prevalent. Paid search teams should actively defend brand terms by developing comprehensive coverage strategies that include audience layering, impression share monitoring, and bid automation that reacts to external pressure. And as always, monitoring during key periods (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and shipping cutoffs) will be essential.

Economic signals indicate that consumers will be more price-sensitive in 2025. Tariff updates and rising inflation are strengthening value-based decision-making. Paid search strategies must adapt in real-time through the use of promotional messaging, segmented offers, and value-focused creative elements. Ad copy should emphasize urgency, savings, and product differences.

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) messaging has proven effective, but its momentum may slow as credit reporting regulations change. Meanwhile, the “Made in America” messaging continues to gain traction in product categories where manufacturing origin influences perceived value and quality. Pricing strategies should be reviewed regularly, as small adjustments can significantly impact visibility and competitiveness on the SERP.

Paid search has traditionally concentrated on capturing lower-funnel demand. However, that approach needs to evolve. Mid-funnel tactics, utilizing campaign types such as Demand Gen and Discovery, enable reaching audiences during the research phase, even though conversion rates may be lower. This traffic builds familiarity and boosts direct and branded query volume later in the season.

Advertisers should view this as a strategic investment rather than just a performance tactic. Strong mid-funnel strategies create future retargeting pools and improve efficiency when consumers are prepared to buy. Success relies on compelling landing page experiences and coordinated messaging that guide users through the journey.

As announced at Google Marketing Live (May 2025), paid placements within AI Mode and AI Overviews are expected to launch soon, with growth projected to extend into the holiday season. AI Max, Performance Max, and Broad Match are listed as the campaign and match types supporting paid inclusion in AI Mode and AI Overviews. A targeted and tested approach focusing on these campaigns and match types around key themes and categories may create opportunities to establish a presence in these new LLM-enabled search experiences.