Google’s been tinkering with AI Overviews for months now, and this week brought something particularly interesting: clearer evidence of how their exact match keyword targeting has fundamentally changed.
Let me walk you through what’s happening in the paid advertising world this week and what it actually means for your online store.
The Big One: Exact Match Gets Less Exact in AI Overviews
Here’s what’s changed: Google is now limiting how exact match keywords appear in their AI Overviews—those AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results before the traditional listings.
Now, if you’re thinking “hang on, isn’t exact match supposed to be, well, exact?”—you’re absolutely right to be confused. Exact match has already been gradually loosening over the years (close variants, anyone?), but this is a different beast entirely.
What does this mean for your business in the real world? When someone searches for your exact product terms, Google’s AI Overview might not trigger your carefully crafted exact match campaigns the way you’d expect. The AI is essentially deciding whether your exact match keyword is “relevant enough” for the AI-generated content at the top of the page.
This matters because AI Overviews are taking up prime real estate on search results pages. If your ads aren’t appearing alongside these AI summaries when customers search for your exact products, you’re potentially missing out on visibility at the most crucial moment—when someone is actively searching for what you sell.
What This Means Going Forward
I’m paying close attention to how this develops because it’s another step in Google’s ongoing shift from keyword-based advertising to intent-based advertising. You’ll need to think less about exact keyword matches and more about whether your campaigns are capturing the full intent behind a search.
For e-commerce businesses, this means your product feed data becomes even more critical. Google’s AI needs to understand what you’re selling beyond just matching keywords—product titles, descriptions, attributes, all of it feeds into whether you’re deemed “relevant” for these new AI-driven placements.
Apple Search Ads Opens Up More Inventory
On the flip side, there’s some genuinely good news this week: Apple is expanding their search ad inventory. This is worth noting because while most of us are laser-focused on Google Ads, Apple Search Ads has been quietly building a solid advertising platform that’s particularly relevant if you’ve got an app or if your customers skew heavily towards iPhone users.
More inventory means more opportunities to get in front of potential customers who are actively searching in the App Store. The Apple ecosystem is notoriously closed off, so when they expand advertising opportunities, it’s worth paying attention.
What’s interesting here is the contrast: while Google is making exact match more fluid and AI-driven, Apple is simply opening up more traditional ad placements. Two completely different approaches to growing their ad platforms.
Should You Care About Apple Search Ads?
Here’s my take: if you’re selling products that complement mobile usage, or if you have a mobile app that drives sales, this expansion is relevant to you. Apple’s audience tends to have higher purchasing power, and the search intent in the App Store is typically very strong—people know what they’re looking for.
But here’s the thing—it’s not an either/or situation. Most e-commerce businesses I work with are heavily invested in Google Ads because that’s where the volume is. Apple Search Ads is more of a complementary channel. Worth exploring if you’ve got the budget and the right product fit, but it shouldn’t distract from getting your core Google Ads strategy right first.
International PPC: Getting the Basics Right
The second article this week focuses on settings for international PPC campaigns, and while it might seem less immediately exciting than AI changes, this is actually incredibly practical stuff.
If you’re selling internationally—or thinking about it—there are 13 specific Google Ads settings that need attention. Things like language targeting, location targeting, currency settings, and ad scheduling all work differently when you’re running campaigns across multiple countries.
I’ve seen far too many businesses expand internationally with Google Ads and essentially just duplicate their UK campaigns with a different location setting. That’s a recipe for burning through budget quickly. Different markets behave differently. Search volumes vary. Competition varies. Even the way people search for products varies by country and language.
Why This Matters for Growing E-Commerce Businesses
Here’s the practical reality: international expansion is one of the biggest growth opportunities for online stores. You’ve already got the products, you’ve got the website, and platforms like Shopify make it relatively straightforward to sell across borders.
But international PPC isn’t just about translating your ad copy. It’s about understanding that someone searching for “trainers” in the UK is looking for the same thing as someone searching for “sneakers” in the US. Your campaign structure needs to reflect these differences, not just your ad text.
The settings piece is crucial because getting them wrong means you’re either limiting your reach unnecessarily or wasting money on irrelevant traffic. Location targeting, for example, can be set to target people physically in a location, people interested in a location, or both. Get that wrong and you’re either missing customers or paying for clicks from people who can’t actually buy from you.
The Bigger Picture: AI Is Rewriting the Rulebook
What strikes me about this week’s developments is how they illustrate the ongoing tension in paid advertising right now. On one hand, we’ve got Google aggressively pushing AI-driven, intent-based advertising where exact keywords matter less. On the other hand, we’ve still got fundamental campaign mechanics—settings, targeting, structure—that require detailed, precise configuration.
You need to master both. The AI stuff is where things are heading, but the foundational campaign setup is what makes everything work today.
For your e-commerce business, this means staying flexible. The exact match changes in AI Overviews are a clear signal that keyword-based targeting is becoming less dominant. But that doesn’t mean keywords don’t matter—it means they’re one input among many that Google’s using to determine relevance and intent.
What to Watch Going Forward
I’ll be keeping a close eye on how these AI Overview changes roll out in practice. Google has a habit of announcing changes that take months to fully implement, and the real impact often differs from the initial announcement.
For your business, the key takeaway is this: make sure your product feeds are as detailed and accurate as possible. As Google relies more on AI to determine relevance, the quality of your product data becomes increasingly important. It’s not just about having the right keywords anymore—it’s about having comprehensive, accurate information that helps Google’s AI understand what you’re selling and who should see it.
And if you’re thinking about international expansion, take the time to set up your campaigns properly from the start. It’s far easier to build it right than to untangle a mess of poorly configured international campaigns later.
The world of paid advertising keeps evolving, and that’s exactly what makes it interesting. These changes aren’t happening to make life difficult—they’re happening because search behaviour is changing, and the platforms are adapting. Our job is to stay on top of what’s changing and translate that into practical strategies that actually work for your business.