📗 This content is the AI Max Analyzer user manual, the same one the script writes in the «Manual» tab of its spreadsheet. Here you can search it, listen to it, highlight it and save it to favourites.
ADVERTISER_PROVIDED_KEYWORD: Your baseline. Queries matching your manual keywords.
AI_MAX_BROAD_MATCH: The expansion AI Max adds on top of your broad keywords.
AI_MAX_KEYWORDLESS: Queries matching ONLY through landing page/assets, with no keyword.
PRE/POST AI MAX ANALYSIS (TAB 5) — for those who do not trust Google
The "No breakdown" row of the Dashboard holds the cost Google does not attribute to a specific source because of privacy thresholds. And inside "No breakdown" there can be traffic of any origin — AI Max included — without Google telling us which. The "Pre/Post Analysis" tab tries to detect whether AI Max is masking bad traffic in that hidden bucket.
The idea: Compare the performance of No breakdown in the X days before AI Max was turned on (PRE) vs the X days after (POST). In PRE there was no AI Max, so No breakdown was 100% baseline with little volume. In POST, AI Max may be contaminating it. If in POST the CPA/CTR of No breakdown gets worse while the visible baseline holds, the hypothesis stands.
The control: The most important part of the analysis: we use the BASELINE as a control. If No breakdown gets 50% worse but baseline gets 45% worse too, almost all of it is seasonality/market and NOT AI Max. If only No breakdown gets worse while baseline holds, the hypothesis really does stand.
Activation detection: We look for the first date with AI Max traffic in search_term_view (last 365 days). It is our best approximation to "when AI Max started having an effect". It may be a few days later than the actual toggle because AI Max needs time to start expanding.
PRE/POST window: DYNAMIC: each campaign uses min(days since its activation, cap). The cap is set in PRE_POST_MAX_WINDOW_DAYS (default 90 days). The POST window is the days IMMEDIATELY AFTER activation, NOT the last ones. Examples: a campaign 30 days since activation → PRE = the 30 days before / POST = those same 30 days with AI Max. A campaign with 200 days → PRE = the 90 days before / POST = the first 90 days after activation (not the last 90). If it has been on for fewer than 14 days, the campaign is discarded and you are asked to wait.
Hypothesis traffic light: Green = No breakdown evolves in line with baseline (no signal). Yellow = No breakdown gets somewhat worse than baseline (weak signal). Red = No breakdown gets clearly worse than baseline (hypothesis stands, investigate). Grey = not enough data.
Honest limitations: It is a hypothesis, not proof. If you turned AI Max on at the same time as you changed bids, budgets or creatives, we cannot isolate the effect. The analysis helps you build a well-founded suspicion, not establish causality.