Google Ads 2025: A Guide to AI and Consent

The online advertising landscape is constantly evolving, and Google Ads is no exception. Web and marketing agencies must adapt to the new rules of the game to ensure the performance of their clients' campaigns. Between the gradual disappearance of third-party cookies, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the obligation to respect user consent (Consent Mode v2), it is crucial to master the new strategies.

At Geekworkers, an agency specializing in web development and digital marketing, we are closely following these developments. With our experience and expertise, we have deciphered for you the key trends of Google Ads for 2025. This complete guide based on official Google recommendations will provide you with the knowledge and concrete actions to implement to ensure the success of your campaigns and those of your clients. We will address the technical, strategic and regulatory aspects, in order to offer you a 360-degree vision.

Mastering Google AI: An Indispensable Asset

Artificial intelligence is no longer an option, but a core element of any successful Google Ads strategy. It allows you to automate and optimize campaigns much more effectively than a human could.x

Smart Bidding: Artificial Intelligence at the Service of Auctions

Smart Bidding (or smart bidding strategies in French), these are automatic bidding strategies that use Google's artificial intelligence to optimize your campaigns.

Instead of manually setting the cost per click (CPC) for each keyword, you let Google adjust your bids in real time, with each auction (“time-of-auction bidding”).

The goal? " Maximize conversions (or conversion value) depending on your goals" 

Why use Smart Bidding?

• Save Time: No more need to manage auctions manually.
• Advanced Machine Learning: Google's algorithms analyze a huge amount of data (far more than a human could process) to make more accurate bidding decisions.
• Taking Many Signals into Account: Smart Bidding takes into account many factors to adjust bids, such as:
  • The user's device (mobile, computer, tablet).
  • The user's geographic area.
  • The time of day and day of the week.
  • The user's language.
  • The operating system.
  • The browser.
  • Remarketing lists.
  • The characteristics of the ad (e.g., the ad text).
  • And many more!
• Flexible Control: You stay in control by setting performance goals (target CPA, target ROAS) and adjusting settings.

Smart Bidding Strategies: Which One to Choose?

Google Ads offers several Smart Bidding strategies, each tailored to a specific goal:

1. Maximize Conversions: Ideal if you want to get the most conversions possible with your budget, without specific cost per acquisition (CPA) target. Use : To generate volume (leads, registrations, etc.).
2. Target CPA (Target Cost Per Acquisition): You set the cost AVERAGE that you are willing to pay for a conversion. Google Ads adjusts bids to achieve this target CPA. Use : To control your acquisition cost.
3. Maximize Conversion Value: Ideal if you want to maximize the value total conversions (e.g. revenue generated from sales), without specific return on investment (ROAS) target.
4. Target ROAS (Target Return on Ad Spend): You set the ROI you want to achieve for every dollar spent on advertising. Google Ads adjusts bids to achieve this target ROAS. Use : To maximize the profitability of your campaigns. This is often the most advanced and recommended strategy for e-retailers.

Tips for Smart Bidding Strategies

• Start Simple: If you are new to Smart Bidding, start with “Maximize Conversions” or “Target CPA”.
• Sufficient Data: For Smart Bidding to work well, you need enough conversion data. Google recommends at least 30 conversions (50 for target ROAS) over a 30-day period.
• Patience : Give the algorithm time to learn. Don't make changes too frequently at first.
• Using Broad Match Keywords: Allows AI to learn and find other queries.
• Monitoring and Adjustment: Monitor performance carefully and adjust your goals (target CPA, target ROAS) if necessary.
• Data-driven attribution: Optimize according to your model.
• Tests: Use campaign tests and drafts.

Now that you understand how AI can manage your auctions with Smart Bidding, let’s go further. Let’s see how AI can support the whole thing of your campaign, from ad creation to ad delivery, including targeting and budget optimization with Performence Max (the most important!) and Responsive Search Ads (RSA).

Max Performance: Automation and Simplification

Performance Max is the future of marketing according to Google. It is not just an additional option, but an approach global which uses artificial intelligence to automate and optimize all aspects of your campaign.

Max Performance automates nearly every aspect of your campaigns: budget, bidding, ad creation, and targeting. You set your goals, and AI continuously optimizes to achieve them.

With Performance Max, you don't manually choose keywords, placements, or ad types. Instead, you provide Google with the ingredients basic:

• Your Goals: You clearly define what you want to accomplish (generate sales, get leads, increase brand awareness, etc.). You can specify a target CPA (cost per acquisition) or a target ROAS (return on advertising investment).
• Your Creatives: You provide a set of titles, descriptions, images and videos of high qualityThe more input you provide, and the more varied that input is, the more latitude the AI will have to optimize.
• Your Budget: Indicate the budget.
• (Optional, but recommended) Your Audience Signals: If you have data about your existing customers (customer lists, remarketing segments, etc.) or your target market (in-market audience segments, affinity audiences), you can provide it to Google. These “audience signals” are not not strict targeting, but rather indications to help AI start faster.
• (Optional, but highly recommended for e-commerce) Your Google Merchant Center Feed: If you are an e-commerce merchant, connecting your Google Merchant Center feed is essential. This allows Performance Max to serve dynamic Shopping ads and optimize the delivery of your products.
• Define conversion actions: Define what you want to track and optimize by importing GA4 conversions defined in GTM.

Once these elements are provided, Google's AI takes over:

• Dynamic Ad Creation: AI automatically combines your headlines, descriptions, images, and videos to create ads tailored to each user and each channel.
• Multi-Channel Broadcasting: Your ads are broadcast on the whole Google channels: Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.
• Automatic Bidding: Smart Bidding is built into Performance Max. AI adjusts your bids in real-time to maximize conversions (or conversion value) based on your goals.
• Smart Targeting: AI identifies and targets users most likely to convert, based on your goals, audience signals (if provided), and its own data analysis.
• Continuous Optimization: AI is constantly learning and automatically adjusting every aspect of your campaign to improve performance. Max Performance Key Benefits:
• Simplicity and Time Saving: You manage only one campaign instead of multiple separate campaigns for each channel.
• Optimized Performance: Google's AI is extremely powerful in finding the best opportunities and maximizing results.
• Maximum Coverage: You reach users across all Google channels, including those you might not have considered.
• Discovery of New Audiences: AI can identify customer segments you wouldn't have thought of.

Essential Tips for Success with Max Performance

• Soft Start: Start with a reasonable budget and clear, measurable goals (target CPA or ROAS). Don’t replace all your existing campaigns at once.
• Quality of Creatives: It is crucial. Provide high-quality images and videos, impactful and varied titles and descriptions.
• Audience Signals (if possible): If you have data about your customers or market, use it.
• Patience and Follow-up: Give the AI time to learn (at least a few weeks). Monitor performance carefully and adjust your settings (budget, goals, creatives, audience signals) if necessary. Don’t make changes too often or too radically.
• Campaign Structure: Although Performance Max is automated, thoughtful campaign structure (e.g., grouping assets by theme) can improve performance.
• Google Merchant Center Optimized: For e-commerce, a well-structured and optimized product flow is essential.
• Define conversion actions: Define what is important to your business.

In summary, Performance Max is a powerful solution for advertisers who want to simplify the management of their Google Ads campaigns and maximize their performance through AI. However, it is important to understand how it works and follow best practices to get the most out of it.

Responsive Search Ads (RSA): Adaptability for Performance

With Responsive Ads (RSA), you don't create a single, fixed ad. You provide Google with several elements:

• Up to 15 different titles.
• Up to 4 different descriptions.

Google AI then tests automatically different combinations of titles and descriptions, and delivers the combinations that perform best with your target audience.

Advantages of RSA:

• Save Time: No more need to create dozens of ads manually.
• Best Performances: AI finds the most effective combinations.
• Adaptability: Ads automatically adapt to available ad space (e.g. across different devices).

Best Practices for RSA:

• Provide the Maximum of Elements: The more titles and descriptions you give Google, the more opportunities the AI will have to optimize your ads.
• Vary the Messages: Don’t just repeat the same thing in different ways. Come up with titles and descriptions that highlight different aspects of your offer (price, benefits, promotions, etc.).
• Be Relevant: Make sure your titles and descriptions match the keywords in your ad group.
• Use All Assets: Provide images, videos, and your site's data feed (sitemap).

In short, RSAs are a powerful tool to improve the relevance and performance of your search ads. By combining your deep semantic analysis with the power of Google’s AI, you can create ads that capture your audience’s attention and drive results.

Consent: The Foundation of a Compliant and Effective Google Ads Strategy

In a world where third-party cookies are fading away, first-party data (the information you collect directly from your customers, with their explicit consent) becomes your most valuable asset. This chapter explains how to collect this data, respect consent (via Consent Mode v2) and, crucial point, how to accurately measure the performance of your campaigns, even with limited data. Google uses the modeling to estimate conversions that are not directly observable, and it is essential to connect your conversion data offline (in-store sales, phone calls, etc.) for a complete view.

First-Party Data Collection

Collect first-party data is not just about accumulating information. It’s about building a relationship of trust with your customers, based on transparency and added value in exchange for their data.

Here are the key elements:

• GTM: A tool essential which simplifies the management of all your tracking tags (including GA4), and which is essential for the implementation of Consent Mode v2 (see below).
• GA4: The new version of Google Analytics. It's designed for a world with less third-party cookies, and uses the modeling (see further).
• Essential Configuration:
  • Install GA4 via GTM (this is the method recommended by Google).
  • Define precisely THE key events (conversions and micro-conversions) that you want to track: purchases, registrations, downloads, video views, specific interactions, etc. The more specific you are, the better Google AI will be able to optimize your campaigns and the more relevant the modeling will be.
  • Import these key events from GA4 into Google Ads. This is Google's recommended method.

Geekworkers offers complete installation, configuration and training services on GA4 and GTM.

Consent Mode v2

THE Consent Mode v2 is a standard and mechanism proposed by Google OBLIGATORY for all advertisers targeting users in the European Economic Area (EEA) and the United Kingdom. It allows your website to communicate to Google the consent status of each visitor (has he accepted or refused advertising and/or analytical cookies?).

Google tags (the little bits of code that are used for tracking) adapt their behavior based on this status.

Simplified Operation

Request for Consent
Before collecting the slightest data, you must ask the user whether he accepts (or refuses) that you use his information for advertising and/or analytical purposes (via a cookie banner, for example).

Communication to Google
Consent Mode v2 allows your site to communicate this choice of consent to Google.

Adaptation of Tags
Google tags (Google Ads, GA4, etc.) adapt to the consent status:

• Consent granted: The tags are working normally.
• Consent refused: The tags limit data collection. They send signals anonymous (“cookieless pings”) to Google, which allow a modeling conversions.

Implementing Consent Mode v2

1. Use a Google-certified Consent Management Platform (CMP).
2. Integrate your CMP with Google Tag Manager (GTM). We use Compliance in most of our sites.
3. Check the configuration and make sure Google GTM and GA4 tags are working properly.
4. Update the privacy policy.

Geekworkers is an expert in implementing Consent Mode v2. Contact us for personalized assistance. See article Consent Mode v2

Concrete Action Plan for Google Ads Agencies

1. In-depth Audit: Analyze your clients' existing campaigns.
2. Continuing Education: Master AI tools, GA4 and Consent Mode v2.
3. First-Party Strategy: Develop a data collection plan for each client.
4. Conversion data integrations: Connect your customer database or CRM to Google Ads.
5. Implementation of Consent Mode v2: This is a top priority.
6. Targeting by Intent: Refine your targeting.
7. Testing and Optimization: Test different approaches and continuously adjust.

Conclusion

Adaptation is the key to success on Google Ads in 2025. By mastering AI, ethically leveraging first-party data, respecting user consent by implementing Consent Mode V2, and targeting intent, you can help your clients achieve their goals. Geekworkers, with its expertise in digital marketing and web development, is the ideal partner to support you in this transition.

Do you want to optimize your Google Ads campaigns and those of your clients?
Contact Geekworkers today for a free consultation and personalized quote!