If your entire Google Ads strategy consists of targeting brand and non-brand keywords, you’re limiting growth. If performance is declining, it’s not the platform — it’s the strategy.

People don’t discover you through non-brand search. They research on Reddit, ChatGPT, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. They watch demos, read testimonials, and learn about your brand long before they ever search for it.

If you have a complex sales process and a long customer journey, this shift is critical and requires a different approach. Here’s what you need to know to make this work in B2B.

AI-forward campaigns: A cost-effective growth gold mine

Google has been developing multi-channel, multi-asset campaigns for years — first with Performance Max, then with Demand Gen. These campaigns reach your audience across the web as they research and evaluate.

Your brand is front and center while your audience builds their shortlist. By the time they’re ready to pick vendors to take the next step, you’ve already built trust. Then they’ll find you by searching for your brand.

A Performance Max campaign with a variety of ad types, like image and video ads, can showcase demos or customer testimonials on YouTube. They can appear across the web via the Display Network. They can follow (retarget) your target audience as they research. That’s what drives the branded search that converts later.

These campaigns let you do all of this cost-effectively. In a Performance Max campaign, you can use keywords alongside your own customer data as signals. You’re not abandoning keywords. You’re using them smarter.

Dig deeper: Why B2B brands are shifting from keywords to Performance Max

The search experience is changing. Your strategy should, too.

Google’s search results pages have evolved with AI Overviews and AI Mode. If this experience is changing so dramatically, isn’t it time to rethink your ad strategy as well?

I’m a fan of the 4S framework: search, scroll, stream, and shop.

I’d add “ask” to reflect how people now engage across AI tools. They ask ChatGPT or Gemini, search Google, scroll LinkedIn, stream YouTube videos, and shop across platforms. If your strategy only covers one or two of those behaviors, you’re missing how growth actually happens.

Focusing only on keyword targeting means you’re missing the bigger picture. Yes, brand keywords will convert better than non-brand keywords. But how do people even know to search for your brand in the first place? (The answer is that you’ve been showing up in their feed the whole time.) 

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Test, learn, and be patient

This approach takes time, especially for B2B companies with long sales cycles.

It took us nearly a year to realize the value Performance Max was driving for a life science client. Most of their deals take months to close. Our account manager was about to pause the campaign at one point because the ad platform data didn’t look good. 

But as we began piping in sales data, things started clicking. Once we got over the sales cycle hump and started seeing revenue data, Performance Max proved its value.

If you can sync data beyond MQLs — like Proposal Sent — that provides more data and signals to Google, and more peace of mind until you can add sales data.

Be patient, feed the system better data, and don’t give up too early. B2B sales cycles are complex.

You might have 100 people at an event that you promoted through a LinkedIn ad strategy. Some of those people caught an email promoting a webinar. Months later, they searched for you on Google and asked for a proposal. Still months later, they became a customer.

Even with the best-recorded data, you won’t see this happening right away in a long sales cycle.

Dig deeper: How to optimize B2B PPC spend when budgets and confidence are low

Start small, then scale what works

If you don’t have a test-and-learn budget, reallocate 5% to 10% to introduce AI-forward campaign types. Test strategically. Don’t go all in, and don’t launch major tests during a busier time of year. Give yourself breathing room while the system learns.

This approach takes time. But it drives sustainable growth if you commit to the process. The advertisers who figure this out are building sustainable growth, while others are still stuck optimizing for a shrinking slice of demand.