Google's AI Max for Search picks your keywords and landing pages for you. What a solar installer should set first.
Google Ads AI Max can match solar ads to searches you never chose and send clicks to pages you did not pick. What it changes and the settings to check first.
You built a tight Google Ads campaign around "solar installer near me" and "solar panel cost," and then one morning the search terms report is full of "free solar program," "solar jobs" and "how do solar panels work." If you have turned on AI Max for Search, or someone at Google talked you into it on a support call, that is often why.
AI Max is a set of features Google added to regular Search campaigns in 2025. It can be very useful for solar. It can also burn a month of budget on people who will never buy a system. Here is what it does and what to set before you trust it.
What AI Max actually changes
AI Max is an opt-in setting inside a Search campaign. When it is on, three things change.
Search term matching. Google uses your keywords, ads and website to find searches beyond the keywords you chose. It works much like broad match plus keywordless targeting. You stop choosing exactly which searches you show up for.
Text customization. Google writes or adjusts headlines and descriptions based on your site and the search. Your carefully worded ad may not be what the homeowner sees.
Final URL expansion. Google can send a click to whichever page on your site it thinks fits best, not the landing page you chose. That might be your careers page, your blog post on how inverters work, or your old financing page.
Google's own documentation on AI Max describes each of these and the controls for them. Read it before you switch anything on.
Why this matters more in solar
Solar search traffic is unusually messy. A lot of people searching solar terms are not buyers: students, renters, people looking for jobs, people chasing "free solar" offers, and existing owners looking for repairs on a system someone else installed.
The trade also runs on high cost per click and long sales cycles. A homeowner may take weeks or months to sign. If AI Max fills your budget with low-intent clicks, you will not see it in lost deals for a long time. You will just see a higher cost per lead and fewer signed contracts next quarter.
And your landing page matters more than in most trades. A homeowner who clicks a "solar cost in Fresno" ad and lands on your blog instead of a page with a quote form and real price ranges is probably gone. The solar website essentials guide covers what a landing page needs.
The settings to check first
1. Decide whether AI Max should be on at all
If your campaign is small, under a few thousand dollars a month, or you do not yet track signed contracts back to Google Ads, leave AI Max off for now. It needs strong conversion data to make good guesses, and form fills alone are a weak signal in solar.
2. Turn off final URL expansion, or exclude pages
If you do try AI Max, start with final URL expansion off. If you leave it on, exclude every page that is not a sales page: careers, blog, about, warranty claims, existing customer support. Send clicks only to pages with a clear offer and a form.
3. Add your negative keywords before you turn it on
This is the most important step. Add negatives for:
- Jobs: jobs, careers, hiring, salary, installer training.
- Free offers: free solar, government program, no cost solar.
- DIY and education: how to, DIY, kit, diagram, school project.
- Wrong customer: if you only do residential, add commercial and utility-scale terms. If you do not do repairs on other installers' systems, add repair terms.
The Google Ads guide has a fuller negative list and budget ranges.
4. Check text customization against your compliance rules
Solar ads often touch financing, savings and tax credits, and claims there can get you in trouble with state rules and with Google's policies. If you cannot let Google rewrite your ad text, turn text customization off and write your own assets.
5. Read the search terms report every week for the first month
Look at what AI Max actually matched. Add negatives every week. If more than a small share of your spend is going to searches you would never have chosen, turn search term matching back off and go back to phrase and exact match.
What to measure
The only number that matters is cost per signed contract, not cost per click or cost per form. Import offline conversions from your CRM, even if it is only "appointment held" and "contract signed," so Google has a real signal to learn from.
Reviews still do a lot of the work once a click lands. Across the 32,440 solar listings we track, the median installer has 18 Google reviews, while the top tenth sits around 287. A homeowner who clicks your ad and then checks your profile will notice the difference. The benchmark report has the full numbers.
The short version
AI Max can find buyers you would not have thought to target, but in solar it can also find a lot of people who will never buy. Leave it off until you track signed contracts. When you try it, turn off URL expansion, load your negatives first, and read the search terms report every week.
If you want someone to set up or audit your Google Ads, or run any one service for you, the free 14-day trial needs no card. See the free trial page or text or call (801) 751-4071.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, solar installers among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor