Lunio links Google AI Max adoption to higher invalid traffic in retail search
Lunio analyzed over 414 million retail ad clicks from October 2025 to June 2026 and found average invalid traffic (IVT) rose from 4.18% to 5.54%. In Google Search campaigns, IVT was 5.28% with AI Max enabled versus 2.46% without it — a 114% increase.
- Average retail IVT was 5.00%, reaching as high as 81% in some campaigns
- Google Shopping saw 7.51% IVT, Meta about 5.99%
- AI Max drove 55% of Search clicks but 68% of invalid clicks
- Google began auto-upgrading campaigns to AI Max in September 2026
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