Pages: 122-130
Introduction. The integration of artificial intelligence into Google Ads bidding and delivery systems – through Smart Bidding strategies, the transition from Smart Shopping to Performance Max and the progressive generalization of fully automated campaign types – has coincided with a period of structural change in the broader digital advertising ecosystem, marked by privacy-related signal loss, the deprecation of third-party cookies and a substantial reshaping of consumer search behavior in the post-pandemic period. This paper analyzes the long-term evolution of search visibility and click-through performance in a Romanian e-commerce account over a 47-month observation window, using monthly aggregated Google Ads data on impressions and clicks. Results document a non-monotonic trajectory: an initial high-visibility phase with impressions exceeding two million per month and click-through rates above 2.2%, a peak-volume phase with the highest aggregate impressions in the dataset and a click-through rate stabilizing around 1.9%, and a sustained decline phase in which average monthly impressions fall to less than half of their previous peak while the click-through rate remains broadly stable. Seasonal patterns concentrated in the fourth quarter persist throughout the observation window.
Aim of the study.
The findings illustrate, in a Romanian retail setting, the long-term consequences of operating in an algorithmically mediated and privacy-constrained advertising ecosystem, and they have implications for budget planning, performance benchmarking and the interpretation of long-term trends in digital advertising data.
