Introducing the Search Landscape: Track AI Overviews and SERP changes

Google is reshaping the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) faster than ever and marketers are undoubtedly feeling the impact.

With the introduction of AI Overviews, new ad formats, and visual SERP features flooding the page, your once-stable strategy is being upended. 

Performance shifts without warning. New layouts emerge overnight. And without clear visibility, it’s nearly impossible to know what’s affecting your campaigns or why.

There’s currently no way to track the impact of AI Overviews in Google Ads and no sign of it on the roadmap. As Ginny Marvin confirmed, Google is still testing how AI Overviews engage users and influence ad relevance, with early data showing particularly high engagement. Yet, marketers remain in the dark.

To help solve this, we’ve launched The Search Landscape: a new in-app page from Adthena that gives marketers the clarity they’ve been missing.

When Google’s AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience) began rolling out, the industry responded with confusion, concern and a lot of speculation. Why? Because these AI-generated summaries were suddenly taking top spots on the SERP, pushing ads and organic listings further down the SERP. The impact was real, but difficult to quantify.

According to Search Engine Land, marketers across industries reported traffic drops and click-through rate declines, particularly in industries like health, travel, and retail where AI Overviews often dominate. But without data, these were educated guesses at best.

That lack of clarity and uncertainty is what makes AI Overviews such a challenge. And it’s not just AI. Google’s constant SERP experimentation leaves marketers guessing about when, where, and why different elements appear. This constant churn makes it nearly impossible to understand how search performance is being influenced.

That’s why we developed the Search Landscape.

Adthena’s Search Intelligence can detect when and where AI Overviews appear on the SERP, giving marketers the insights they need to adjust bidding strategies and protect performance.

The Search Landscape is a new feature within Adthena that gives you a live, tailored view of how Google’s SERP is changing in your specific market.

From AI Overviews, Hotel Ads, and Flight Packs to Product Listings, this view surfaces which SERP features are appearing more or less often over time. You’ll see which elements dominate, fade, or emerge across your key categories and competitors.

As the data is client-specific, the view is automatically relevant to your industry. For example, an airline client will see flight-related SERP features appearing prominently, while a hotel brand will see hotel packs dominate. This makes it easy to see what matters most, right from the start.

Let’s face it: You can’t optimize what you can’t see.

Marketers are under pressure to justify performance shifts, explain traffic drops, and adapt to Google’s relentless SERP updates. How can you do this without insight into what’s really going on?

The Search Landscape helps you:

• Identify which SERP formats are becoming more or less common
• Understand how the presence of specific SERP features is changing over time
• Spot trends across different ad formats and industries
• Tie SERP changes to fluctuations in your campaign performance

It’s a proactive way to answer the question every marketer has: “What’s really going on with my performance in search?”

And this is just the beginning. Coming soon, we’ll be introducing new filters so you can drill down into trends across Search Term Groups, compare specific SERP features, and customize what appears in your report.

Google won’t slow down. But with The Search Landscape dashboard, you don’t have to keep guessing.

This new view gives you the visibility to adapt faster and strategize your performance by finally seeing how Google’s ever-evolving SERP is reshaping your space and your results.

Ready to explore your own search landscape? Speak to a search consultant today.