Google Shopping Ads data reveals a “reverse crocodile effect” following the launch of AI Overviews in Google Search. As reported by Mike Ryan, Shopping Ads have shown a decline in impressions while click-through rates have increased, based on data comprising 175 billion impressions.
From mid-2025 to mid-2026, median Shopping ad impressions dropped from approximately 1.85 million to 1.4 million, while the median CTR rose from 1.20% to nearly 1.55%. This suggests that Google might be serving AI Overviews preferentially for lower probability queries, thus increasing CTR by reducing the impression count and focusing more on higher click propensity queries.
This insight was shared by Barry Schwartz.
