Rethinking Search: Colgate-Palmolive’s bet on AI Max pays off with 44X conversions

Lisa Mains-Sheard heads up Colgate-Palmolive’s digital transformation team for sub-Saharan Africa. Her goal is to drive impactful marketing strategies for Colpal’s portfolio of brands, focusing on marketing effectiveness.

South Africa’s beauty and personal care industry is thriving. Gen Z and Millennial shoppers are driving a new wave of digitally native, agentic shopping, using their knowledge of skin ingredients to fuel searches for content-rich, personalised solutions.

However, our legacy personal care brands at Colgate-Palmolive, like Sanex, have faced increasing competition in the South African market. To meet new shopping behaviours in the AI Search age, we had to create ads that provide answers to consumers’ questions.

We also wanted to shift the perception from Sanex as a functional body wash solution to it being a comprehensive product for healthy skin. That’s how the Sanex online skincare analysis test was born. A tool for people interested in learning more about their skin type and the right products to complement it.

People’s interest in this — or intent — was something we wanted to harness and turn into real, long-term business value. In just 60 days we revamped our full funnel strategy for the AI Search era, increasing conversions by 44X while decreasing campaign costs by 97%.

Building an integrated AI growth engine around intent

AI Max for keyword optimisation

The Sanex skin analysis test was the ideal solution for two reasons. First, instead of serving as a static product page, the test offered consultative guidance based on each user’s skincare needs. Secondly, it created an omnichannel demand-creation engine, capturing high intent via the test, driving shoppers deeper into consideration, and converting that interest into business value.

Shoppers are increasingly searching using conversational, exploratory queries. In business value terms, exploration equates to intent. With this in mind, we chose AI Max to optimise our keyword strategy.

Since AI Max is not a campaign type like Performance Max or Demand Gen, it acts as an optimisation layer to existing campaigns, like a powerful serum to boost your skincare routine.

Using AI Max-generated, high-intent keywords, our new strategy found Search users at various stages of exploration:

• People looking for informed advice on their skin type
• Users searching for a specific skincare brand
• Consumers looking for dermatologists
• Search queries for solutions to a specific skin problem

This expanded our reach to consumers already showing interest via their past search behaviour and online purchases.

Full-funnel smart bidding for awareness and conversions

Google research shows us that a 1% increase in brand awareness typically drives a 0.6% increase in long-term sales. Considering this, we utilised Demand Gen to attract shoppers in the upper funnel wherever they were; Gmail, YouTube, and via Display ads on websites they regularly visited.

Although our primary goal was to increase brand awareness and consideration, we didn’t want to sacrifice conversions. So, while AI Max provided an extra layer of optimisation to our Search campaigns, our Performance Max campaigns were powered by value-based bidding to capture valuable purchasers at the bottom of the funnel.

With full-funnel campaigns, there is always a risk of ad fatigue. But since the entire funnel was now prioritising intent over quantity — while Demand Gen ushered in fresh upper-funnel audiences — we allowed the AI to create an omnichannel loop of exploration, consideration and conversions.

Results: The ultimate AI Search makeover

Within just 60 days, this strategic shift completely transformed our campaigns for Sanex in South Africa:

Handing keyword discovery over to AI can feel daunting. However, by letting it handle audience optimisation, we were freed up to focus on what truly matters: creative excellence, compelling storytelling, and brand positioning.

These time-and-money-saving efficiencies allowed us to reinvest smartly back into our media mix. We are already scaling this AI search framework across our premium brands, like Colgate Optic White. We are also planning to roll this out beyond South Africa into other priority markets, like Kenya and Nigeria.