How To Make Yourself Irreplaceable On An AI PPC World (6 Actionable Advices)
As AI keeps evolving and getting better results than our human optimization skills, here are some tips on how you can improve your campaigns and make yourself irreplaceable in a AI PPC world.
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Make Sure You Give The System The Correct Information
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Learn How To Take Advantage Of AI Technologies On PPC Campaigns
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Concentrate On Creatives (Banners, Adverts, Text Ads)
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Concentrate On Strategy
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Take The Next Step, Website/Landing Page CRO
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Be The Client Acquisition Person
Make sure you give the system the correct information
There are millions of variables and combinations that the system can optimize for, so , more than ever, it is important that you feed the AI PPC system the correct information and understand how this information is obtained by the system i.e. the way Google Adwords conversion tag detects conversions vs. the way Google Analytics detects conversions.
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AI will use all the information you feed it with to optimize your campaigns. If the information is incorrect or error prone you won’t be able to benefit from a full automated bid strategy.
This main point for AI has also been mentioned by Frederick Vallaeys on Search Engine Land as one of the main agency’s role for AI powered PPC.
In order to help you do this I’ll share some of the tools I use:
- Use the real-time Google Analytics option. This view (not a Google Analytics view) will let you see if the source is correct and monitor events being triggered as you test your site in real-time.
- Use tools like Google Tag Assistant and it’s recording option, this will let you know which tags are being triggered when and provide you with some of the information that is being sent. The recording option will also give you a full report of the tags being triggered.
- Another one is Google Tag Manager. Google Tag Manager has a world of options that can trigger tags and pixels whenever you want. You might need to know some JavaScript to explore all Google Tag Manager features but it is definitely worth it.
- Because PPC is not only Google, Facebook also has a useful tool to easily check which events are being triggered called Facebook Pixel Helper.
- Observer Point is the last one I use, especially for LinkedIn and Twitter tags
Learn how to take advantage of AI technologies on PPC campaigns
To begin with, you’ll need to know everything there is to know about smart bidding on Google or automated bidding on Facebook.
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This will help you keep up with every new feature on the platforms or different strategies. Below I’ll list some:
- Know all your options. Know which PPC platforms have AI running in the background. Not all platforms are using AI powered bidding solutions. So, don’t be over confident in choosing a CPA automated bid on every PPC service, search for what type of automation is actually done.
- Learn all the best practices of bid automation. In Google, follow the changes made on smart bidding and keep up with the Google Partners program (image below). For Facebook check out the Facebook blue print courses.
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- Avoid over-segmentation on campaigns with an automated bidding. If you ask me, eventually, audience targeting will die.
Audience Targeting Will Die – Click to Tweet
Let me explain what I mean with this bold statement. It is not that the identification of certain variables that cluster into some sort of behavior or targeting qualification will die. What I am saying is that, in the future, I should not need to say to an advertising platform that I want to target people that like my page or that have some sort of a behavior. The platform should automatically know who to target – not based on one specific Facebook like on a specific interest but based on an uncountable/unhuman amount of variables that lead into a conversion. Google is already doing some of this with its Smart display Campaigns and Universal App Campaigns, where the targeting is automatically set by Google based upon the accounts’ conversions.
Pauline Jakober, CEO of Group Twenty Seven said “Google has already blurred the lines between different keyword match types, for example. And perhaps it will eventually eliminate keyword match type entirely”. This should be the natural evolution of an AI based system.
Concentrate on creatives (banners, adverts, text ads)
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The best performing text ad, the best performing banner or banner combination should be your new top priority. You should become the best Conversion Rate Optimizer (CRO) of creativities. As always, here are some things you can do about it:
- When creating a campaign, create a creativities optimization plan. This can be as simple as scheduling some event every 3 months to evaluate your campaign’s banners or text ads. Choose the best performing ad, see if there is a correlation with what is performing best and create new ones. After that, keep testing according to your optimization plan (Always Be Testing).
- Use dynamic creatives on Facebook. This will allow Facebook to serve the best image +text + headline to the right costumer. Later on, you can also evaluate which are the variables (image, headline and text) that do not serve your objective and change them.
On GDN campaigns like Smart Display or Universal App Campaigns, you also have the option of having several variables on a banner ad. This lets you remove the ones that do not perform. - Quality Score on Adwords should always be 10. Now that you don’t need to waste time on bid adjustments, try to achieve the maximum Quality Score. At least, Ad Relevance should always be “above average”.
Concentrate on strategy
Be the new strategy king at your company! If you followed the tip I mentioned above and know all you can about the available PPC channels – more than anyone else –, you are able to be a great media planner. So, concentrate on that. Concentrate on strategies with multiple touch points that can bring you the best result or a lower CPA.
Take the next step, website/landing page CRO
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If one of the defining successful variables of a campaign is the landing page or the website, then concentrate on this variable. Improve the conversion rates of your website/landing page. Learn how to be a CRO specialist. It is not that hard. If you still don’t know a lot, start at the beginning by using A/B testing tools like Google Optimize. The easy integration with Google Analytics will give you a good insight on how the changes you implemented, and thought would work, actually made your conversion better. Be sure to allow some time to analyze this data.
Be The Client Acquisition Person
More time for your agency to get more clients. If it is easier for you to run your campaigns, you can make yourself irreplaceable on any new proposal. Your knowledge, more than ever, will be an added value to any client proposal because you’ll be one of the few people that have a holistic view of the PPC world. Be that person.
AI is here to help. It is time that the PPC industry embraces a new world powered by AI. Working alongside it will be a more challenging task but, I believe, it will allow our industry to grow.
Let me know what you think below.