It’s Time to Embrace Google AI
The following is adapted from Unlevel the Playing Field by Frederick Vallaeys.
Show me a pay per click (PPC) professional who’s afraid of Google AI, and I’ll show you a PPC professional who already uses it to make a lot of money for their company or clients. But who’s afraid of Google AI? Just about everybody.
That’s because we’re in the midst of the greatest mindshift in PPC history, brought about by ever-accelerating developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Since my previous book, Digital Marketing in an AI World, came out, just three years ago, the landscape has already changed dramatically. Even the most talented digital-marketing professionals are finding it challenging to keep up with and understand the latest and greatest advances in PPC AI.
Help is on the way.
The AI behind Google Ads can now automate ad targeting, bidding, and even creative, delivering far better results than a few short years ago, when you were managing all this manually. But yes, it’s hard to keep up. And another, equally important challenge has arisen: Google AI is taking away the advantage you used to have over your less-savvy competitors.
PPC automation has now leveled the playing field.
The results automation is delivering are good, and that’s OK if you’re satisfied with “good enough.” But if you want to stand out — and as a marketer you know you must — you need to unlevel the playing field and beat the competition. How? By developing the ability to work with and improve upon the results available from these often-confusing automations.
Google Ads’ business model is fundamentally cost-per-click (CPC). The more clicks, the more money Google makes. Its automations are designed to increase click-through rates across the board.
But at the end of the day, your business or client isn’t really concerned about click-through rates. They’re concerned about increasing profits and revenue and outperforming the competition. And so are you.
My last book covered why human intelligence remains essential in digital marketing, even with the arrival of machine learning. I showed that the combination of human and machine intelligence produces far better results than either can deliver on its own. A Boston Consulting Group study from 2019 found similar results and concluded, “Those that deploy ML-based technologies, with active human supervision…can boost campaign performance by…15%.”
The formula is:
HUMANS + MACHINES > MACHINES ALONE
In the meantime, the machines have become much smarter. But the basic principle still holds true, with some variation. The new formula is:
HUMANS + MACHINES > MACHINES ALONE
(assisted by smart automations) (that run complex AI automations)
What does this mean?
Having had a front-row seat at the many, successive shifts in mindset AI has caused, I know firsthand that the human factor is — and will remain — relevant, indeed essential, in digital marketing’s present and future. No matter what Google says.
To unlevel the playing field, you need to shift your mindset and bring your human insight to collaborate with Google AI. You must understand where Google’s machine intelligence falls short and how to build on it, by augmenting, for example, its intelligence with business insights it doesn’t and can’t have about your company or clients.
There are two fundamental methods for doing this. The first is to become a Google Ads power user. Learn what knobs Google already enables you to tweak, and then tweak them to your advantage. Doing this involves keeping up with what each new iteration of the technology offers.
The second method — automation layering — is less familiar to most marketers. This is supplementing Google Ads’ AI-driven PPC platform with a “layer” of your own automation that unlevels the playing field by taking your business needs — rather than Google’s — into account.
Please note that I use “Google” and “Google AI” as shorthand for PPC advertising as a whole. Why? Google is the clear leader in the PPC advertising space, with about 60 percent market share. I also have almost twenty years of professional experience with Google, which has created the template for PPC AI. Microsoft’s platform is very similar, and Amazon is just now starting to build many of the same systems. With very few exceptions, the mindset and techniques you pick up here about Google Ads will be broadly applicable across these other PPC platforms.
For more advice on how to create winning digital marketing programs, you can find Unlevel the Playing Field on Amazon.
Frederick Vallaeys is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, author, and leading influencer in digital marketing. He is the co-founder and CEO of Optmyzr, an award-winning PPC management platform with industry-leading solutions designed to power up campaigns through smarter tools and automation.
One of Google’s first 500 employees, Frederick helped pioneer PPC marketing as the company’s first AdWords evangelist. He is a visionary, industry thought leader, and frequent conference speaker who hosts Optmyzr’s PPC Town Hall and regularly contributes to Search Engine Land, a blog that recognized him as 2018’s SEM Contributor of the Year and the 2021 Search Marketer of the Year.
