Earlier this month I had a chance to speak at Pubcon Las Vegas which featured the theme of Search Chaos. PPC presentations ranged across a variety of topics, including Advanded PPC Tactics, The Evolution of Local Service Ads (LSAs), Accelerating B2B SaaS Growth with PPC, Wrangling AI in Google Ads, and more. Everything from high-level principles to specific tactical approaches were shared, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that where PPC practitioners spend their time has fundamentally changed in the era of AI-driven PPC.
The Old 80/20 Rule in PPC
In the early days of PPC, with platforms like Overture, AdWords, etc., the heaviest lift for PPC practitioners was in the actual doing of the work, mostly in-platform or software tools. These were the tasks which dominated our time:
- Keyword research
- Building keyword lists with every possible combination, permutation, and misspelling imaginable (I learned that many people are truly terrible spellers)
- Organizing keyword lists into very specific, themed ad groups (or SKAGs, for some of us)
- Modifying ad copy for each ad group to highlight the keyword(s)
- Setting a manual bid for each keyword/ad group
- Editing bids based on performance data. This could have been a weekly, daily, or even hourly task depending on your account
- Religiously monitoring Search query reports and adding negative keywords to prevent wasted spend
- Finding new keywords and building new ad groups for them
These tasks could easily consume 80% of your time, leaving only 20% of your time to think strategically and get out of the weeds.
That was the old 80/20 rule. With the evolution of PPC and our current trajectory, I believe the 80/20 rule has effectively flipped.
The New 80/20 Rule in PPC
Platforms from Google Ads to Meta Ads to Amazon Ads and beyond are all introducing more and more AI-centric features. These features can modify/edit images and video to fit virtually any placement. They dynamically choose the best text to place in ads from preloaded assets and can even suggest new text based on landing page copy. Bidding is mostly handled by complex algorithms.
These features promise improved reach, time savings, and more conversions. Some would say we’re entering a golden age where mindless, repetitive tasks can be automated and handed over to the machines. But with great power comes great responsibility.
I now believe that 80% of the PPC practitioner’s time should be spent observing/analyzing/strategizing, with only 20% spent on the actual in-platform doing of the work. Here is more of what I see on my personal tasks lists and the takeaways from conference talks:
- Perform customer journey/funnel research to understand the customer journey
- Monitor competitor creatives, offers, landing pages, keywords, etc.
- Check on lead quality from paid leads, especially checking on more black-box campaign types like Performance Max and Demand Gen (same for eCommerce, but monitoring return/refund rates, canceled orders, etc.)
- Use n-gram analysis to identify keywords and phrases for exclusion
- Define audiences based on numerous behavioral triggers, mostly using 1st party data
- Ensure conversion tracking integrations are functioning properly
That is a fundamental shift in what PPC requires from a practitioner today, and NONE of that will show up in the change log. So you’ve got to communicate your value to your boss/client in different ways. You need to show how the improvement in data quality and audience quality allowed the algorithms to deliver amazing results. You need to advocate for down-funnel conversion tracking and push hard enough to get offline conversion tracking set up one way or another.
As more and more AI is added to platforms, the need for human supervision is critical. You’ve got to ensure you’re providing great inputs and that AI is delivering great outputs as promised. You’ll still need some elbow grease now and then, but the game has changed.
