PPC
5 Strategies to Grow Your Digital Marketing Agency in 2020

Whether you are an already established agency or you are just getting started, there is always room to try new strategies in an effort to grow your business, your team, and your client roster.
Read on to learn how to learn how to acquire new leads to fill your funnel and convert into clients, methods of sourcing and acquiring new talent to add to your team, and the reasons and ways you can focus on specialization.
Client acquisition tactics
Without leads, we don’t have clients, and without clients, we don’t have much of an agency. Straight forward—however, even if you are at capacity, it’s crucial to always feed your funnel with new leads and foster those relationships so they can evolve into clients now or down the road.
At AKvertise, we always take the call, the meeting, the conversation, to talk to a prospect. After all, you never know what can transpire from a conversation until you have it. Even if the timing isn’t on our side to work with someone right away due to availability, more often than not, this results in the lead wanting to work with us even more, even if they have to wait a month or two to do so until we have bandwidth open up. If it’s still not a match for us, we keep a small network of trusted agencies we refer to if it is not the right mutual fit in terms of timelines, goals, expertise, budgets, or availability.
While there are many ways to acquire new clients, most come from referrals. In fact, according to WordStream’s State of the Agency report, 51% of surveyed agencies consider referrals their main source of acquiring new clients, followed by 20% said upsells from other products or services.
If you’ve been in business for some time, the above sources may be familiar to you. But keep reading on as we have some additional ones to share and there may be some methods you and your team have not yet explored that could be effective in further growing your client roster. If you’re a freelancer or small agency owner looking for more clients to add to your roster, try these lead-generating, client-acquiring tactics.
1. Be your own publicist
Unless you are a large agency and already have a publicist on speed dial, that is. Otherwise, it’s worth doing some publicity work. Seek out opportunities to get your name, your team, and your services out there. Submit pitches to speak at events, attend events and share online that you plan to and want to connect with others, get in touch with podcast hosts (like Mikayla Wyman of Goal Talk, for instance), and ask if you can join as a guest for an episode that would be interesting for their listeners and relevant to your expertise, contribute to external industry blogs and publications, and be active on social media to build your own personal brand.
Does that truly work? It certainly does. For example, Akvertize has been in business for over five years now, and we still have yet to do any advertising for our own agency. The above tactics have brought in leads to our funnel and helped us convert many into clients. Being front facing, active, helpful, and having your name displayed across various mediums while sharing tactics, tools, ideas, and content can have a rewarding effect. Regardless of whether you’re the CEO, a paid media manager, or a junior level staff member, it can help your agency tremendously, as well as boost morale and further education, if everyone can act as a publicist on behalf of your agency.
2. Share your availability
If you’ve tried the above and you still have room for more work, simply share that you are accepting new clients along with the details of your areas of expertise. These types of posts tend to get shared on social media.
If there’s room, mention the type of clients and industries you prefer to work with and have experience with. If you’re possibly concerned about optics of doing this, as I once was, worry not. The first time I put this out on Twitter, I thought it would come off that we were failing and short on work, however, others told me the contrary, that it looked like we were growing. From time to time, we still do this, and it always brings in leads whether it’s a light month or we’re looking to scale further. Don’t be shy—let people know that you’re available to help.
Expand your team
Looking to take on more clients but limited on bandwidth? You need to expand your time, either by collaborating with other agencies or hiring new talent to join your team as employees. If the latter makes more sense for your agency in the long run, that may be easier said than done. Talent acquisition can be challenging, and it may take several hires to find the right fit, but good, diligent working marketers are out there.
3. Hire more employees
Posting to job boards can be effective, but there’s nothing quite like getting a personal recommendation. When we look to add to our team, we’ve found success by reaching out to industry contacts to see if they or someone they know is looking for work. In addition, we post to our personal and business social channels as it’s an easy way to share that you’re hiring. If you’re looking to scale your paid search and/or paid social team this year, one very effective way to reach marketers and advertisers is via Twitter and using the #ppcchat and #fbadschat hashtags.
Posting publicly to LinkedIn can be fruitful as that platform has significantly grown and increased in activity over the last few years. Have your current team members share details about a position opening and link to a job description on your website so potential candidates can learn more before applying. As an advertising agency, you could also take that a step further and use that audience for remarketing ads.
There are also a number of job boards out there, such as Indeed. If you’re strapped for time, delegate this process by hiring a recruiter in an effort to help find you the right fit for your digital marketing agency.
If you’re comfortable in doing so, expand your search by offering remote opportunities, especially if you’re located in a smaller city where the talent pool may be smaller. According to LinkedIn, 40% of millennials say that having flexibility and working remotely is a priority.
4. Join forces with other agencies
Not in a spot to hire employees at this time? Connect with another competitive or complementary marketing agency. If you offer paid advertising services, reach out to other ones that may be short on bandwidth and you can offer your expertise to their clients. Some agencies tend to be transparent about this and others may want to white label you, so it’s up to your preference on how you want to work.
Connecting with complementary marketing agencies can also bring you exciting and new client work. For example, reach out to some SEO agencies to see if they have any clients that are interested in paid search or paid social advertising. This can be beneficial to you, to them, and their clients. In a sense, you would collectively be creating a more holistic marketing strategy to the client while being close to a full-service agency and driving more revenue to your business. We’ve found great success in taking this approach over the years and becoming an extension of other agency teams. You can, too, with these types of strategic partners.
Refine your offerings
Combining forces with an agency that offers complementary services is a great way to expand your team and your offering while staying competitive with other digital marketing agencies.
But sometimes it’s worth rethinking your agency’s own offerings to find the best strategy for growth.
5. Scale back to grow more
It doesn’t hurt to scale back services in order to grow. If you’re able to be a full-service agency and be successful in doing so, keep at it. If you’re smaller, specializing could be a great alternative. When we first launched AKvertise, we offered paid search and paid social, but around the time of our third anniversary, we decided to scale back on our advertising service offerings and focus on the thing we enjoyed most and thrived in, in an effort to further excel and to distinguish ourselves fully as a social media advertising firm.
There was some hesitation in that we could lose business and have fewer leads coming in; however, we decided that it was worth the test. If it didn’t succeed, we could always revert and offer more services. It’s been more than two years since this refinement and specializing was the best thing we could have done for our business. It’s brought in more clients and helped us grow and could help you as well. Become the expert in your specialized field and in turn, you may evolve into a go-to agency for your particular service.
Set your agency up for growth in 2020
This year, treat your agency like a client campaign. Look at your business objectively, take your own recommendations, test some of the above tactics that you haven’t yet and see if they work for your agency. Market yourself in order to build awareness for your agency by seeking out opportunities in an effort to bring in new leads, clients, team members, and partnerships as you scale. Don’t be afraid to test something new as you can almost always revert. Happy testing and may this year bring you success.
PPC
49 Father’s Day Instagram Captions & Ready-Made Images

With over 70 million dads in the world, over 50 ways to say dad, and one billion Instagram users, you can rest assured that ideas for Father’s Day Instagram captions are in high demand.
But Father’s Day is different for every business audience—and on an individual level it can vary from joyful to painful. So here are over 40 Father’s Day Instagram captions that range from witty and playful to serious and factual, plus pre-made posts you can save and publish in just a few taps!
Table of contents
Father’s Day Instagram posts
Throughout the post, you’ll find pre-made Father’s Day images sized just right for Instagram (1080 x 1080). You can save them right off this post, or you can customize them in Canva using this link.
Inclusive Father’s Day Instagram captions
These captions will help you to celebrate while staying respectful, in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- To the fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, godfathers step-fathers, father figures, and fathers-to-be: we celebrate you today and thank you for the mentorship, love, and guidance you’ve provided.
- Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there—whether you’re a dad or like a dad. Your love is the greatest and most precious gift in the world 🎁
- While we wish all the dads out there a happy Father’s Day, we also extend our support to those without fathers or father figures and to dads who have lost a child.
- Happy Father’s Day to all the great fathers and father figures out there! And to those of you who are struggling to put on a smile today, we see you too. ❤
- To the fathers, dads, daddies, pops, papas, vaders, peders, pais, tads, abbas, babas, ates, vaters, pita-jis, pabbis, paks, babbos, otosans, padres, baathairs, buwas, tatas…we wish you a great day!
- Not all dads wear suits, watch football, or are obsessed with grilling or power tools (although there’s nothing wrong with those things!). Let’s keep our perspectives open today—comment on this post and tell us about your dad!
- Happy Father’s Day not only to all the dads on earth, but also all the dads in heaven. Sending lots of love on this day.
- On this Father’s Day, to dads, granddads, stepdads, foster dads, dads in heaven, future dads, bereaved dads, and dad figures: we’re thinking of you.
Sweet Father’s Day Instagram captions
Use these captions in your social media marketing to celebrate the dads in your life and/or in your audience.
- Happy Father’s Day, dads! Thank you for all the sacrifices you make for your families and the joy you bring to our lives.
- I’ve learned so much from you over the years Dad, thanks for being the role model you are and shaping me into the person I am today. Happy Father’s Day.
- We don’t say it enough, so say it extra today: Thank you for everything, dads.
- Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.
- A dad is someone who wants to catch you when you fall. Instead he picks you up, brushes you off and lets you try again.
- Life doesn’t come with a manual…it comes with a father.
- Wishing you a day that feels like [something they love].
- Because of your love and support, I’m a badass. Thank you Dad.
- We ❤ our dad customers!
Funny Father’s Day Instagram captions
- Happy Father’s Day, Dad. You may not know everything but you sure had me fooled for quite a few years.
- I smile because you are my father…and I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it.
- Forever grateful you still love me even after [all those times you did X] in high school.
- I love this guy more than he loves his [favorite thing here]. And that’s a lot.
- I hope this Father’s Day is as good as your life was before kids.
- On Father’s Day, let’s review the most important lesson I learned from my dad: [something funny/witty]. What’s yours?
- Dads are the only ones who can____ // Happy Father’s Day to the only person who can _____.
- Happy Father’s Day To the first person I call when ____.
- D.A.D: Delay And Doze
- “There should be a children’s song: ‘If you’re happy and you know it, keep it to yourself and let your dad sleep.’” – Jim Gaffigan
- Cold one? Cracked. New balances? Fresh out of the box. Grill? Heating up🔥 Happy Father’s Day!
- Beer + white socks and sneakers + jorts + chair nap = the perfect Father’s Day
- Cheers and beers! Father’s Day is here🍻
Factual Father’s Day Instagram captions
Use these Father’s Day facts, courtesy of Mental Floss and NPR to craft a little something different, whether that’s inspiring, nerdy, or eye-opening.
- The first statewide Father’s Day celebration was in 1910 in Washington. Sonora Smart Dodd wanted to honor her father who raised six children on his own after his wife died during childbirth. To the single fathers out there
- Roses used to be a tradition on Father’s day, red roses for the living and white for the deceased.
- Father’s Day wasn’t recognized as a national holiday until 1972.
- While the percentage of moms who are stay-at-home moms has remained stable, the percentage of stay-at-home dads has been rising slowly, from 4% in 1989 to 7% in 2016.
- 60% of men over the age of 15 in the United States are biological, step, or adopted fathers.
- Father’s Day is the fifth-largest card-sending occasion in America!
- Only 50% of all Father’s Day cards are purchased for dads! People get them for friends, grandfathers, brothers, uncles, and more.
Father’s Day quotes for Instagram
- “A father is neither an anchor to hold us back nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.” – Unknown
- “In the darkest days, when I feel inadequate, unloved and unworthy, I remember whose daughter I am, and I straighten my crown.” – Unknown
- “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: He believed in me.” – Jim Valvano
- “The best fathers have the softest, sweetest hearts. In other words, great dads are real marshmallows.” – Richelle E. Goodrich
- “Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Dad.” – Anne Geddes
- “My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.” – Clarence Budington Kelland
- “I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” – Umberto Eco
- “There will always be a few people who have the courage to love what is untamed inside us. One of those men is my father.” – Alison Lohman
- “A father is someone you look up to no matter how tall you grow.” – Unknown
- “I’ve said it before, but it’s absolutely true: My mother gave me my drive, but my father gave me my dreams. Thanks to him, I could see a future.” – Liza Minelli
- “No man stands taller than when he stoops to help a child.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.” – William Shakespeare
Words to use in your Father’s Day Instagram captions
If you want to be fully authentic, build your own Instagram caption with these words to describe fathers:
- Adept
- Adaptable
- Adventurous
- Accepting
- Admired
- Adored
- Affectionate
- Appreciated
- Awesome
- Bold
- Brave
- Caring
- Cherished
- Clever
- Cool
- Courageous
- Considerate
- Crafty
- Dedicated
- Delightful
- Dependable
- Devoted
- Determined
- Embarrassing
- Essential
- Extraordinary
- Fabulous
- Fearless
- Fierce
- Free spirit
- Friend
- Fun-loving
- Generous
- Giving
- Guiding
- Gutsy
- Grill-master
- Handsome
- Hardworking
- Heartwarming
- Helpful
- Humble
- Hustler
- Impressive
- Inspiring
- Intuitive
- Keen
- Kind
- Legendary
- Loved
- Loyal
- Magnetic
- Mindful
- Noble
- Nurturing
- Optimistic
- Passionate
- Patient
- Powerful
- Perfect
- Protective
- Proud
- Real
- Relentless
- Resilient
- Resourceful
- Rock
- Rugged
- Sacrificing
- Selfless
- Sincere
- Smart
- Spirited
- Steadfast
- Strong
- Strong-willed
- Supportive
- Tenderhearted
- Thoughtful
- Tolerant
- Tough
- Understanding
- Unwavering
- Warm
- Watchful
- Wise
- Wonderful
- Zesty
Want more captions?
For Instagram caption ideas for other holidays and occasions, we’ve got plenty:
And for even more ideas, hop on over to LocaliQ’s Happy Father’s Day social media ideas and templates.
PPC
Does Google Ads Quality Score Still Matter in 2022?

Now, before you start frantically searching for a Google announcement that they removed this metric, you can breathe out a sigh of relief because Quality Score still exists within accounts.
But is it still relevant?
Quality Score has always been considered one of the most elusive performance metrics in Google Ads. And with all the changes to more automation from Google, we haven’t heard much on this metric (and what you can manually do to control it) for a while. But does that mean it no longer matters?
I ventured out into the PPC community to answer this question (I have my own opinion, of course) and was pretty surprised by my findings. So read on to find out whether Quality Score still matters in 2022! But first, a brief refresher.
What is Quality Score?
Before we get into our predictions of Quality Score, let’s first refresh on what even goes into a good Quality Score. There are three components to Quality Score—which is only assigned at the keyword level:
- Ad relevance: how closely your ad matches the search query. So, Google will be looking for your keywords in your ad copy. This is usually considered the easiest “first step” to improving your Quality Score because you can control your copy.
- Expected click-through rate (ECTR): Google’s determination of how likely your ad will be clicked on based on things like the query’s intent matching to your ad and your historical CTR data. I would consider this the toughest part of Quality Score to improve on since it’s up to Google’s prediction of your likelihood of pulling in a click, so there’s not much you can do to control this.
- Landing page experience: how user-friendly and relevant your landing page is to the searcher. Google will be grading you on portions like page speed load, keywords on the page, relevance, and more. Depending on your resources, this could be considered easy to improve as well since you can hop in your own site to make tweaks to the copy.
Google takes those three factors and compiles them into a score of 1 through 10 (1 being the worst and 10 being the best). Since Google runs a tight ship, I usually see any scores 7 and above being absolutely amazing, 4-6 as decent, and anything below a 4 having room for improvement.
How does Quality Score work?
Quality Score impacts your performance because it helps Google determine your ad rank. Your ad rank is your Max CPC bid x Quality score. So, if you’re bidding aggressively but still see that your top and absolute top impression rate or impression share loss due to rank metrics are off, I’m betting your keyword’s Quality Score is the culprit.
Perspective #1: Quality Score does not matter
Okay, I’ll admit, as a PPC Consultant I like to play devil’s advocate as I’m personally anti-Quality Score. There are a few reasons why:
1. It’s not actionable
It’s difficult to control and improve on because it’s based on Google’s algorithmic judgment. And Google doesn’t give us much clarification on what specifically in our ads or landing page is causing a low score.
2. It’s only applicable to search
Quality Score is only applicable to standard search campaigns. Why should search keywords be the only account component that gets held to this KPI? And with all of Google’s development over the years, search campaigns are only small fish in a big sea of other media-heavy campaign types like display or video.
To me, this indicates that there are information gaps in what makes Google’s algorithm tick when it comes to judging your other campaign types.
3. It isn’t always correlated with performance
I’ve seen folks get bent out of shape over a low Quality Score when their account is otherwise in great shape and hitting their goals. If you’re pulling in the conversions that you want at the cost you want, who cares if you have a low Quality Score? The last thing you want is to lose that stellar performance by changing something in order to appease your Quality Score column.
Here are a few examples from real accounts that back my points:
Missing data
You’ll see in the screenshot below that these keywords all have similar performance metrics. However, Quality Score data is often missing on some keywords, so to identify the differences between a six or a seven you’re left splitting hairs.
Inconsistent scores
In these next three keywords, they’re all very similar to each other and go to the same landing page, yet only one gets the “low quality score” status flag, while the others all have widely different scores.
Score-performance mismatch
This is one of the highest converting keywords in this account, yet the score is only average.
4. I’m not the only anti-Quality Scorer
Aaron Babaa, Google Ads Manager at Above All PPC, also doesn’t want to waste another minute staring at an arguably arbitrary metric. In his article Quality Score Is Dead! he makes two points:
Bot-driven scores are imperfect
Aaron writes, “Relevancy and landing page experience are bot-driven. That is, we are completely relying on Google’s bots to determine if our ads are relevant and if we deliver a satisfactory landing page experience. This system is imperfect. We know this because we have looked at plenty of ads that have low quality scores, but performed and vice versa.”
More score-performance mismatches
Like me, Aaron has also seen stellar campaigns with low Quality Scores:
“Optimizing for Quality Score often proves to be a wild goose chase. We’ve seen accounts with crazy-high CTRs, incredibly relevant ads, and beautiful, keyword-optimized landing pages… but terrible Quality Scores. We’ve even seen accounts where branded keywords (a keyword that is the name of the company and nothing more), show a Quality Score of 3.
The system is clearly flawed.”
And this may be small but one final point: Quality Score isn’t even a default column in Google Ads.
Perspective #2: Quality Score does still matter
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about PPC as a consultant, it’s that you can’t take it too personally. When I asked Mark Irvine (PPC expert and Director of Paid Media at SearchLab) about his take on the matter, he had strong pro-Quality Score feelings. In fact, he started out by saying:
“Is Quality Score dead? No, not at all.”
Here are his reasons for thinking that Quality Score still matters:
1. Its impact remains unchanged
Mark starts off by pointing out that Quality Score is the same as it’s always been.
“It’s still an equal factor in ad rank and ad rank still matters if you want to show up at the top of the SERP (or at all). If you’ve got a poor Quality Score compared to your competition, that’ll hurt you as it did before. If you’ve got a great Quality Score, you’ll be better off! The math of that all still holds as it did in 2013 when it was WordStream’s anthem.”
2. Keyword intent has been redefined
Mark goes on to say that while Quality Score hasn’t changed since 2013, everything else has:
“It used to be that (in 90 characters of ad text) it was really easy to write a bad, irrelevant, low-quality ad. Quality Score was a very simple metric to evaluate how “good” that ad was, and a really useful guidepost to make sure that advertisers were thinking of how their ads matched the searcher’s intent.
But since 2013, Google has tripled the size of its ads and added in customizable ad extensions, new formats, and responsive ads to help testing at scale.
No longer is the question “Does this ad match the search intent across one keyword signal?” but rather “Does this ad match this particular searcher’s intent across thousands of signals, including keyword, device, operating system, time of day, demographic, [and more]?”
3. The bar for “quality” has been raised
Building on his previous point, Mark says, “There used to be lots of advertisers writing bad ads, so it wasn’t difficult to write an ad with a good or great Quality Score to beat them all. Now, Google’s made it a lot easier for advertisers to write good (or at least not bad) ads.
That’s great for searchers and novice advertisers, but it raises the bar for everyone on writing a truly great ad with a significantly higher Quality Score. Quality Score still matters, it just isn’t the silver bullet it used to be.”
One thing we can agree on about Quality Score
Mark’s last point is in line with one of mine above regarding Google’s lack of specificity as to what exactly you need to do to improve your Quality Score.
“Quality Score is still important and the tactics you take to improve it will continue to yield incremental results. But advertisers today are more interested in PPC strategy than they are in tactics, and that’s an exciting thing to see. Improving your Quality Score might still improve your PPC results by 10%, but improving your PPC strategy might 10x them.”
Improving your Quality Score might still improve your PPC results by 10%, but improving your PPC strategy might 10x them.
WordStream Account Director Holly Niemiec sums up this concept nicely:
“I’ve always viewed Quality Score as more of a “check engine light” for campaigns. Meaning yes, it can impact a campaign’s performance but isn’t the end all be all. Keywords with low Quality Scores can still perform well, and sometimes even better than higher Quality Score keywords. And competitor keywords will always have a low Quality Score but can still convert well.
I think that making sure your ad copy and keywords are relevant and that you have a landing page that loads quickly is important, and if you have all of those things then that is more important than over-fixating on raising your Quality Score from a 5 to a 7.”
Is Quality Score going away?
Just to reiterate: no! As I mentioned in the intro and as Mark reinforces in his argument, the existence and math for Quality Score is still very much there and the same as it’s ever been.
I wrote this post not in response to any information Google has released (in fact, Google’s lack of any news on this metric over the past 10 years makes me wonder…but I digress)—but because clearly, I’m not the only one who has been wondering where Quality Score stands with Google and where it will stand in the future.
So is Quality Score still relevant?
So, you got two sides to the story today, and now it’s totally your call whether you choose to focus on Quality Score or not. If you’re struggling to get your ads to show up on the SERP, improving your Quality Score can help. On the opposite end, if you’re comfortable with your account then you may want to let your Quality Score exist as is.
So, what do you think? Is Quality Score still relevant? Let us know in the comments!
PPC
How Will ChatGPT & AI Impact PPC? 6 Expert Predictions

After decades of science fiction novels, films, and serialized Twilight Zone derivatives, the rapid onset and development of artificial intelligence has finally come to fruition.
No matter where you go on the internet these days, you will quickly become bombarded by the reality that not only has AI already become a valuable tool for mankind, but its long-term implications and rapid trajectory leave a multitude of concerns on our horizon.
There are technophiles who champion the advancement of artificial intelligence and its alarming ascension towards singularity, while understandably, many others are more than terrified of its risks.
Regardless of where you stand on the topic, one thing is clear for now: AI tools like ChatGPT are available, being heavily used, and will continue to evolve over future updates.
With these points in mind, it is clear that AI is going to have a significant impact on digital marketing (as well as almost every other industry and profession) in the coming months and years.
Here, I will highlight six predictions for ChatGPT, AI, and the future of PPC marketing:
- Increased competition (and higher costs)
- Improved targeting
- Enhanced ad copy
- More efficient ad campaigns
- Greater reliance on machine learning
- Continued innovation
Let’s get started.
1. Increased competition (and higher costs)
Due to AI tools like ChatGPT’s potential to provide advertisers with more powerful tools for targeting and optimizing their PPC campaigns, increased competition for an already saturated ad space may ensue. If advertisers who are leveraging ChatGPT are able to achieve better results and generate more revenue from their campaigns, then it may lead to higher prices for keywords and make it even more difficult for smaller advertisers to compete.
ChatGPT could be particularly beneficial for larger advertisers who have the resources to invest in machine learning algorithms and other advanced technologies. These advertisers may be able to use ChatGPT to gain a competitive advantage and outbid smaller advertisers for ad space. It is a possibility that increased usage of ChatGPT and other AI tools may improve blind spots that the account managers, agencies, and practitioners who are working for larger businesses otherwise would have missed.
It’s important to note that this prediction is not certain, and there are many factors that could influence the competitiveness of the paid media space for years to come. One thing is fairly certain though, and that is search advertising is not getting any cheaper.
Another issue that has been discussed is the reduction in the usage of Google Search because of ChatGPT.
The AI tool is very capable of answering nearly any question that you would search for on Google in addition to curating lists of recommendations for you for travel or entertainment. (The only caveat is that ChatGPT, in particular, is unable to source information beyond 2021 at this time.)
Google recently announced its own AI search experience, Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), which integrates AI into the SERP. This experience pushes organic search results even further down the page and may impact non-paid search traffic and click-through rates, leading to increased competition to show in Google Ads above SGE results.
The bottom line: Even with ChatGPT and Google SGE, I don’t believe that AI tools are going to be the end of search ads or search as a whole, but I do believe it is part of an evolution or transition to a more efficient model.
2. Improved targeting
ChatGPT (and AI in general) has the ability to analyze large amounts of data and generate insights about audience behavior. We already see this to a degree with smart bidding strategies within Google Ads.
Given that the target keywords and ad copy you have created are aligned, Google’s automated bidding can “learn” over time how to produce more of the desired results that you want, such as conversions, clicks, and more.
AI tools, however, have the capability of analyzing data through text, CSV, or JSON files. This means that it can analyze user behavior on websites and other digital channels to identify patterns and trends. It can track which pages users visit, how long they stay on each page, and which actions they take (such as clicking on links or filling out forms).
ChatGPT can also be a valuable tool for keyword research–curating lists and structures for ad groups for you to target. (Although we don’t recommend using it as your primary keyword research tool.)
With this information, ChatGPT could help advertisers develop more effective targeting strategies for their PPC campaigns. For example, it could help them identify the keywords and phrases that are most likely to be searched by their target audience and then use this information to create ads that are more relevant and engaging.
ChatGPT could also help advertisers segment their audience based on factors like demographics, interests, and behavior.
The bottom line: Although AI isn’t currently taking away jobs from PPC professionals, those who decide to leverage the tool will have a competitive advantage over those who choose not to. As one Google exec said at Google Marketing Live 2023, “You’re not competing against AI. You’re competing against other marketers using AI.”
3. Enhanced ad copy
One of ChatGPT’s obvious strengths is its natural language processing capabilities. By giving the AI enough information about the type of ad copy you are looking to generate, ChatGPT is able to produce persuasive (and sometimes surprisingly creative) suggestions. Whether you wish to use ChatGPT as a starting point to brainstorm headlines or to have it generate the ad copy word-for-word for you, it is an extremely powerful tool for PPC.
ChatGPT has been trained on vast amounts of text data and has the ability to generate natural-sounding language. This means that it could help advertisers create more engaging ad copy that resonates with their target audience.
Even the best marketers have periods of writer’s block or feel the copy that they have produced could be better or hit on the desired pain points in a more concise manner. ChatGPT is extremely helpful in these situations as it can also provide additional feedback on your target audience in addition to taking the copy you wrote and editing it to be more readable.
Google is also using AI to help advertisers create and enhance ad copy. They announced asset creation within Performance Max which will use generative AI to generate ad headlines that more closely match search queries.
The bottom line: AI tools like ChatGPT can provide a helpful jumping-off point, but these tools still lack the ability to humanize or infuse personality into ad copy. However, ad copy is such a critical aspect of marketing that any small improvement could have massive returns in regards to CTR and overall ad performance. (Use these ChatGPT prompts as a jumping-off point to help enhance your ad copy.)
4. More efficient ad campaigns
With improvements to both targeting and ad copy, ChatGPT and other AI tools have the ability to help advertisers create more efficient ad campaigns overall.
By making certain aspects of the process such as keyword research and ad copy less tasking, AI could help advertisers save a considerable amount of time and reduce costs. ChatGPT, for example, has the ability to analyze user behavior and preferences to understand what types of ads are most likely to be relevant and engaging to each individual user. It could analyze data such as search history, browsing behavior, and social media activity to determine what topics and products users are interested in.
With this information, ChatGPT could make more accurate and personalized ad recommendations for each user. Instead of showing generic ads that may not be relevant to the user’s interests, ChatGPT could suggest ads that are more likely to resonate with each user based on their individual preferences. The result of these more personalized ad recommendations could be a better user experience and higher engagement and conversion rates.
Additionally, ChatGPT could help advertisers optimize their ad campaigns based on user feedback.
The bottom line: By analyzing user behavior and preferences, AI could provide insights into what types of ads are most effective and which ones are not performing as well. Advertisers could use this information to adjust their targeting and ad creative to improve the overall effectiveness of their campaigns.
5. Greater reliance on machine learning
I’ve touched on the increasing use of machine learning in the paid media space over the last six years in numerous posts. My position on the topic has remained consistent, although slightly altered, over this span of time. To summarize my views: machine learning has greatly improved the ease of setting up and running campaigns, and with particular goals set within the platform, great improvements to performance can be experienced.
However, the increased usage and forfeiture of control from advertisers to the “algorithm” that is run by the entity designed to take your advertising budget isn’t always a good thing. These platforms can add unnecessary bloat to campaigns and limit your ability to make very refined adjustments that you used to be able to make. They are essentially trying to make PPC a one-size-fits-all robot that will run your ads for you.
As AI tools continue to evolve and improve, advertisers may become more reliant on machine learning algorithms to manage their PPC campaigns. As stated above, this could lead to greater efficiency and better results. However, it may also lead to a lack of insight into how money is being spent and a general lack of genuine nuance that a human can apply to a marketing campaign.
Google is trying to provide greater transparency into how Performance Max campaigns are being optimized through its improved search term insights report.
The bottom line: This prediction is my most concerning on the list for a couple of different reasons. The first is that an AI can absolutely run PPC campaigns for you. Whether at this stage or in future iterations, the technology is clearly capable of building and running PPC campaigns. This has the potential to eliminate jobs.
But it shouldn’t. And here’s why: Many search advertising professionals have found that the “best practices” AI implements aren’t always the best practice for a specific advertiser. The AI used to set up, create, and run PPC campaigns will be applying whatever best practices its creator designs it to have, many of which may be in the best interest of the company and not the advertiser from a cost-efficiency standpoint. This is why it’s going to be so important to incorporate that human touch and oversight into AI-enabled PPC campaigns.
6. Continued innovation
As ChatGPT and AI continue to evolve and improve, we can expect to see ongoing innovation in the PPC industry. This could lead to new ad formats, targeting techniques, and measurement tools that help advertisers get even better results from their campaigns (which we’ve already seen a glimpse of from Google Marketing Live 2023).
The rate at which we will see these changes is still up in the air. As mentioned, AI is progressing at a somewhat alarming speed. With any new technology, there is typically an adoption period that spans months and years that allows industries to catch up.
For example, it took years for businesses to master the process of selling online to the point where it is the primary place of commerce. The internet itself took decades to evolve. This gave everyone enough time to adjust to the changes and slowly evolve their businesses over time. With AI and ChatGPT, we could experience change at a rapid and disruptive rate that hasn’t necessarily been experienced since the industrial revolution.
Here are some of the top places I expect we’ll see continued innovation.
Ad targeting and performance
ChatGPT is just one example of this innovation, but there are likely to be many more developments in the years to come. One area where we can expect to see continued innovation in PPC is the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve ad targeting and performance. As AI and machine learning technologies continue to improve, advertisers will have access to more advanced tools and algorithms for analyzing user behavior and preferences, identifying trends, and optimizing ad campaigns.
New ad formats and channels
Another area where we can expect to see innovation is in the use of new ad formats and channels. For example, as voice assistants and smart speakers become more prevalent, advertisers may start exploring ways to deliver ads through these devices. Similarly, we may see new types of ads that are more interactive, personalized, or immersive, such as augmented reality (AR) ads or virtual reality (VR) ads.
Measurement and attribution of ad performance
Finally, we can expect to see continued innovation in the measurement and attribution of ad performance. As more and more users interact with ads across multiple devices and channels, advertisers will need better ways to track and analyze these interactions to understand the impact of their ad campaigns.
The bottom line: The result of this continued innovation in the PPC advertising industry could be a more effective and efficient advertising ecosystem, with advertisers able to reach their target audience more accurately and users experiencing more relevant and engaging ads. It also means that advertisers need to be tuned in to the updates happening in the PPC landscape and be ready to make changes and experiment to continue seeing good results.
The bottom line: AI’s impact on PPC marketing
Overall, the future of PPC advertising looks bright, with plenty of opportunities for advertisers to achieve their marketing goals, especially when using AI capabilities to enhance campaigns rather than relying on it fully.
As AI continues to evolve, it will be more important than ever to stay on top of the curve and keep an eye on the latest updates and innovations.
Here are the six ways AI will impact PPC:
- Increased competition (and higher costs)
- Improved targeting
- Enhanced ad copy
- More efficient ad campaigns
- Greater reliance on machine learning
- Continued innovation
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