A Perfect Storm

We as digital marketers are in the middle of perfect storm. With rise of machine learning and large-scale automation, there is less control over campaigns, costs and results.

Here is the small list of things done by Google, while pushing for automation and meanwhile removing all the controls that marketers had in running the cost-effective campaigns,

1. ?Audiences have replaced keywords as the primary PPC control lever
2. ?Auto-applied campaign changes
3. Stating privacy claims, a lot of search term data has been removed
4. Introduction/Pushing of smart features
5. Keywords are no longer granular enough
6. End of Expanded Text Ads

In order to pace with Google, we marketers are following either of the three routes

1. Old School – Focus on keeping granular control, exact match-based structures and negatives everywhere
2. ?New School – Completely leaning on automation, with broad match on and consolidated campaigns
3. In – Between – It is a fusion of the above two

The Old School approach will make the marketer go crazy in order to have control over the campaigns. The New School approach leaves us to the mercy of Google Machine Learning. The In-between approach leaves us hanging, and thus making it worst of both worlds.

In this ever-changing digital world and for pacing up with Google, we can do the following

1. Make Account Machine Learning Friendly – In simple words, resist the urge of hyper-segmentation
2. Basics are Everything – Do the little things extremely well, like align ads to the intent of the user, deliver a relevant message and have a delightful on-page experience
3. Be Liberal in the Exclusions – To ensures machine focuses on what you want
4. ?Leverage the Data to Make Machine Smarter – Better data will lead to higher profitability. Along with conversion data, business and financial data is needed to maximize your chances of success.
5. Set the Machines for Success – Automation is here to stay, and this is going to impact the account structure
6. Audience is Everything – Keep your audience in mind, when you structure your PPC campaign and put yourself in the mind of audience