Creating and managing campaigns can be time consuming. That's why Google is leaning towards automation. A choice validated by more and more companies that hope to save time while limiting budget losses.
This is the great trend of advertising platforms: to make the use of ads accessible to as many people as possible. When we take into account their economic model, which is based exclusively on a remuneration indexed on advertising budgets, we then understand Google's desire to simplify the system.
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The arrival of the Performance Max campaigns completes what was already undertaken by the Discovery campaigns: today the search engine reinvents the way of doing SEA by allowing advertisers to access all the Google Ads tools from a single campaign. A smart move that should make your actions more efficient on all channels: Search, Display, Gmail, Maps, Shopping and YouTube.
The focus is on conversion with a system that requires minimal setup. It is the continuous collection of data that allows you to manage your bidding strategies and channels in an optimal and automatic way.
The primary skill is therefore no longer the ability to program and adjust a Google Ads campaign but to be able to examine the results to better anticipate them.
A huge potential is then offered to companies that want to invest in paid advertising, which will have every interest in surrounding themselves with experts on the issue, as competitiveness is likely to be fueled by the automatic system proposed by the Tech giant.
1. Configure your objectives
The problems linked to Google Ads are still present: if you ask for leads, Google will undoubtedly give you many leads, but you are looking for leads that convert into customers. For this it is essential to have the right setup to get the right feedbacks that will feed the machine.
2. Properly optimize your feeds
Google uses the data in your feed to show users what it thinks are the best images, titles, descriptions and prices for each of its ads. If your inventory (e.g. your Google Merchant Feed) has incomplete data or is poorly optimized in terms of SEO, you risk paying much more for your CPC and thus your conversions.
3. Understand the importance of first-party data
As discussions about privacy policies and the use ofthird-party data become more heated, it is important to look at strategies where the company asks for feedback directly from users (first-party data). This often requires Growth methodologies.
Yes, Google's AI would potentially always be able to know which audience to target with relevance, but why waste thousands of Euros before you get a result you could have provided from the start?
4. The art of copywriting and brand messaging
Going from several campaigns on different channels to a single multi-channel campaign brings a risk of alienation due to the heterogeneity of your messages. It is important to understand that if users are actively looking for you on search, your ads will also be on other channels where you will interfere with the user experience.
Working on your copywriting and the homogeneity of your messages with a global vision will allow your brand to be both impactful and memorable.
Google Ads campaigns are getting better every day thanks to artificial intelligence. Google is increasing the use of its AI on all its services in order to collect a maximum of data describing the behavior of Internet users. The analysis of this data allows it to improve constantly, by proposing more and more targeted campaigns. At the same time, they are becoming more and more automatable.
If this is globally positive for advertisers, we should not forget that the goal of Google (and others) is still to make profit. With this information in mind, having blind faith in these automation tools does not seem to be a good idea. Keeping a human expertise behind the management of the campaigns is therefore a necessity. The tools should be taken for what they are, i.e. indicators/helpers to define the way forward.
An expert Social and Google Ads manager is the only one who can steer the campaign in the right direction, without leaving the control to automation options. This avoids unnecessary expenses by ensuring that the campaign follows the right strategy.
At Growth Agence, our marketing solutions implement AI automation and human reflection in a complementary way to achieve ever higher metrics. In addition to our Ads expertise, we complement each other in the optimization of our campaigns thanks to our additional expertise in branding, copywriting and a tried and tested Growth methodology.
A very well known equation in the startup world is that of Frederick Vallaeys in his first book Digital Marketing in an AI World:
HUMANS+ MACHINES > MACHINES ALONE