How is automation changing the PPC landscape?
It’s no secret that automation through constantly advancing technologies can assist PPC experts in their everyday pursuits and marketing activities, despite being subject to questions of morality over whether it will eventually become ‘smart’ enough to diminish the need for specific roles.
Circus PPC Manager, Meg, explores how automated practices are changing the PPC landscape, and why PPC experts should be adopting new ways of working, rather than avoiding them.
“Since joining Circus and starting my career in PPC over four years ago, there’s been so many changes across the PPC landscape and how we as PPC experts do our job.
Simultaneously, we’ve also experienced a global pandemic – something we never thought we’d have to adapt to, but have somehow made work.
Scepticism around, and a resistance to, automated practices, is extremely damaging to the future of PPC, and unfortunately, those who can’t adapt their ways of working to embrace automation, will get left behind as technologies continue advancing, and it becomes more and more common.”
Keeping up with competitors
“When it comes to PPC, timing is everything – and is just as important when it comes to the early adoption of automation techniques, helping PPC experts to keep up with or even overtake the competition who might not be as well-versed in using automated marketing techniques.
Staying one step ahead of the competition by being ‘early adopters’ of automated practices will also give PPC experts the chance to completely understand how different automation methods work, and more importantly, how different automation methods work specifically for them. Those late to the party will always be one step behind, constantly playing catch-up due to the speed at which technology changes.
Initially, approaching automation with an open mind and plenty of patience will help those hesitant to best understand what automation has to offer, and through rigorous testing, discover a method of automation that works for them and their account performance.”
Advantageous automation
“Following careful testing and implementation, automation can be a huge time-saver for PPC experts, taking care of some of the mundane and time-consuming day-to-day tasks that steal time from more exciting, important matters.
The more that PPC experts are able to automate, the more time can be saved and further spent analysing data that will inform future strategy. This is extremely advantageous to the state of account performance, and provides PPC experts with the data-driven reports, trends and analysis that will help them to elevate results.
Extra time accumulated through automated processes also frees up time for PPC experts to focus on the tasks that can’t yet be fully automated, such as analysing competitor websites, or continuing to build on client relationships.”
Proving sceptics wrong
“Does automation really improve account performance?
Won’t it just make me disposable?
There’s a lot of questions around both the effectiveness and morality of automation, but it’s important to look at automation as something that will help, not hinder, account performance.
Depending on your campaign goals, automation might not necessarily improve your account immediately – but it can assist with repetitive and time-consuming activities that might usually prevent you from spending time on the things that will improve account performance. Think industry research, data analysis, and looking into competitor behaviours.
Equally as important to understand is that automation doesn’t mean replacement – there’s no stand-in for a human being, and understanding human behaviours is a huge part of what we do to best position our advertisements to reach a desired target audience.”
Where should I start?
As previously mentioned, automation products, services and methods are constantly changing, improving, and advancing. So, trialling and testing different ways of using automation is a great starting point to best begin to understand what works best for you and your clients.
However, don’t be scared to continue testing as you go – the technologies behind automation will only get bigger and better, so re-trialling automated methods that haven’t worked in the past might help you to continuously improve your methods of working.
We’re only skimming the surface of automation, and there’s so much more to explore. There’s plenty of ways that, in retrospect, automation is already helping us to create reports, estimations and forecasts for client accounts.
By working with, and not against, automation, PPC experts can benefit from the positive enhancements that it brings to the work that they’re already doing. In turn, this will help both them and their clients the opportunity to more productively use their time to look into improving account success.
