When I was a kid, my favorite mysteries were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels.
They all have great quotes, but one of my favorites comes from Hound of the Baskervilles When Holmes told Watson:
“The world is full of obvious things that no one can observe.”
I think if Sir Doyle were alive today as a digital marketer in paid search, he might rewrite this sentence to be more like: “Google will always leave a trail that points directly to the future of PPC, if you only Accept that it’s time to look.”
I recently decided to check it out and the results I found were eye-opening.
I’ve come across countless breadcrumbs, many of which point to different places.
However, a core group clearly revealed PPC industry.
Clue 1: The new Google Ads scripting experience
The script for Google Ads is almost as long as the platform itself.
However, ask around and you might have a hard time finding people who have consistently used scripts in their PPC campaigns or who have ever used any of them.
Google wants to change that.
Version 2 of the Google Ads Scripts experience is officially available, a huge step forward for Google, bringing this feature to the forefront and supporting its use with a robust information and training portal.
What it tells us: As Google pushes automation, it’s important to understand that going with the flow is not an option.
It is becoming a necessity.
When it comes to launching, optimizing, and maintaining campaign performance while scaling budgets, it becomes increasingly challenging to stay on top of things without any help.
With this new product, Google is making a clear statement about the future, near and far, of PPC.
There will be an increasing focus on automating your PPC campaign efforts, and google script here for you.
Clue 2: Acquisition of Looker
bystander is a business intelligence (BI) tool that charts, graphs, and displays data so you can identify and take action on problems and opportunities.
This app is in the same category as Microsoft’s Tableau and Power BI.
Three years ago, Google acquired Looker for $2.6 billion.
The acquisition completes Google’s much-needed marketing funnel UI-to-data presentation pipeline.
Google had built Big Query years ago, which allowed them to have the data warehouse part of the data pipeline, but they still lacked the BI part.
The Looker acquisition enables Google to provide users with a complete set of data tools from start to finish.
Users no longer have to venture out of the Google ecosystem to acquire the platforms and applications they need to run marketing services with end-to-end management.
what does it tell us: Dealing with structured data and larger datasets outside the marketing funnel UI will become the norm for digital marketers.
As a PPC manager, you may not have to be a certified data and analytics expert, but you must be able to easily update datasets, manage your campaigns, and manipulate data in the BI application of your choice.
Clue 3: Broad match and responsive ad extensions
Is it just me, or is Google trying to push the “broad match” bid strategy and “responsive” ad setting option whenever it gets a chance?
When adding keywords to a new campaign, you will receive a stern disclaimer if you do not specify broad match for your keywords.
Or how about a red text status warning when viewing campaign keywords?
You think there is a problem, but this is just a “warning” that you can get more conversions if you choose “broad match” keywords for your ad group.
Then you have to deal with display campaigns!
When setting up a new display campaign, Google hides the standard display ad options and forces you to create responsive display ads.
what does it tell us: Google’s recommended “advice” (always give more control to Google) has been going on for over a decade.
All I have to do is point to the expanded text ad to show you how it all ends.
Google will have more control over our campaigns, and Google can do almost everything from campaign settings to ad copy and bidding strategy choices.
Clue 4: Google Glass announcement at I/O 2022
The long-awaited return of “Google Glasses” (officially known as Proto 29) was announced with a smooth video presentation at the annual Google I/O event.
While the video has relatively few details, it does get people talking about a potential use case, the ability of the glasses to translate foreign languages.
It tells us: things are changing and will always happen.
If you hope to become an expert in all adware and marketing strategies and then continue to use those skills throughout your career, you will be very disappointed.
Once “Google Glass” is released and widely adopted, we will need to learn and create campaigns for a whole new advertising platform.
Not only that, but if you think Google just released this video to brag about a niche product that’s never going to catch on massively, then you’ve got another thing going on.
It’s the Google equivalent of planting a flag and saying, “This market share is ours, and it’s going to be huge!”
So, you have two options.
You can put your head down and hope for a shooting star, and you’ll never have to use this groundbreaking technology in your PPC work.
Or, you can see it as an opportunity to set up Google Alerts for any news related to Google Glasses, and start learning as much as you can to become a leader in this new field.
Clue 5: “Automatically Created Assets” Beta Feature
Seamlessly navigate between the Bidding and Start and End Dates tabs in the campaign menu, and you’ll see the biggest clues to the future of PPC.
Google Declare the “Automatically Created Assets” function:
“…will allow Google to use content from your landing page, domain, and ad to help you generate titles, descriptions, and other assets. Google will provide you with automated tools to customize your keywords based on the relevance of your keywords Assets. This may improve the relevance and performance of the ad.”
what does it tell us: If you read the statement carefully, you will realize that this feature changes everything.
In theory, all it takes is one function for Google to find relevant keywords to bid on for your business, create headlines and descriptions for search ads, and point ads to relevant landing pages.
In case you haven’t noticed, these behaviors make up the bulk of what PPC managers create every day, and will dramatically change their fundamental job as marketing professionals.
The future of PPC
So what does all this mean and how does this affect the day-to-day job responsibilities of PPC marketers?
Data tracking and analysis
If you haven’t noticed in your day-to-day work, making sure your data is labeled, tracked, sorted, and graphed is an important part of the job.
As these elements become more complex and clean data reigns supreme, this will become a more important part of your day.
you probably don’t need to be a mature person data scientistbut you will definitely need to learn how to aggregate data and manipulate it in the future.
system for managing administrative activities
The days of directly “pulling” PPC campaigns are numbered.
We may be setting up and managing systems and machines that “pull” the levers for us.
From writing JavaScript code that runs on thousands of input data points to designing a special application on Google Glass, indirect management of activities seems likely.
Automating jobs will become jobs
There is no doubt that automating more of the tasks we perform now will be critical to the future of PPC.
The new Google Script experience is all about automation, but you know it can be a tough job drive automation If you’ve ever written a script.
With the Auto-Created Assets feature, it’s clear that a greater role in setting up the main site to include the best components for Google to use in an automated fashion will be essential.
It might not be the role you intend to play, but it might just be the role you need to play in the future of PPC.
end (and start)
I may be right about all of these predictions, some or none of them.
But if nothing else, if history is any guide, the role of the PPC manager in 10 years will be different from the role we play now.
Just keep your eyes open for all the clues Google has to offer, and you’ll stay on top.
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Featured Image: New Africa/Shutterstock
