TEMBO’s Haydn Gush discusses the use of AI in PPC advertising and its potential pitfalls
AI has brought a lot of change to exhibition marketing over the past 12 months.
One area in particular we’ve seen it being used is to support with the creation and management of PPC advertising campaigns, with mixed results. In this piece we look at a few of the ways AI is being utilised specifically in search campaigns (for example a keyword campaign on Google Ads), and some of the potential pitfalls to look out for.
Keyword research / audience building
Many marketers can be daunted by the idea of trying to research and build a comprehensive keyword list for a PPC search campaign for their show.
AI can certainly be used to generate an initial list of keywords for a campaign in a matter of seconds, saving valuable time on this initial stage. However, while it is a good option for creating a start point to build from and develop, AI lacks the tacit knowledge of exactly what the campaign is looking to achieve, resulting in a much less targeted keyword list than is often required.
This may mean the inclusion of some very generic search terms which will result in a lot of irrelevant clicks, or some potentially valuable but more nuanced search terms being missed out.
Ultimately, the recommendation is that if AI is to be used at this stage of a PPC campaign, time should be put in place to carefully review the keyword list created and make amendments to it, ensuring the list is comprehensive and highly targeted to your audience and show.
Ad copy
The next stage of the process for a search campaign is to build out your creatives, the ads which will show for your chosen search terms. PPC platforms have very specific rules on the length of ads in particular, and this can often result in the writing process taking significant time in order to get the message completely right.
Once again, with careful prompting, there are AI programs which can be utilised to create ad copy for your campaigns, based on rules you input around message and these rules.
Indeed, even some Ad platforms have started to integrate more advanced AI copy-writing tools into their ad-managers.
However, while these can be useful to use as a testing ground, they can also often result in non-contextual, seemingly random strings of copy being generated, which need to be tweaked or even completely re-written to capture the nuances of a particular brand, product or service.
We would always recommend either writing your ads in full, or if you do use AI to use it as an idea generator but then make sure that there is a thorough proofing and editing process for every ad created before it is set live on any ad platform.
Campaign optimisation
Once a PPC campaign is live in an ad platform, it needs regular monitoring and adjustments to ensure it is performing in the best possible way against the campaign goals.
There are a number of ways in which AI can and has been used to date to support with this effort, including:
Identifying Trends: Using advanced algorithms, AI can be used to identify patterns and trends within campaign performance metrics. This analysis helps marketers understand which strategies are working well and which areas need improvement, enabling data-driven decision-making.
Automated Adjustments: AI can automate the adjustment of bidding strategies based on real-time data insights. By continuously monitoring performance metrics, AI optimises bids to maximise return on investment (ROI) and achieve campaign objectives.
Budget Allocation: AI can allocate budgets to what it deems to be the top-performing keywords and ads in a campaign. This ensures that resources are directed towards the most effective components of the campaign.
Predictive Capabilities: AI leverages historical data to make predictive assessments of future campaign performance. By forecasting trends and outcomes, AI can assist marketers in making proactive adjustments to optimise campaign strategies for better results.
However, as with the other stages of a PPC campaign, we would still recommend not leaving campaign optimisation purely down to AI to manage. While the system will be able to identify the black and white performance of a campaign based on metrics such as click-through rate and cost per click, it will not be able to understand campaign nuances such as:
- A high cost per click on some terms may not mean you want to turn these off, such as competitor search terms
- A low click-through rate may be expected on some terms which you have chosen primarily for branding and visibility purposes, particularly in early stages of a campaign
Once again, we would advocate using AI to provide recommendations for campaign optimisation, which you can then review and use as a start point before actions are taken. This will save you a lot of time but ensure that any decisions made are backed up by your knowledge and understanding of how the campaign is truly performing.
In summary, AI provides strong support in the initial groundwork for a campaign, saving time for marketers at all stages. However, as it stands AI should always be used as a start point, with resulting work and insights reviewed by a real person who truly understands what the campaign is trying to achieve and how the target audience is likely to act and react to the adverts they are seeing.
TEMBO DIGITAL is a supplier of outsourced support for the management of PPC advertising campaigns for the events industry. They have run hundreds of highly successful campaigns across the Google network and social channels including LinkedIn, the Meta network, X and TikTok.
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