I’ve been managing Google Ads since 2006, which means I’ve spent that long watching Google introduce new features, change features, rename them, and occasionally make features that I liked disappear, as if they never even existed.
If you’ve been doing this long enough, you learn not to get too attached.
Sometimes when I think about how we used to manage campaigns, that old Sesame Street song pops into my head: “One of these things is not like the other.”
Oddly enough, that describes a lot of what we used to do before automation came onto the scene.
We looked at keywords, bids, ads, search terms, and conversions and looked for the thing that didn’t belong. Which keyword was spending too much? Which ad was performing better than others? Can I spot the search term that has absolutely no business being there? We found the oddball, figured out what was going on, and made an adjustment.
Today, Google does a lot more of that for us, whether we asked it to or not.
We Lost Position. We Gained…Perspective?
Do you remember Average Position? I do!
It was one of those numbers I looked at constantly. Position 1.8? Great. Position 2.6? Maybe we’re okay there. Position 4.2? Time to start digging.
It gave us something tangible to work with. I could look at a keyword, see where it ranked among others, adjust the bid, and watch to see what happened. Did our ad move up? Did the CPC go up? Did we get more clicks or conversions? Was moving from a lower position to a higher position even worth it?
There was more manual manipulation involved, but there was also a competitive side to it. When I saw a competitor suddenly sitting above my client’s ad, it got my attention and usually got me a little fired up. Wait a minute. When did THEY get up there?
It almost became personal. Not in an unhealthy way, of course. Just in a perfectly reasonable “you’re not staying above my client if I can help it” kind of way.
Eventually, Average Position disappeared, and Google shifted us toward metrics like Top and Absolute Top Impression Share. There were valid reasons for the change, of course. The search results page itself had changed, and a simple position number no longer told the entire story.
The focus gradually shifted from “Where is my ad?” to “What did my ad actually accomplish?”
That is a more important question.
We Lost the Meaning of “Exact.” We Gained Intent.
Once upon a time, on a search engine results page not so far away, an exact match keyword was, well, exact.
There was something comforting about those little square brackets. I chose the keyword, I knew what I was bidding on, and I had a pretty good idea of what search was going to trigger my ad.
Like many other features, we saw big changes with Match Type, especially with Exact Match. It expanded to include “close variants,” then reordered words and other variations, and eventually, instead of matching for the “type” of search, it began matching for the intent.
To be honest, it’s one of the changes that is taking me a bit longer to get used to.
For many, many years, my job was building thoughtfully and carefully structured keyword lists. We needed to think about all the different ways someone might search for something, choose our match types, and add negative keywords to keep irrelevance at bay. There was security in knowing that I picked specific keywords because I wanted to show up for those searches.
After time, we learned that people don’t always search the way we think they will. They misspell things. They use different words. They ask full questions. They describe a problem instead of naming the thing that solves it. Google has become much better at understanding those connections, which means we no longer have to predict every possible variation someone might type into the search box.
That’s the gain.
The loss? Sometimes Google’s interpretation of “intent” and mine aren’t exactly on speaking terms.
Cue Sesame Street: “One of these things is not like the other…”
That’s why experience still matters. Google might understand intent, but I understand my client’s business. My job now is to give Google room to find opportunities I might have missed, while keeping an eye out for the ones that definitely don’t belong.
We Lost Some Control. We Gained Smarter Bidding.
We used to have much more control over what we were willing to pay for a click. We could look at a keyword, change the bid, and watch what happened next. There was something satisfying about that. You pulled a lever and waited to see what clicked into place. Sometimes you hit the jackpot, but you also spent a lot of time pulling that lever. This was not always a great use of time.
Nowadays, automated bidding analyzes millions of real-time signals per second. This is something no human can replicate. That’s a huge gain, but it also means handing Google your wallet and trusting the algorithm to spend wisely.
We Lost the A/B Test. We Gained a Whole Lot More.
I used to write two ads, run them against each other, and see which one performed better. Maybe I changed the headline, switched up the call to action, or tried a different message. Either way, I knew exactly what I was testing and could see which ad performed better. It was very straightforward and easy to understand.
Then came Responsive Search Ads.
Instead of creating two complete ads and running both to see which was the best performer, we now give Google multiple headlines and multiple descriptions that it can mix and match to best suit the search and the person behind it. Gone are the days of the simple A/B test.
Google can test so many more combinations now, far faster than I ever could manually, and that is an obvious gain.
The only loss I feel here is that every once in a while, I still miss a good old-fashioned A/B Test.
We Lost Some Visibility. We Gained Scale.
Back then, I could practically retrace my own footsteps through an account. I knew the keyword, the bid, the position, the search term, and the ad that showed. When something went sideways, I could usually figure out why because chances were, I was the one who changed it.
Today, Google is making decisions all over the place.
Bids are changing auction by auction. Ads are being pieced together on the fly. Match types are stretching their definition of “match,” and Google is factoring in signals I don’t always get to see.
Sometimes I feel like Google is saying, “Trust me, I got this.”
And I’m saying, “Okay…but can you show your work?”
That’s the visibility we’ve lost.
But here’s the gain: Google can pull a whole lot more levers, a whole lot faster than I ever could. It can adjust bids, match searches, and test combinations across thousands of auctions while I’m still very much watching what it’s doing.
Because let’s be clear, automation doesn’t mean handing Google my client’s wallet and saying, “Have fun!”
I’m still in the account, watching search terms, checking lead quality, questioning decisions, and stepping in when something doesn’t look right. Google may be pulling more of the levers these days, but I’m still standing at the controls.
We Lost Repetition. We Gained Focus.
Most of my colleagues will gasp when they hear me say this, but not everything about the old days was better.
I loved the hands-on work, and still do, but there was a lot of repetition. Adjusting individual bids, building endless keyword lists, testing ads one at a time, and making the same changes over and over took time.
Automation didn’t take away the hands-on work. It just changed it.
I’m still building campaigns, maintaining accounts, reviewing search terms, watching performance, and making adjustments. The difference is that I can spend less time making hundreds of tiny changes and more time digging into the account and catching the things that actually need my attention.
Some Things Haven’t Changed
After 20+ years of Google Ads, I’ve learned not to get too comfortable. Just when you think you’ve got everything figured out, Google changes the rules, redesigns the platform, moves the buttons, or decides that something you’ve used for years is no longer necessary. And somehow, we adapt.
We’ve lost some control, visibility, and a few old favorites along the way. But we’ve also gained speed, scale, and technology that can do things I couldn’t have imagined when I started in 2006.
What we haven’t lost is the need to pay attention.
Automation can adjust the bids, interpret the searches, mix and match the ads, and pull more levers than I ever could. But I’m still there, building, maintaining, watching, questioning, and occasionally asking Google to please explain itself.
And maybe that’s why that old Sesame Street song still fits so well.
After all these years, I’m still looking through an account asking, “Which one of these things is not like the others?”
The difference is that Google is looking too.
And whether we agree or disagree, I’m still not handing over the wallet.
