Despite the heavy shift towards automation in PPC, agencies remain necessary for providing unmatched value. Automation doesn’t mean “set and forget.” Google and Microsoft Ad campaigns still require a strategic human touch to ensure campaigns actually perform.
1. Active Management vs. “Set and Forget”
While the automated platform tools are powerful, they still require experts to make sure they are set up correctly and deliver your desired results. Here are some of the important things agencies provide:
- Well-structured campaigns built on proven PPC best practices.
- Constant monitoring to ensure automation doesn’t drift off course.
- Strategic oversight to match the account goals that machines can’t replicate.
Someone who’s inexperienced in Google or Microsoft Ads may not understand all the nuances of each platform, and may not have the time to carefully examine their campaigns and make sure that the algorithm is still bidding towards the right people.
2. Guarding Your Budget from “Bad Traffic.”
Google and Microsoft’s automation often maps keywords to irrelevant queries and spam leads, leading to wasted spend.
- The Reality: There is currently no automation that perfectly excludes bad traffic.
- Spam: This is especially prevalent for lead generation accounts, as algorithms may bid towards spam leads.
- The Agency Value: Experts stay on top of search terms to ensure your ads are served only to the right people.
We’ve seen it happen multiple times: a PMax campaign for a lead generation client will start bidding on and driving a high number of conversions on one particular search term, and none of those leads are legit. This completely throws the algorithm off, and once that term is excluded, the campaign struggles to drive conversions.
In that situation, if you’re on a Target CPA bidding strategy, the campaign may struggle to spend and return to normal performance without a reset. This is one of the many examples of where a novice PPC manager may never be able to diagnose such an issue. An agency is there to stay on top of that and keep your campaigns running well.
3. Optimizing Automated Bidding
Campaigns using Target CPA or ROAS strategies still need active management.
- The Risk: If you set an unattainable target, your campaigns will stop spending, and traffic will die off.
- The Solution: Agencies optimize these strategies to their fullest, balancing aggressive goals with realistic delivery.
Much like the previous section, these bidding strategies rely heavily on realistic goals and accurate conversion data. If you’re not paying attention to your campaign when one of those targets is no longer viable, you risk losing out on potential conversions.
4. Technical Support & Feed Management
For ecommerce advertisers, AI isn’t a “magic fix” for technical failures.
- The Risk: If your shopping feed goes down, your ads stop showing, and customers go to competitors.
- The Agency Value: An agency provides immediate troubleshooting to resolve feed issues and avoid costly downtime.
Google and Microsoft don’t have a magical AI tool to troubleshoot and solve most of these technical issues, especially feed issues. You may still drive traffic, but you may not realize right away why your campaign is no longer getting sales.
5. Navigating an Evolving Landscape
AI and PPC features (like “AI Max“) are constantly changing. Agencies act as your filter and navigator in this ever-evolving space.
Warning: The “Auto-Apply” Trap
Google in particular often pushes garbage “auto-apply” recommendations that are in the platform’s best interest, not yours. Google can quickly waste your money, even if it doesn’t produce desirable results. Agencies protect your bottom line by manually vetting these recommendations, rather than blindly accepting them.
In the end, an agency puts the client’s best interests first, ensuring that these automated strategies serve the client’s goals, rather than just the platform’s algorithm.
Why Agencies Still Matter
While Google and Microsoft make it sound easy to just run campaigns on automated bid strategies and utilize automated recommendations, your ad campaigns are very complex and still require active management. If you’re not paying close attention to your account, checking your conversion data, you risk your campaigns running off the rails, and bidding towards bad traffic or spam leads.
