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Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a popular buzzword in digital marketing. Yet, it is often a term that’s only partially understood.
The problem is, like the term “digital marketing” itself, AI is a broad term that encompasses many different types of machine-based learning and intelligence.
There’s Rule Based AI, deep AI and the sci-fi level AI seen in many movies, such as The Terminator, Eagle Eye, iRobot and the less-inventively-named A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
As a PPC manager, you don’t have to worry about sci-fi movie artificial intelligence. Deep and Rule Based AI, on the other hand, are both impactful to PPC marketing.
This guide will explore the differences between rule-based AI and deep, machine learning AI. Specifically, we’ll investigate how these two forms of AI affect PPC marketing on Google Ads.
This section will look at how rule-based AI works and how to add this type of artificial intelligence to your Google Ads account.
Rule-based AI is the most easy-to-understand type of automation. As its name suggests, it only operates based on a predefined set of rules.
Let’s simplify this concept.
Suppose your PPC campaign controls are a bunch of pullable levers. There’s a lever that increases or decreases bids, a lever that pauses a keyword, ad group or campaign, a lever to increase or decrease the budget, etc.
As a PPC manager, your job is to decide when to pull each lever. Easy, right?
What happens when you need to sleep? You have three options:
With rule-based AI, you create rules when each lever should be pulled. For instance, you can create a rule that dictates if a campaign sees a significant increase in CPC, it is paused to preserve the budget.
Alternatively, if a keyword sees a sudden spike in clicks and conversions, the rule-based AI knows to pull the lever to increase bids. This action is based on the preset rules that you’ve set.
You can even tell rule-based AI just to notify you when something changes substantially. Then, you can manually make the appropriate changes. You can customize every rule the way you see fit to make your life easier.
Thus, you can sleep like a baby knowing that rule-based AI is on the job.
There are several ways to set up automated rules in Google Ads and they are all easy to set up.
Arguably, the simplest way to enact rule-based AI is through the Google Ads dashboard. From the Tools menu in the top menu bar, you can find the Rules option. From there, you can begin applying automated rules.
When you begin creating your first automated rule, you’re prompted to select the kind of rule you want to set. This boils down to one of four options:
You’re also given the option to schedule when the rule is live. This enables you to only automate your strategies when you want.
There are two types of automation in Google Ads:
In the previous section, we touched on rule-based AI.
Automated rules are beneficial when you want to semi-automate your PPC management.
It’s exactly what it sounds like: a set of rules that dictate when the AI should make a change to your campaigns.
As mentioned, automated rules are customizable and can be set to a specific schedule. This gives you a lot of flexibility with how much, or how little, you automate your strategies.
Automated scripts act the same as rules. Again, these are both examples of rule-based AI. The primary difference is that you’re writing your own scripts instead of selecting which rules to apply.
If you can write rule-based scripts, you can create intricate and highly conditional parameters for when the AI makes a change.
There are three common ways that scripts are applied to PPC campaigns.
1. Automating mind-numbing PPC tasks: PPC managers have a long list of responsibilities. Not all of these tasks are important, yet they all contribute to the health of your campaigns.
Automating these tedious, repetitive tasks with an automated script saves you lots of time that you can put towards more vital responsibilities.
2. Improve Account Performance: One of the primary reasons that AI is essential for campaign management is that you can’t watch your campaigns every hour of the day. Not only do you need to do things like eat, sleep and spend time with family, but you also have several other PPC marketing tasks on your plate.
With the proper script, you can automate many of these tasks. You can automatically adjust bids on keywords, stop showing ads for irrelevant search terms, discover and pause underperforming keywords, etc.
You can even set automated scripts that trigger ads based on weather conditions!
3. Make Fewer Mistakes: To err is human. You can’t help it. However, you can catch those mistakes and fix them early on with the help of automated scripts.
For instance, you can create a script that detects broken landing page links and then pauses campaigns that send traffic to these pages. Automated scripts can also detect when a product is no longer available and then pause ads accordingly.
You can even create a script that alerts you via text message when your account has a billing error!
AI systems are handy tools, but they aren’t without their shortcomings either. There are both advantages and disadvantages of using a rule-based AI.
Some AI tools require a significant investment, which means they are less accessible to marketers working on a budget. You may have to wait until you start generating sales before you can afford these advanced AI tools.
Rule-based AI is available for no cost right in the Google Ads dashboard. This makes it extremely accessible to all PPC marketers. Plus, rule-based AI is very straightforward to set up. You create a lever, set the rules and let the AI do its thing.
While rule-based AI is easy to set up, it may take some time to become familiar with the system and use it effectively. You’re going to have to spend some hours learning, playing around with different rule settings and figuring out the best uses.
If you are new to PPC marketing and data science, this can be a daunting task. You may not even know where to begin applying rules or which metrics matter most. You may have to spend several days exploring the different settings and controls before you find what makes the most sense for your account.
Seasoned PPC marketers know just how scarce free time is when managing a large Google Ads account. Any time you automate a task, it frees up valuable time that can be spent on other marketing tasks.
PPC management is littered with tasks that, while necessary steps in the process, are incredibly time-consuming and not all that important. Automation takes care of these cumbersome parts and allows you to commit more of your time to the duties that demand your direct expertise and knowledge.
With the time-saving power of automation, some PPC managers are under the false assumption that they can create a set of rules and leave the AI to its own devices.
In theory, with the perfect set of rules, this would work. However, there are a few problems with this premise. First, PPC data is anything but predictable. Anomalies and data outliers can create unexpected conflicts with your rules that the AI may not know how to handle.
Even the simplest rule can produce unintended consequences, unless you take the time to create conditions for every possible scenario. This is both a time-consuming and daunting endeavor.
Yet, these added conditions and sub-rules can easily conflict. Your AI may exclude valuable keywords instead of pausing them because of conflicting rules.
For these reasons, you must monitor the results after every new rule or condition you set.
Deep AI is where things get more interesting. This is AI that thinks, responds and performs tasks based on the data that it receives. This is known as machine learning. This section will explore this more intelligent side of AI.
The best way to understand the differences between rule-based systems and deep AI is to look at the levels of automation possible in Google Ads.
Humans handle everything in the Google Ads account. Dashboards and spreadsheets are used to collect, track and help analyze data, but all inputs are entered manually.
At level 1, the account has preset rules that monitor data and alert when certain events occur. However, the system does not take any action beyond letting the marketer know a change has happened.
For example, many PPC managers use Google’s Anomaly Detector. This scans your account and triggers an alert when metrics hit a certain threshold above or below what’s expected. The marketer can then act on these alerts how they see fit.
This is the stage where rule-based systems are put in place to automate individual management tasks. It’s important to note that these tasks are not connected in any way. An example would be an automated rule that pauses any keywords with a Quality Score lower than a set number.
Level 3 involves a mix of rule-based and deep AI. This automation system would handle multiple, inter-connected tasks. The system may be designed with rules that dictate when changes are made.
However, the system also has the deeper intelligence to understand the interconnected nature of its various tasks. It’s capable of learning how a change to one part bleeds into the rest.
An example is a system that automates both bid and budget setting. The AI uses rules to determine when changes are made, but it’s smart enough to know that raising bids will necessitate an adjustment to the budget.
At this stage, the AI is capable of full automation. Human oversight is recommended, but no longer required. All the marketer may need to do is set the goals of the campaign and the maximum budget. Then, the AI covers the rest.
The AI makes decisions not based on rules but on its own matured understanding of what strategies work best. That said, the system may take some time to build this understanding, which means you may need more human intervention in the beginning period.
This level of AI does not exist; it’s closer to the sci-fi variety. However, it may be what the future holds if the technology continues to improve at its current rate. This type of AI system would be so smart that it would know how to grow any business with Google Ads — even without being told how.
The AI would be more intelligent than a team of PPC experts and the power to manage every task simultaneously. Essentially, you could write a blank check to Google Ads with complete confidence that the AI would turn your money into profitable growth for your business.
Some marketers have been hesitant about applying artificial intelligence to their campaigns and strategies. The idea of giving up control over parts of their digital marketing strategy is unsettling to them.
This is why rule-based AI is more popular. You’re able to benefit from automation, but you still retain control through the set of rules.
Yet, with successful brands adopting deeper AI systems and achieving great success, even the marketers who were hesitant about machine learning and Google Ads are coming around.
The truth is that deep AI is simply unavoidable for two main reasons:
Not only does Google Ads use AI to make the lives of advertisers easier, but also search users. For instance, Google Ads uses artificial intelligence to connect relevant products to shoppers based on their previous searches, purchases and other signals.
This serves the greater good of both parties. Advertisers connect their products to more relevant audiences and search users find the right products that fit their searches and user profile.
Managing an analytics account would be easy with a magic crystal ball. You’d know exactly when a shift in keyword performance was about to occur or when a campaign needed to be paused.
Unfortunately, this isn’t Camelot and there is no magic future-telling sorcery. However, there is data and predictive analytics.
Deep AI can look at current and past data performance and make predictions about the future.
For instance, your AI system may notice that CPC values are trending up. Based on signals in the data, it’s smart enough to know that this trend will continue into tomorrow and the next day. Thus, it pauses that area of your account until the costs decrease.
Timing is everything in PPC. With accurate, predictive forecasting, you see around corners. Risks and opportunities that are on the horizon are detected early on.
Detecting the early warning signs of risks in your account leaves you with plenty of time to correct the issue before it negatively impacts performance.
Similarly, the sooner you recognize an emerging opportunity, the quicker you can capitalize. This agility allows you to maximize the positive impact of each new possibility.
You’ll beat the competition to the punch and establish yourself at the top of the SERPs for every emerging keyword and topic.
This is an unbeatable advantage and one of the top benefits of using deep AI.
In the final section of this guide, we’ll look at PPC Signal, a Google Ads management tool that uses deep AI to assist marketers.
You’re already familiar with the ins and outs of managing a Google Ads account. It’s a lot of work! It’s an extensive process that includes many responsibilities and duties that need to be managed productively.
It’s a lot more than writing a few ads, setting up campaigns and pressing go.
PPC managers have tons of time-consuming duties, such as:
If you’re running a large account with several campaigns, you have hundreds to thousands of ad groups and many times more keywords.
Without AI, a PPC manager has to analyze the data from all of these various components manually. Then, they have to develop recommendations based on the data, before implementing changes according to their conclusions.
It’s a massive undertaking that becomes a near-impossibility the larger your Google Ads account grows.
While Google Ads offers some built-in AI tools (mostly rule-based AI), these options only provide modest automation. Essentially, they allow you to put some tasks on auto-pilot (with some occasional manual intervention).
However, if you care about maximizing the ROI from Google Ads, you need a more sophisticated AI system, like PPC Signal.
Instead of analyzing every part of your account manually to uncover insights, PPC Signal does this for you. Every interesting change is detected and analyzed before being presented in the tool’s dashboard.
The system is detecting changes and fully analyzing them to present you with only the finished insights.
This is where rule-based AI falls short. Even if the system can make automatic changes, you’re still required to perform the deep analysis yourself.
On the other hand, PPC Signal is able to study and learn from the data to detect whether metrics are trending, shifting, spiking or otherwise acting abnormally.
If there are hidden opportunities or potentially damaging risks in your accounts, the PPC Signal system let’s you know. It’s like having a full-time watchman patrolling your campaigns for problems.
Combining the capabilities of deep AI with your PPC management process is a winning strategy for several reasons.
Automated rules and scripts can detect and alert you of anomalies in your campaigns. This is helpful, but only to a point. You’re still left to analyze these outliers and decide what action to take.
PPC Signal presents verified and completed insights that require almost no additional analysis.
Here’s an example of a signal presented by the PPC Signal tool:
The signal includes:
By clicking the Explore button at the bottom of any signal, you’re brought to an expanded page that shows the signal in even greater detail.
There are many useful features on this page. For instance, you can add other metrics to the chart to see how the presented change affects other parts of your campaigns.
The expanded view also gives you a clearer picture of the change compared to past performance. You can even view the data as a table and export it to your spreadsheets.
However, one of the most valuable options on this menu is the Take Action button. This feature provides you with a suggested next-step action that you can take to resolve the signal.
PPC Signal uses its deep AI thinking to deliver this suggestion. Thus, you don’t even have to analyze or think critically about how to mitigate risks or capitalize on opportunities. PPC Signal can do this for you.
This is a valuable feature if you’re new to PPC marketing and may lack the expertise to know how to best use the insight. It’s also helpful for experienced PPC managers that just don’t have the time to analyze each signal themselves.
Every insight that PPC Signal uncovers is based on your specific account. These are not general suggestions but direct changes happening to your campaigns. PPC Signal uses your past and current data to determine noteworthy changes.
Naturally, some signals are more impactful than others, especially to your unique PPC marketing goals. For example, if your goal is profit-based, you want to start with cost-related signals, like changes to CPC.
Luckily, you can apply several filters to your list of active signals:
With these filters, you can get right to the signals that matter most to you. If you want to maximize your clicks, you can start by filtering by click-related metrics. Alternatively, you can select a specific campaign to optimize first.
This saves you from digging through all of the active changes to find the most interesting ones.
PPC management is easily the most data-intensive role in digital marketing. You need people on your team that are adept at marketing and data science and analysis.
Unfortunately, it’s rare to find a PPC manager with data science expertise to match their marketing acuity. Some teams need to hire a dedicated analyst, which costs money and adds friction in the process.
PPC Signal acts as your own automated analyst and resident data science pro. All you need to do is use your marketing expertise to decide which signals to pursue first!
Since it is an automated tool, you save tons of time than if you managed your account entirely by hand. Algorithms do all of the heavy lifting, which means you can put your energy towards vital tasks that require a human at the helm.
When you combine all of this resource-saving power, you’re putting your time and money towards more valuable endeavors. This is a recipe for higher growth potential and stronger returns!
You rarely hear someone calling PPC management “simple.” Even if you remove the heavy shadow cast by the data science side of things, PPC management is still difficult.
There is a mountain of tasks and responsibilities that fall under the role of a PPC manager. Not to mention, a large PPC account will include hundreds, if not thousands, of campaigns, which means thousands of more keywords.
The reality is that PPC management isn’t over in a single day, or even a single week. It’s an ongoing process that requires constant attention and effort.
Even the most minor parts of your account need to be managed. How do you know where to start?
PPC Signal simplifies this challenge tremendously. First, it allows you to filter out all of the unimportant “noise” in your account, which leaves only the crucial signals.
By having these active signals presented in such a convenient fashion, PPC Signal offers a straightforward approach to your management. The more signals you resolve, the greater the improvement you make.
As long as you have active signals in your dashboard, you have methods to grow your Google Ads account!
Rule-based AI serves as a nice introduction to the world of AI and automation.
It’s been particularly helpful in allowing marketers to become familiar with automated solutions and what they offer.
That said, while helpful to any account, rule-based AI does have limitations. Rules are directionally useful, but they require significant tinkering and customization before they produce the desired intent.
The power of AI extends much farther than what rule-based tools are capable of achieving. Deeper artificial intelligence is poised to be an industry-changing force.
It can analyze vast amounts of data, draw conclusions and enact performance-increasing changes.
This creates such an impact that failing to invest in deep AI technology will soon be detrimental to your marketing strategy. Meanwhile, the companies that are early adopters of machine learning will secure a significant competitive advantage.
PPC Signal is an excellent example of deep AI for Google Ads. It automates the most time-consuming parts of campaign management: detecting and analyzing major changes to your account.
This is the type of task where AI shines because it is data-intensive and incredibly tedious.
Unclogging this roadblock in your PPC management process frees up resources and creates limitless opportunities.
PPC Signal is the future of Google Ads management.
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