Automation this, automation that. We’ve all heard Google’s push toward automating everything. Now that Google is handling this, we can sit on our hands and just check that the accounts are running smoothly, right? A quick check of the morning dashboards and a scan of the search term reports should suffice.
I’m here to say ABSOLUTELY NOT. The role of the PPC professional is evolving from PPC executor to PPC consultant. While the role requires less hands-on platform work, it now demands a deeper understanding of the business’ goals and what a quality conversion looks like. We also need to maintain a strong understanding of platforms, audiences, and competition.
Understanding the business
If bidding and budget allocation are increasingly automated, that frees up time. What we do with that time is what differentiates good PPCers from great ones.
We need to understand the businesses we work with. That means asking the right questions and being clear on what outcomes matter. For example, they may be trying to push key products, drive incremental demand, or improve profitability.
You can build this understanding through:
- Earnings reports: A useful way to understand business priorities such as key markets or product lines.
- Client contacts: Keep a running list of questions and review them regularly with the client or internal team.
- Account directors: A good source of context on overall strategy and how PPC fits into broader business goals.
Business understanding is not a nice-to-have. It is fundamental to good decision making.
Questions to ask include:
- What is your end goal and when should it be achieved?
- What are you selling and who is it for?
- How does it benefit your audience?
- Who are your core competitors?
- What are your priority geos?
The more clarity you have, the easier it becomes to spot issues and plan ahead.
For example, imagine your goal is to drive incremental demand. If the UK delivers higher AOVs and CvRs while FR brings in incremental volume at lower values, a shared bid strategy will likely favour the UK. If both markets matter, separating them into distinct strategies may be necessary.
It also helps you act proactively. If a client needs new customers and does not want to pay for branded traffic, you will immediately recognise the relevance of features like PMax brand exclusions and can bring that solution forward.
What happens when you do not understand the business?
Let’s say your client sells premium chocolate baskets for £100. You are not aware of this and allow your campaigns to target broad or cheap chocolate queries. You drive 500 clicks at a £1 CPC and spend £500.
The user lands on site, sees the price, and leaves. They were expecting something much cheaper. Your conversion rate is 0 & you’ve flushed budget down the drain.
At that point, there is no optimisation that fixes the problem. The issue is not execution, it is alignment.
We owe it to our clients to spend budget in line with their priorities, not just what the platform finds easiest to deliver.
Guiding the system
As automation increases, our role shifts toward defining what success looks like and making sure the system optimises toward it.
That means understanding:
- What success looks like. Is it profit, revenue, customer growth, or a mix?
- Whether there are multiple objectives. For example, clearing old stock while also pushing high-margin products.
- Whether you have access to post-conversion data such as returns or margins. If not, ask for a proxy or anonymised version.
If you do not define the right signals, the platform will optimise toward the wrong outcomes.
Once you have this clarity, review whether your account structure supports it. Bid strategies and budgets will always chase their targets. If those targets are not aligned with the business, the results will not be either.
Segmentation
Automation drives efficiency, but it does not always reflect business priorities.
If a campaign includes both low-CvR products that need to be cleared and high-CvR, high-margin products, the system will favour the latter. That improves performance on paper but does not solve the underlying business problem.
Segmentation is one way to address this. By splitting products into separate campaigns with their own budgets and targets, you give each group a fair opportunity to perform.
This is not just about organisation. It is about structuring accounts so that all key parts of the business have the chance to deliver results.
Understanding the marketplace
Once you understand the business and what a good conversion looks like, you can go further and look at audiences and competitors.
Audiences
If your messaging does not reflect what people care about, it will not resonate.
You can build audience understanding through:
- Social listening: Look at forums and platforms to see how people talk about your product or category. What do they value? What frustrates them?
- Business data: Reviews and purchase behaviour can highlight patterns. For example, if customers who buy running shoes also buy shorts and tops, that is an opportunity to test bundled messaging or cross-sell.
These insights should feed directly into your creative and messaging.
Competition
We are all competing for the same demand. That means understanding not just your own activity, but what others are doing.
- Social listening: What are customers saying about competitors? Are they too expensive or lacking in service? If so, you can reflect this directly in your copy by highlighting better value or stronger customer experience.
- Journey audits: Review competitor ads, landing pages, and overall experience. Identify where customer needs are being met and where they are not.
People will always choose the option that feels right for them. Our role is to make sure our clients are positioned as that option.
Wrapping up
Ultimately, automation does not remove decision making, it moves it upstream & forces us to develop deeper understanding of the clients we work with & their goals.
Automated bidding will always chase conversions. The real question is whether those conversions align with the needs of the business.
That is where the modern PPC’er comes in, not as a platform operator, but as the bridge between business strategy (dissecting & understanding) and machine execution (segmenting & guiding). Get that right, and automation is not a threat, it’s simply an amplifier.
