On the heels of great sessions and networking at this year’s two Friends of Search events in Amsterdam, Optmyzr is gearing up for back-to-back SMX sessions you won’t want to miss in February.
SMX West always draws a great crowd of search marketers from around the country. We celebrate all skill levels and those of us fortunate to host SMX sessions learn as much as we give.
This year, Optmyzr will present two high-impact sessions focusing on essential skills for mid- to advanced search marketing pros hoping to separate from the pack as a PPC rockstar.
Both Optmyzr presentations happen Wednesday, February 19 at the San Jose Convention Center. We present amid a great lineup of presenters on the full agenda, but for those craving in-depth learning about SEM/PPC in 2020, I encourage you to check out our sessions.
Following our SMX sessions, our team will also host an Optmyzr workshop at the WeWork office just down the road of the convention center. You can register for our workshop here: https://forms.gle/rHu56nZy3oAboDys7.
Here’s a look at what we’ll cover at SMX West:
The Art of Structuring Search and Shopping Campaigns
Over the past 12-18 months, we’ve seen huge advancements in search marketers’ abilities to craft and manage high performing search and shopping campaigns. The tools in Google and Bing have become much more immersive for users as both platforms are offering many more features and functionality. At the same time, platform automations take much of the guesswork out of core search and shopping campaigns.
We’ll go deeper during our first SMX session (Wednesday, February 19 at 11:30 AM).
While it’s become pretty easy and fail-safe to do the basics well, we’ll dive into the art to using the tools to their potential. We’ll explore what’s good and not-so-good about popular structures such as alpha/beta, single keyword ad groups, and GriP (groups of individual products).
This session will also show you how to easily deploy free automations in the platforms in ways that maintain target structures in a dynamic environment. We’ll dig into other free tools within Google and Bing that you might not be using to analyze data in ways that are better aligned with your unique business needs.
Perhaps most powerful, though, we’ll bring clarity to how campaign structures work alongside Smart Bidding and other automations. AND we’ll go beyond the platform-level automations to help marketers see how third-party PPC management tools can elevate their role from marketing tactician to genius-level, groundbreaking PPC superstar.
And speaking of “genius level”…
Genius-Level Microsoft Ads, Google Ads Optimizations
Our second SMX session on the 19th is a natural extension of the earlier discussion about search and shopping ads. Entitled “Genius Level Microsoft Ads, Google Ads Optimizations,” our 2:30 PM session will explore ways to optimize across Microsoft Ads AND Google Ads in tandem.
Using automation layering via Optmyzr, we’ll showcase ways to tackle critical tasks and manage platform automations that will give the PPC pro greater control over his or her search marketing programs. Let’s face it, the PPC pie is getting much bigger. While Google remains king, Bing is continuing to carve out its place as the other big player in search. It’s essential to know how to work in both platforms – essentially working together.
I’ll present alongside Mark Irvine, Senior Data Scientist from Wordstream. Together, we’ll help learn to build a unique PPC game plan for your business, along with a scalable, executable strategy.
Working in both platforms, you’ll also need to know and understand the important, and often subtle, differences between the two big search engines. Master the automations and gain genius-level status to optimize in both universes.
SMX West is always a great event for our team, and it’s right in Optmyzr’s backyard. Check out the agenda for this year’s event and be sure to check out our sessions in the SEM/PPC track. If you spot me in the hallways or after a session, just yell “Fred!” I’d love to connect with you. If time allows, maybe even grab a cup of coffee.
And don’t forget to tell us if you’d like to join our free workshop from 4:30pm – 5:45pm in San Jose on February 19th, right after our sessions at SMX.
As the Spring conference season winds down, in-the-know search marketers have a lot of fresh insight following a packed SMX Advanced in Seattle. Start-to-finish, organizers and everyone at Third Door Media hosted another powerful elite search marketing event.
The impact of machines, artificial intelligence, data, and ongoing innovations from Google and Bing were evident across sessions this week. But it’s also clear we, as search marketers and PPC pros, still have a lot to learn and contribute in the increasingly AI-fueled universe in which we work.
Automation & your role in PPC
For one of my two presentations at SMX, I participated in a panel, “Next Generation Automation.” Core to the session, we focused on two levels of automation to consider if you want to grow your business – whether as an agency or the in-house PPC expert:
Automations provided by the engines (e.g. Smart Bidding)
Automations you create to streamline your in-house processes
Not surprisingly, many PPC pros spend much more time thinking about the first level than the second. However, PPC rockstars flip that mindset and focus more time and energy on the automations they can do in concert with the built-in automations that keep expanding within Google and Bing. How your own automations interact with the big engines’ automations can set your game apart from competitors.
Think specifically about automations that can streamline workflows. For example, you can set up workflows that automatically assign tasks to the right account managers and present the account managers with a filtered list of things to do. So the machine makes some suggestions for the person to review.
You can also layer your automations. Think about creating a tool that monitors an automation like ‘close variant keywords’ from Google and automatically flags low performance variants, and possibly even automatically breaks these out as new keywords with lower bids or as negative keywords. This is quite easy to do in Optmyzr with the Rule Engine. No scripts required.
The examples above just scratch the surface of what PPC pros can do with automations you can do on your own – in tandem with the expanding automations within the big engines. We explored automation through scripts earlier this year, which is always a good topic to revisit.
SEM Keynote: Machines & Automation
Machine learning, AI and automation were common threads through many SMX sessions, including the Tuesday keynote session that featured four top thinkers in our industry.
Ginny Marvin was part of that keynote group. As SEL Editor-in-chief and one of the people on the 25 Most Influential PPC Experts list, Ginny has authority when she says we can’t reverse the trend of automation so we need to figure out how to coexist with it. She also gave a nice shout-out that my book “Digital Marketing in an AI World” is very topical.
When Ginny talks about machine learning (ML), she likens it to going on an airplane flight with a toddler. When parents attempt this feat the first time, it’s typically horrible because the toddler doesn’t know how to behave and parents have unreasonable expectations – plus they didn’t buy the now-seemingly-giant toddler their own seat. The next trip, that parent takes his or her learnings and decides that buying the child his own seat will help a lot and they teach him how to behave on a plane. Before they know it, the increasingly travel-savvy parent has a teenager who’s a pleasure to fly with and who even helps carry the family bags.
ML is much like flying with kids. You need reasonable expectations and must work hard to teach the machine what you expect of it.
Ginny’s topic snowballed perfectly with the keynote portion by Nic Darveau-Garneau, Google’s Chief Search Evangelist. Nic spoke extensively about how ML can only work well if you give it good goals. When possible, don’t give it proxy goals but give it the real goal you care about so it can optimize for that.
Advertisers have grown so accustomed to measuring and optimizing everything, so they unrealistically expect EVERY click to be profitable. But the new camp of advertisers knows the focus should be on in-channel profitability, which allows the ML to figure out where to best allocate budget and set bids for the overall best performance.
“How your own automations interact with the big engines’ automations can set your game apart from competitors.”
Part of transitioning from the old to the new camp is to shift the expectations of your boss or client. Don’t give a keyword-by-keyword breakdown of ROAS. Instead, show them how their budget can drive profitability over the next three years. Nic laid out a beautiful vision, but I believe the PPC pro still needs to know where to optimize so those more detailed reports are useful to inform new strategies. For example, if you ignore the details of RSA performance, you won’t know that perhaps the ML is stuck because you gave it bad headline variations to choose from. As a smart PPC pro (and possibly one using the new RSA Builder from Optmyzr), you can act on these insights and help get the absolute best performance out of each channel.
Discussing PPC automation with Ginny Marvin
During a rare moment of “downtime” at SMX, I appreciated the opportunity to catch up 1:1 with Ginny for an upcoming podcast. She graciously did a recorded interview with me about my book, specifically talking about how the changing role of the PPC professional as machines take over more and more of our daily tasks.
Clearly there are opportunities for PPC pros to elevate their game and be much more strategic. The machines may seem like a threat to our roles in marketing, but as Ginny and I discussed, they actually provide great opportunity for us to get out of the weeds and the tasks and put our critical thinking, strategic minds, and our creativity to use much more effectively.
Here’s what is really exciting: We are only scratching the surface of what machines and AI will do for our industry in the coming years. Position yourself well to ride the wave of AI-infused PPC. Don’t fear the machines. Work WITH them. After all, People + machines = always better.
We updated this post on June 14th with a link to the podcast.
Search marketing is at an interesting place in its evolution. The industry is maturing, but at the same time evolving at speeds more like a Silicon Valley startup. We find ourselves in the midst of yet another era of hyper-fast innovation and change, leaving marketers with a whole new set of challenges to figure out.
That’s why it’s great that we get industry leaders together at many conferences throughout the year, including SMX Advanced in Seattle next week. These conferences help keep us all on top of everything new. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are creating opportunities to automate many of the core functions of search marketing.
All of this can be exciting – and overwhelming – for search marketers and PPC rockstars who have to adapt to changes on the fly. Many are left wondering if they will even have a role in PPC or if they’ll be automated out of a job.
Machines + People: More essential than ever
The Optmyzr team devotes a significant portion of our time staying on top of the innovations, changes and opportunities happening at breakneck speed.
I’ll be presenting during a couple of deep-dive sessions at SMX in Seattle June 4 & 5. Tuesday afternoon, Brad Geddes, Duane Brown and I will chair a discussion entitled “Automation: The Next Generation.” It’s always a pleasure to be on stages and webcasts with these two top professionals. We’ll preview what’s ahead for more automation as machines help the search engines and third-party providers like Optmyzr streamline the tasks associated with PPC.
Wednesday I’ll be on stage with Susan Wenograd, one of the new senior leaders at Aimclear. Susan and I will conduct the Advanced SEM Clinic to close out the morning sessions. Among key topics, we’ll explore the role of automation, AI, and machine learning to help PPC pros understand their opportunities in SEM moving forward.
The impact of automation on PPC
A few key things come to mind as we prepare for yet another important industry conference. Mentioned earlier, search marketers understandably look at the future with excitement, mixed with some angst. After all, robots and automation have rendered a lot of manufacturing jobs obsolete. Is the same outcome inevitable in our space?
Not likely. Here are a few things to consider:
First, let’s look at smart bidding. This process was ripe for automation and, thanks to innovations at Google and Bing (and Optmyzr), much of it is automated. Exploring a bit deeper, though, the need for a different, more strategic human role is evident. Smart bidding is far from “set-it-and-forget-it.” In fact, Google now offers MORE levers for advertisers to better inform bid automation that matters to specific business types.
Take, for example, the deeper abilities to manage seasonal bid adjustments, conversion value rules, creating separate conversion goals by campaign. Machines can only do so much for each of these. The smart PPC pro can apply his or her time and knowledge on much more strategic aspects of bid management. Rather than schlepping through tasks, the PPC pro can actually apply more energy to higher level strategy.
Second, it’s clear that in-platform management of campaigns is becoming much easier and automated. In many instances, more junior level PPC pros can run the majority of campaigns without any real challenge.
Managing across platforms, however, is becoming quite challenging. Google, Bing, Amazon – they are all creating walled gardens to keep people in their system. Tools like Optmyzr help bridge those gaps and make it easier to optimize across the platforms and see the connections and comparisons to help them make more informed decisions to boost performance in total. Insights gleaned from performance in one platform will be tapped for actions in another. No more walls.
Third, as more point solution automation options become available, PPC pros must figure out the interaction of seemingly disparate automations. Think about the challenge of figuring out how good responsive search ads are. On the surface, it seems RSAs offer lower conversion rates. But they also automate against entirely new queries, so the gains are strictly incremental. It takes a PPC rockstar to think beyond the singular metric when multiple automations may be at play – and find value others may miss.
Here’s another example: What happens with smart bidding if you also have an automation that turns campaigns off before the end of day? Is there a risk that the smart bidding system may have been holding back spend for later in the day, but the automated shut-off interfered with that action? The human expert is required to assess the deep-in-the-weeds strategy and understand the interplay of automations and potential consequences.
Futureproof YOUR Agency & Career
Automation is exciting, intimidating, challenging, even troublesome – but in total it’s a great thing for our industry and the humans who can connect the dots. Smart PPC pros are the ones who will embrace the innovations that are fueled by AI and machine learning. They’ll understand their value in the equation Machines + People = Better.
If you are attending SMX in Seattle, I hope to see you in one of my sessions or in a hallway or networking session. Invest your time at the event to map out your future in our industry.
And shameless plug time! A reminder that my new book (which has already become a best seller in the Online Advertising category on Amazon), “Digital Marketing in an AI World: Futureproofing Your PPC Agency” is now available on Amazon. I plan to have a few copies with me at SMX. The book digs deeper into the AI revolution in our industry and provides a tangible guide for PPC pros to claim their space in the next frontier of PPC. I hope you check it out.
Sitting in the front of the main keynote today, it’s clear Google Marketing Live is an essential experience for anyone who works in the PPC trenches. Let’s face it – Google Ads will continue to change at breakneck pace and introduce changes that can make or break a PPC pro’s next few months. It’s essential to stay on top of what is announced by Google at their premier event for marketers.
This year’s event has a lot of focus around new ad experiences for users, the latest on video experiences, branding, and (of course) the mobile web and apps. We’re here to make sure the Optmyzr team is on top of the evolution to continually push powerful automation tools to help you continue to strive for PPC rockstar status. Read our tweets and see videos we took at the keynote.
Here are some of our initial key takeaways from the day 1 keynote in San Francisco.
New experiences to satisfy consumer expectations
With such a huge chunk of search activity happening on smartphones, and to a lesser degree voice assistants with screens — what Google refers to as ‘surfaces’ — consumers are increasingly interacting more with Google on smaller screens. The consumer is expecting ever-improving quality in the results – not just in terms of information received, but in the overall experience. When the screen is smaller, the information — including ads — has to be better.
Your brand’s presence in those results (paid, in particular) is critical. The small screen is also becoming a primary content and video consumption hub for hundreds of millions of people. Google responded with the expanded offering of Shopping Ads to YouTube and Google Discover. Coming mid summer, the expanded opportunities with Shopping Ads will allow for broader distribution of immersive search ad experiences for the consumer.
Google also announced entirely redesigned search experiences for retail and travel and both have ways to let advertisers connect with prospective new customers. Google Discover helps consumers discover must-buy products while consuming a feed. The redesigned Google Travel experience which is launching today offers ways for travel advertisers to find more buyers for experiences, hotel rooms, and flights.
They also announced Gallery Ads, a more visual ad format for the ‘absolute top’ position ads on mobile searches.
Smart(er) Bidding
Of course, we’re talking one of our favorite topics! (and the Optmyzr team will be busy quickly incorporating the latest from Google). Google Ads unveiled new capabilities for smart bidding that allow PPC pros to choose desired conversion actions for optimization at the campaign level.
Those action sets can then be applied across campaigns. Other new bidding capabilities include:
Optimizing for store visit conversions;
Creating rules that determine conversion value for conversions;
Seasonal bid adjustments, which will also exclude the dates connected to a seasonal event (like a short term sale) from machine learning models that predict the usual conversion rates.
A new Smart Bidding strategy for search called ‘Maximize Conversion Value’
Really cool in this is the ability to set rules that will make it easier to adapt conversion values by audience type and then fine-tune bids according to specific value.
Insights and Information
Machine learning and AI continue to fuel so much of the innovation coming out of Google. The company is deepening offerings that will make it easier to:
Apply learnings from the black box
See a more complete pathway to conversion
Understand the relative value of customers (i.e. which are the most valuable)
We’re particularly keen on applying the latest from Google into the Optmyzr platform to help PPC pros connect the dots in a growing avalanche of data and insight. Being able to explain why a machine learning system made certain decisions and then using that insight across other clients will be a big win for advertisers.
Campaign/Program Management & Measurement
The more things get “automated” the more complex and challenging they can be. Google is introducing some interesting management functions designed to put more control in the PPC pro’s hands. Specifically, we got a glimpse into some interesting new tools & functionality, ideally to help:
Keep pace with increased complexity as more users search via a growing roster of devices and device types;
Shift the focus from planning by channel to planning by the customer;
Access new cross-channel inventory with a single click.
Measurement is also front and center this year. The Google team is tackling:
Better ways to measure campaign performance and impact while striking the delicate balance with user privacy;
Enhancing visibility and control through improved Ads Data Hub.
Even by Google standards, the latter elements create some of the most challenging problems to solve.
More to Come
The topics and news coming out of Google today are far reaching and will have a huge impact on our industry throughout 2019. A small sampling of other news/topics includes:
A new custom audience tool that replaces the custom affinity tool. This means audiences will work across G-channels, with an audience expansion tool that will help marketers increase their reach. Look for this one later in 2019.
Powerful new creative tools that put more control in the hands of those creating and testing video ad content, including automated creation of 6-second bumper ads, pulling from your own short YouTube videos.
Audio ad inventory that is now available in Display & Video 360.
Deep linking to apps in Google Ads via iOS and Android, along with deeper app conversion reporting.
Retailers can get budget for shopping ads from the brands they sell. Brands can decide what products or categories to fund for their retailers.
Local campaigns are becoming available to all advertisers with new ways to reach consumers when they do local searches and get directions.
The Optmyzr team is on the ground here and taking in everything we can (while putting our Google roots to good use to get great front-row seats as well as networking with the Who’s Who in the land of Google for even deeper insights). Look for more detailed recaps in the days following GML, and we’ll be crafting our own solutions to help you extract the greatest value from the ever-expanding set of tools in Google.
Google Marketing Live just wrapped up this week in San Jose, clearly laying out the path for search marketers and business owners alike. Now in its fifth year, Google Marketing Live has grown in size and sophistication. It’s essential that search marketers pay close attention to what happens at Live.
I had the great opportunity to spend time at the epicenter of the event, alongside friends and former colleagues from my days at Google. Reconnecting with so many amazing Googlers is always an invigorating time, professionally and personally. Google upped the game with an on-site experience on par with, or better than, major network TV events, including a slick live video stream for those attending online.
[](https://www.optmyzr.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Google-marketing-live-2018.jpg)Prepping with Ali for live post-keynote analysis
My main takeaways from Live 2018 – machine learning, AI and automation continue to be among the most powerful forces simplifying search marketing today. On the surface, search marketers could understandably fear being automated right into unemployment, but the advancements occurring in this space actually open new opportunities for advanced marketers IF they stay ahead of the game.
Advertising that works for everyone
Marketing Live keynoter, Google’s SVP for Ads Sridhar Ramaswamy, cemented the theme “advertising that works for everyone” by spelling out core opportunities and challenges for businesses. In today’s reality, people want help in the moment, where they are, and on their terms. Search makes it possible for them to find answers to immediate questions or needs, 1:1, no matter where they are.
But search advertising also has to work for the advertisers. Solving problems is a two-way street. People need assistance at the moment. Advertisers can remedy those problems and drive new business for themselves. During Marketing Live, it was clear that Sridhar and the rest of the Google team continue to work toward ensuring that advertising works for everyone.
Three critical things stood out to me during Marketing Live this week:
Google needs to keep make things easier for advertisers (and they are). For example, the Google team announced advancements to Smart Shopping campaigns, Smart Campaigns for small businesses, and introduced a new campaign type called Local Campaigns to drive in-store visits. The continued evolution of the full Google Marketing platform taps machine learning and automation to make search advertising more accessible and effective, regardless of business size.
Google is aggressively aligning automation with real business goals. In recent years, it was a big deal to be able to automate bids to maximize clicks or conversions. Now Google is aligning better with the broader and true business goals of acquiring newcustomers, gaining store visits, maximizing profits (not just gaining the click), and maximizing sales. For small businesses or less experienced marketers, Google is helping them be more competitive with bigger players. For the experienced search pro, better automation lets them continue to evolve from tactical to strategic, in much better sync with the wants and needs of the C-suite.
Sridhar and his team clearly see the value in how Google’s platforms, particularly YouTube, can drive brand AND sales. Enhancements to video promotion not only help simplify a business’ ability to inject its video into YouTube for brand awareness, the team unveiled conversion-fueling enhancements to drive more click through and click-to-buy actions via compelling video ad formats.
I encourage you to invest 90 minutes this week to watch the entire keynotealong with post-keynote analysis featuring Google experts Matt Lawson, VP of Ads Marketing, and Ali Miller, Group Product Manager for Video Ads, and me. We dug deep into the keynote to help the livestream audience get even more value out of the event. I think you’ll find it of great interest as we move through 2018 and start seeing Google’s latest innovations come to life.
[](https://www.optmyzr.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/IMG_20180710_134726537-1.jpg)Google Marketing Live demo hall
In the meantime, here are a few key takeaways that really stood out to me after spending 2+ days at the event. Context for PPC experts like you, continually adapting to a shifting playing field:
Despite the incredible advancements in AI and automation, there is still a lot for PPC experts to manage. Smart campaigns alone offer a great opportunity, particularly for those supporting small/midsize businesses. PPC experts can finally be the EXPERT now. You will spend less time on the tactical and more time on a strategy to connect back to company objectives.
In-house marketers can benefit from Google’s advancements in 2018, but still drive their own campaigns with their own automation tools. Fear not, the investments made to date are not lost. Just be sure to invest time to understand the depth of new advancements in the Google portfolio of advertising tools.
Smart Shopping Campaigns = great opportunity to be bigger, bolder, better. We now have many more options to pursue, including goals like store visits. Smart agencies will see the opportunity to really maximize the levers within Google, honing in on profitability, by segmenting products and aligning goals with automated tools to achieve them.
Automation is good
There’s no way to stop the innovation we are seeing today. Automation is not futuristic anymore. It’s here and it IS happening. Smart PPC experts (like you) see opportunity instead of threat. Automation is happening most profoundly at the solution level to eliminate tasks and process. The PPC experts who will lead in this new era are those who will invest time to stay on top of the latest innovations and learn how to put them together to create great campaigns.
We will always need people with smarts & intellect to visualize, strategize, run tests, think through the nuances, and make amazing things happen in PPC and search overall.
Final note: AdWords is dead
Okay, that subhead is the storytelling equivalent to clickbait. The statement is true, though, because we all need to purge “AdWords” from our vocabulary. Sridhar talked about it during his keynote, as did other Googlers during Marketing Live. Google AdWords is now officially known more simply as “Google Ads.”
After spending time at Google Marketing Live, it’s clear the search giant is making great strides unifying its advertising offerings as a cohesive set of channels. Google Ads becomes the umbrella for search, display, YouTube – with structure and services that allow a more integrated approach and helping advertisers become more of an assistant to the user.
Consider the theme for this week’s event, “advertising that works for everyone.” Customers, businesses, agencies alike. We all benefit when we (PPC pros and search marketers) get it right. So immerse yourself in the new innovations from Google. Doing so will help you maintain relevance for a long time to come.
Among all of the great digital marketing conferences of the year, Google Marketing Live is one that sets the tone and topics for all conferences that follow. Intense analysis, debate and optimism flow from Google Marketing Live, because the event showcases the next iteration of search marketing and the latest insight from the people who make search happen.
Google SVP of Ads & Commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy keynotes this year’s event, providing a first look at the latest tools and innovations that Google envisions will be highly transformative for businesses of all types. Sridhar will also analyze trends that are shaping search – both from within Google as well as the broader search universe.
Optmyzr Co-Founder Frederick Vallaeys will have a command view at the event on Tuesday, July 10, as he takes part in a live-on-the-scene panel discussion with other industry experts. Fred will join fellow search experts for a live-streamed discussion to deconstruct Sridhar’s keynote and provide their unique perspectives of all developments to help search pros get the most out of the event.
Check out all of the keynote details to register for the live stream and then check back on this blog after Google Marketing Live for Fred’s first-hand account of the event and his key takeaways next week.
The PPC Hero Conference in Austin, Texas, just wrapped up and the event gives us all reason to reflect deeply on dramatic changes happening in our industry. From voice assistants to artificial intelligence and machine learning, the way PPC pros interact with data and machines is changing at an incredible pace.
During the Optmyzr keynote, we snuck in a little surprise for attendees that was perhaps a little more mind-blowing than we anticipated. We showcased the real-world prospect of using voice assistant technology to access and work with PPC campaign data. Reactions to the demo were pretty spectacular.
It’s funny what happens when people hear you say “Alexa, start Optmyzr” followed by “How is my account doing” followed by probing questions about the data in a “discussion” with Alexa.
Voice assistant technology is a new frontier, particularly for those of us working in data-rich environments. Beyond a kitschy fad, though, voice assistants such as Alexa – coupled with rich AI and machine learning environments – will reshape the way we do our day-to-day jobs. Deeper insight. Rich context. An extraordinary interface. Portability. We anticipate a revolution on par with the way smartphones and tablets upended our world (in good ways).
It was clear from reactions in the room at HeroConf that people are hungry for voice assistant functionality that does more than turn on a light, change a thermostat or read us news headlines scraped from internet sources.
Still a concept, our dev team is working aggressively to bring voice assistant capability to real-world application quickly. We are wrapping up final coding and testing now, before seeking approval from Amazon as an Alexa “Skill.” We anticipate formally releasing the capability in May.
Check out our video that only begins to explore how voice technology will reshape the way PPC pros do their jobs. BTW – we’ve put Alexa to work for now, but Google Home and others can’t be far behind!
I have to admit, my favorite week of the year has always been Shark Week on Discovery Channel. But this year we’re launching PPC Week and I think it’ll give the Sharks a run for their money. Granted, I do wear custom Adidas sneakers that say “PPC Geek”, but if you’re reading this blog, you probably love PPC as much as I do…
I will host a session on day 1 at noon PT about how to automate your PPC with AdWords Scripts, with no programming skills needed. Optmyzr subscribers can already run our patent pending Enhanced Scripts™ for AdWords where they don’t have to write a single line of code. In my session I’ll cover some other great ways for non-programmers to get started with AdWords Scripts.
Unfortunately some of the session times won’t be great for people outside the US but everything will be recorded and videos will be sent to everyone who registered the week after the event.
So sign up today to get the link to join PPC Week for free next month.
On the heels of great sessions and networking at this year’s two Friends of Search events in Amsterdam, Optmyzr is gearing up for back-to-back SMX sessions you won’t want to miss in February.
SMX West always draws a great crowd of search marketers from around the country. We celebrate all skill levels and those of us fortunate to host SMX sessions learn as much as we give.
This year, Optmyzr will present two high-impact sessions focusing on essential skills for mid- to advanced search marketing pros hoping to separate from the pack as a PPC rockstar.
Both Optmyzr presentations happen Wednesday, February 19 at the San Jose Convention Center. We present amid a great lineup of presenters on the full agenda, but for those craving in-depth learning about SEM/PPC in 2020, I encourage you to check out our sessions.
Following our SMX sessions, our team will also host an Optmyzr workshop at the WeWork office just down the road of the convention center. You can register for our workshop here: https://forms.gle/rHu56nZy3oAboDys7.
Here’s a look at what we’ll cover at SMX West:
The Art of Structuring Search and Shopping Campaigns
Over the past 12-18 months, we’ve seen huge advancements in search marketers’ abilities to craft and manage high performing search and shopping campaigns. The tools in Google and Bing have become much more immersive for users as both platforms are offering many more features and functionality. At the same time, platform automations take much of the guesswork out of core search and shopping campaigns.
We’ll go deeper during our first SMX session (Wednesday, February 19 at 11:30 AM).
While it’s become pretty easy and fail-safe to do the basics well, we’ll dive into the art to using the tools to their potential. We’ll explore what’s good and not-so-good about popular structures such as alpha/beta, single keyword ad groups, and GriP (groups of individual products).
This session will also show you how to easily deploy free automations in the platforms in ways that maintain target structures in a dynamic environment. We’ll dig into other free tools within Google and Bing that you might not be using to analyze data in ways that are better aligned with your unique business needs.
Perhaps most powerful, though, we’ll bring clarity to how campaign structures work alongside Smart Bidding and other automations. AND we’ll go beyond the platform-level automations to help marketers see how third-party PPC management tools can elevate their role from marketing tactician to genius-level, groundbreaking PPC superstar.
And speaking of “genius level”…
Genius-Level Microsoft Ads, Google Ads Optimizations
Our second SMX session on the 19th is a natural extension of the earlier discussion about search and shopping ads. Entitled “Genius Level Microsoft Ads, Google Ads Optimizations,” our 2:30 PM session will explore ways to optimize across Microsoft Ads AND Google Ads in tandem.
Using automation layering via Optmyzr, we’ll showcase ways to tackle critical tasks and manage platform automations that will give the PPC pro greater control over his or her search marketing programs. Let’s face it, the PPC pie is getting much bigger. While Google remains king, Bing is continuing to carve out its place as the other big player in search. It’s essential to know how to work in both platforms – essentially working together.
I’ll present alongside Mark Irvine, Senior Data Scientist from Wordstream. Together, we’ll help learn to build a unique PPC game plan for your business, along with a scalable, executable strategy.
Working in both platforms, you’ll also need to know and understand the important, and often subtle, differences between the two big search engines. Master the automations and gain genius-level status to optimize in both universes.
SMX West is always a great event for our team, and it’s right in Optmyzr’s backyard. Check out the agenda for this year’s event and be sure to check out our sessions in the SEM/PPC track. If you spot me in the hallways or after a session, just yell “Fred!” I’d love to connect with you. If time allows, maybe even grab a cup of coffee.
And don’t forget to tell us if you’d like to join our free workshop from 4:30pm – 5:45pm in San Jose on February 19th, right after our sessions at SMX.
As the Spring conference season winds down, in-the-know search marketers have a lot of fresh insight following a packed SMX Advanced in Seattle. Start-to-finish, organizers and everyone at Third Door Media hosted another powerful elite search marketing event.
The impact of machines, artificial intelligence, data, and ongoing innovations from Google and Bing were evident across sessions this week. But it’s also clear we, as search marketers and PPC pros, still have a lot to learn and contribute in the increasingly AI-fueled universe in which we work.
Automation & your role in PPC
For one of my two presentations at SMX, I participated in a panel, “Next Generation Automation.” Core to the session, we focused on two levels of automation to consider if you want to grow your business – whether as an agency or the in-house PPC expert:
Automations provided by the engines (e.g. Smart Bidding)
Automations you create to streamline your in-house processes
Not surprisingly, many PPC pros spend much more time thinking about the first level than the second. However, PPC rockstars flip that mindset and focus more time and energy on the automations they can do in concert with the built-in automations that keep expanding within Google and Bing. How your own automations interact with the big engines’ automations can set your game apart from competitors.
Think specifically about automations that can streamline workflows. For example, you can set up workflows that automatically assign tasks to the right account managers and present the account managers with a filtered list of things to do. So the machine makes some suggestions for the person to review.
You can also layer your automations. Think about creating a tool that monitors an automation like ‘close variant keywords’ from Google and automatically flags low performance variants, and possibly even automatically breaks these out as new keywords with lower bids or as negative keywords. This is quite easy to do in Optmyzr with the Rule Engine. No scripts required.
The examples above just scratch the surface of what PPC pros can do with automations you can do on your own – in tandem with the expanding automations within the big engines. We explored automation through scripts earlier this year, which is always a good topic to revisit.
SEM Keynote: Machines & Automation
Machine learning, AI and automation were common threads through many SMX sessions, including the Tuesday keynote session that featured four top thinkers in our industry.
Ginny Marvin was part of that keynote group. As SEL Editor-in-chief and one of the people on the 25 Most Influential PPC Experts list, Ginny has authority when she says we can’t reverse the trend of automation so we need to figure out how to coexist with it. She also gave a nice shout-out that my book “Digital Marketing in an AI World” is very topical.
When Ginny talks about machine learning (ML), she likens it to going on an airplane flight with a toddler. When parents attempt this feat the first time, it’s typically horrible because the toddler doesn’t know how to behave and parents have unreasonable expectations – plus they didn’t buy the now-seemingly-giant toddler their own seat. The next trip, that parent takes his or her learnings and decides that buying the child his own seat will help a lot and they teach him how to behave on a plane. Before they know it, the increasingly travel-savvy parent has a teenager who’s a pleasure to fly with and who even helps carry the family bags.
ML is much like flying with kids. You need reasonable expectations and must work hard to teach the machine what you expect of it.
Ginny’s topic snowballed perfectly with the keynote portion by Nic Darveau-Garneau, Google’s Chief Search Evangelist. Nic spoke extensively about how ML can only work well if you give it good goals. When possible, don’t give it proxy goals but give it the real goal you care about so it can optimize for that.
Advertisers have grown so accustomed to measuring and optimizing everything, so they unrealistically expect EVERY click to be profitable. But the new camp of advertisers knows the focus should be on in-channel profitability, which allows the ML to figure out where to best allocate budget and set bids for the overall best performance.
“How your own automations interact with the big engines’ automations can set your game apart from competitors.”
Part of transitioning from the old to the new camp is to shift the expectations of your boss or client. Don’t give a keyword-by-keyword breakdown of ROAS. Instead, show them how their budget can drive profitability over the next three years. Nic laid out a beautiful vision, but I believe the PPC pro still needs to know where to optimize so those more detailed reports are useful to inform new strategies. For example, if you ignore the details of RSA performance, you won’t know that perhaps the ML is stuck because you gave it bad headline variations to choose from. As a smart PPC pro (and possibly one using the new RSA Builder from Optmyzr), you can act on these insights and help get the absolute best performance out of each channel.
Discussing PPC automation with Ginny Marvin
During a rare moment of “downtime” at SMX, I appreciated the opportunity to catch up 1:1 with Ginny for an upcoming podcast. She graciously did a recorded interview with me about my book, specifically talking about how the changing role of the PPC professional as machines take over more and more of our daily tasks.
Clearly there are opportunities for PPC pros to elevate their game and be much more strategic. The machines may seem like a threat to our roles in marketing, but as Ginny and I discussed, they actually provide great opportunity for us to get out of the weeds and the tasks and put our critical thinking, strategic minds, and our creativity to use much more effectively.
Here’s what is really exciting: We are only scratching the surface of what machines and AI will do for our industry in the coming years. Position yourself well to ride the wave of AI-infused PPC. Don’t fear the machines. Work WITH them. After all, People + machines = always better.
We updated this post on June 14th with a link to the podcast.
Search marketing is at an interesting place in its evolution. The industry is maturing, but at the same time evolving at speeds more like a Silicon Valley startup. We find ourselves in the midst of yet another era of hyper-fast innovation and change, leaving marketers with a whole new set of challenges to figure out.
That’s why it’s great that we get industry leaders together at many conferences throughout the year, including SMX Advanced in Seattle next week. These conferences help keep us all on top of everything new. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are creating opportunities to automate many of the core functions of search marketing.
All of this can be exciting – and overwhelming – for search marketers and PPC rockstars who have to adapt to changes on the fly. Many are left wondering if they will even have a role in PPC or if they’ll be automated out of a job.
Machines + People: More essential than ever
The Optmyzr team devotes a significant portion of our time staying on top of the innovations, changes and opportunities happening at breakneck speed.
I’ll be presenting during a couple of deep-dive sessions at SMX in Seattle June 4 & 5. Tuesday afternoon, Brad Geddes, Duane Brown and I will chair a discussion entitled “Automation: The Next Generation.” It’s always a pleasure to be on stages and webcasts with these two top professionals. We’ll preview what’s ahead for more automation as machines help the search engines and third-party providers like Optmyzr streamline the tasks associated with PPC.
Wednesday I’ll be on stage with Susan Wenograd, one of the new senior leaders at Aimclear. Susan and I will conduct the Advanced SEM Clinic to close out the morning sessions. Among key topics, we’ll explore the role of automation, AI, and machine learning to help PPC pros understand their opportunities in SEM moving forward.
The impact of automation on PPC
A few key things come to mind as we prepare for yet another important industry conference. Mentioned earlier, search marketers understandably look at the future with excitement, mixed with some angst. After all, robots and automation have rendered a lot of manufacturing jobs obsolete. Is the same outcome inevitable in our space?
Not likely. Here are a few things to consider:
First, let’s look at smart bidding. This process was ripe for automation and, thanks to innovations at Google and Bing (and Optmyzr), much of it is automated. Exploring a bit deeper, though, the need for a different, more strategic human role is evident. Smart bidding is far from “set-it-and-forget-it.” In fact, Google now offers MORE levers for advertisers to better inform bid automation that matters to specific business types.
Take, for example, the deeper abilities to manage seasonal bid adjustments, conversion value rules, creating separate conversion goals by campaign. Machines can only do so much for each of these. The smart PPC pro can apply his or her time and knowledge on much more strategic aspects of bid management. Rather than schlepping through tasks, the PPC pro can actually apply more energy to higher level strategy.
Second, it’s clear that in-platform management of campaigns is becoming much easier and automated. In many instances, more junior level PPC pros can run the majority of campaigns without any real challenge.
Managing across platforms, however, is becoming quite challenging. Google, Bing, Amazon – they are all creating walled gardens to keep people in their system. Tools like Optmyzr help bridge those gaps and make it easier to optimize across the platforms and see the connections and comparisons to help them make more informed decisions to boost performance in total. Insights gleaned from performance in one platform will be tapped for actions in another. No more walls.
Third, as more point solution automation options become available, PPC pros must figure out the interaction of seemingly disparate automations. Think about the challenge of figuring out how good responsive search ads are. On the surface, it seems RSAs offer lower conversion rates. But they also automate against entirely new queries, so the gains are strictly incremental. It takes a PPC rockstar to think beyond the singular metric when multiple automations may be at play – and find value others may miss.
Here’s another example: What happens with smart bidding if you also have an automation that turns campaigns off before the end of day? Is there a risk that the smart bidding system may have been holding back spend for later in the day, but the automated shut-off interfered with that action? The human expert is required to assess the deep-in-the-weeds strategy and understand the interplay of automations and potential consequences.
Futureproof YOUR Agency & Career
Automation is exciting, intimidating, challenging, even troublesome – but in total it’s a great thing for our industry and the humans who can connect the dots. Smart PPC pros are the ones who will embrace the innovations that are fueled by AI and machine learning. They’ll understand their value in the equation Machines + People = Better.
If you are attending SMX in Seattle, I hope to see you in one of my sessions or in a hallway or networking session. Invest your time at the event to map out your future in our industry.
And shameless plug time! A reminder that my new book (which has already become a best seller in the Online Advertising category on Amazon), “Digital Marketing in an AI World: Futureproofing Your PPC Agency” is now available on Amazon. I plan to have a few copies with me at SMX. The book digs deeper into the AI revolution in our industry and provides a tangible guide for PPC pros to claim their space in the next frontier of PPC. I hope you check it out.
Sitting in the front of the main keynote today, it’s clear Google Marketing Live is an essential experience for anyone who works in the PPC trenches. Let’s face it – Google Ads will continue to change at breakneck pace and introduce changes that can make or break a PPC pro’s next few months. It’s essential to stay on top of what is announced by Google at their premier event for marketers.
This year’s event has a lot of focus around new ad experiences for users, the latest on video experiences, branding, and (of course) the mobile web and apps. We’re here to make sure the Optmyzr team is on top of the evolution to continually push powerful automation tools to help you continue to strive for PPC rockstar status. Read our tweets and see videos we took at the keynote.
Here are some of our initial key takeaways from the day 1 keynote in San Francisco.
New experiences to satisfy consumer expectations
With such a huge chunk of search activity happening on smartphones, and to a lesser degree voice assistants with screens — what Google refers to as ‘surfaces’ — consumers are increasingly interacting more with Google on smaller screens. The consumer is expecting ever-improving quality in the results – not just in terms of information received, but in the overall experience. When the screen is smaller, the information — including ads — has to be better.
Your brand’s presence in those results (paid, in particular) is critical. The small screen is also becoming a primary content and video consumption hub for hundreds of millions of people. Google responded with the expanded offering of Shopping Ads to YouTube and Google Discover. Coming mid summer, the expanded opportunities with Shopping Ads will allow for broader distribution of immersive search ad experiences for the consumer.
Google also announced entirely redesigned search experiences for retail and travel and both have ways to let advertisers connect with prospective new customers. Google Discover helps consumers discover must-buy products while consuming a feed. The redesigned Google Travel experience which is launching today offers ways for travel advertisers to find more buyers for experiences, hotel rooms, and flights.
They also announced Gallery Ads, a more visual ad format for the ‘absolute top’ position ads on mobile searches.
Smart(er) Bidding
Of course, we’re talking one of our favorite topics! (and the Optmyzr team will be busy quickly incorporating the latest from Google). Google Ads unveiled new capabilities for smart bidding that allow PPC pros to choose desired conversion actions for optimization at the campaign level.
Those action sets can then be applied across campaigns. Other new bidding capabilities include:
Optimizing for store visit conversions;
Creating rules that determine conversion value for conversions;
Seasonal bid adjustments, which will also exclude the dates connected to a seasonal event (like a short term sale) from machine learning models that predict the usual conversion rates.
A new Smart Bidding strategy for search called ‘Maximize Conversion Value’
Really cool in this is the ability to set rules that will make it easier to adapt conversion values by audience type and then fine-tune bids according to specific value.
Insights and Information
Machine learning and AI continue to fuel so much of the innovation coming out of Google. The company is deepening offerings that will make it easier to:
Apply learnings from the black box
See a more complete pathway to conversion
Understand the relative value of customers (i.e. which are the most valuable)
We’re particularly keen on applying the latest from Google into the Optmyzr platform to help PPC pros connect the dots in a growing avalanche of data and insight. Being able to explain why a machine learning system made certain decisions and then using that insight across other clients will be a big win for advertisers.
Campaign/Program Management & Measurement
The more things get “automated” the more complex and challenging they can be. Google is introducing some interesting management functions designed to put more control in the PPC pro’s hands. Specifically, we got a glimpse into some interesting new tools & functionality, ideally to help:
Keep pace with increased complexity as more users search via a growing roster of devices and device types;
Shift the focus from planning by channel to planning by the customer;
Access new cross-channel inventory with a single click.
Measurement is also front and center this year. The Google team is tackling:
Better ways to measure campaign performance and impact while striking the delicate balance with user privacy;
Enhancing visibility and control through improved Ads Data Hub.
Even by Google standards, the latter elements create some of the most challenging problems to solve.
More to Come
The topics and news coming out of Google today are far reaching and will have a huge impact on our industry throughout 2019. A small sampling of other news/topics includes:
A new custom audience tool that replaces the custom affinity tool. This means audiences will work across G-channels, with an audience expansion tool that will help marketers increase their reach. Look for this one later in 2019.
Powerful new creative tools that put more control in the hands of those creating and testing video ad content, including automated creation of 6-second bumper ads, pulling from your own short YouTube videos.
Audio ad inventory that is now available in Display & Video 360.
Deep linking to apps in Google Ads via iOS and Android, along with deeper app conversion reporting.
Retailers can get budget for shopping ads from the brands they sell. Brands can decide what products or categories to fund for their retailers.
Local campaigns are becoming available to all advertisers with new ways to reach consumers when they do local searches and get directions.
The Optmyzr team is on the ground here and taking in everything we can (while putting our Google roots to good use to get great front-row seats as well as networking with the Who’s Who in the land of Google for even deeper insights). Look for more detailed recaps in the days following GML, and we’ll be crafting our own solutions to help you extract the greatest value from the ever-expanding set of tools in Google.
Google Marketing Live just wrapped up this week in San Jose, clearly laying out the path for search marketers and business owners alike. Now in its fifth year, Google Marketing Live has grown in size and sophistication. It’s essential that search marketers pay close attention to what happens at Live.
I had the great opportunity to spend time at the epicenter of the event, alongside friends and former colleagues from my days at Google. Reconnecting with so many amazing Googlers is always an invigorating time, professionally and personally. Google upped the game with an on-site experience on par with, or better than, major network TV events, including a slick live video stream for those attending online.
[](https://www.optmyzr.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Google-marketing-live-2018.jpg)Prepping with Ali for live post-keynote analysis
My main takeaways from Live 2018 – machine learning, AI and automation continue to be among the most powerful forces simplifying search marketing today. On the surface, search marketers could understandably fear being automated right into unemployment, but the advancements occurring in this space actually open new opportunities for advanced marketers IF they stay ahead of the game.
Advertising that works for everyone
Marketing Live keynoter, Google’s SVP for Ads Sridhar Ramaswamy, cemented the theme “advertising that works for everyone” by spelling out core opportunities and challenges for businesses. In today’s reality, people want help in the moment, where they are, and on their terms. Search makes it possible for them to find answers to immediate questions or needs, 1:1, no matter where they are.
But search advertising also has to work for the advertisers. Solving problems is a two-way street. People need assistance at the moment. Advertisers can remedy those problems and drive new business for themselves. During Marketing Live, it was clear that Sridhar and the rest of the Google team continue to work toward ensuring that advertising works for everyone.
Three critical things stood out to me during Marketing Live this week:
Google needs to keep make things easier for advertisers (and they are). For example, the Google team announced advancements to Smart Shopping campaigns, Smart Campaigns for small businesses, and introduced a new campaign type called Local Campaigns to drive in-store visits. The continued evolution of the full Google Marketing platform taps machine learning and automation to make search advertising more accessible and effective, regardless of business size.
Google is aggressively aligning automation with real business goals. In recent years, it was a big deal to be able to automate bids to maximize clicks or conversions. Now Google is aligning better with the broader and true business goals of acquiring newcustomers, gaining store visits, maximizing profits (not just gaining the click), and maximizing sales. For small businesses or less experienced marketers, Google is helping them be more competitive with bigger players. For the experienced search pro, better automation lets them continue to evolve from tactical to strategic, in much better sync with the wants and needs of the C-suite.
Sridhar and his team clearly see the value in how Google’s platforms, particularly YouTube, can drive brand AND sales. Enhancements to video promotion not only help simplify a business’ ability to inject its video into YouTube for brand awareness, the team unveiled conversion-fueling enhancements to drive more click through and click-to-buy actions via compelling video ad formats.
I encourage you to invest 90 minutes this week to watch the entire keynotealong with post-keynote analysis featuring Google experts Matt Lawson, VP of Ads Marketing, and Ali Miller, Group Product Manager for Video Ads, and me. We dug deep into the keynote to help the livestream audience get even more value out of the event. I think you’ll find it of great interest as we move through 2018 and start seeing Google’s latest innovations come to life.
[](https://www.optmyzr.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/IMG_20180710_134726537-1.jpg)Google Marketing Live demo hall
In the meantime, here are a few key takeaways that really stood out to me after spending 2+ days at the event. Context for PPC experts like you, continually adapting to a shifting playing field:
Despite the incredible advancements in AI and automation, there is still a lot for PPC experts to manage. Smart campaigns alone offer a great opportunity, particularly for those supporting small/midsize businesses. PPC experts can finally be the EXPERT now. You will spend less time on the tactical and more time on a strategy to connect back to company objectives.
In-house marketers can benefit from Google’s advancements in 2018, but still drive their own campaigns with their own automation tools. Fear not, the investments made to date are not lost. Just be sure to invest time to understand the depth of new advancements in the Google portfolio of advertising tools.
Smart Shopping Campaigns = great opportunity to be bigger, bolder, better. We now have many more options to pursue, including goals like store visits. Smart agencies will see the opportunity to really maximize the levers within Google, honing in on profitability, by segmenting products and aligning goals with automated tools to achieve them.
Automation is good
There’s no way to stop the innovation we are seeing today. Automation is not futuristic anymore. It’s here and it IS happening. Smart PPC experts (like you) see opportunity instead of threat. Automation is happening most profoundly at the solution level to eliminate tasks and process. The PPC experts who will lead in this new era are those who will invest time to stay on top of the latest innovations and learn how to put them together to create great campaigns.
We will always need people with smarts & intellect to visualize, strategize, run tests, think through the nuances, and make amazing things happen in PPC and search overall.
Final note: AdWords is dead
Okay, that subhead is the storytelling equivalent to clickbait. The statement is true, though, because we all need to purge “AdWords” from our vocabulary. Sridhar talked about it during his keynote, as did other Googlers during Marketing Live. Google AdWords is now officially known more simply as “Google Ads.”
After spending time at Google Marketing Live, it’s clear the search giant is making great strides unifying its advertising offerings as a cohesive set of channels. Google Ads becomes the umbrella for search, display, YouTube – with structure and services that allow a more integrated approach and helping advertisers become more of an assistant to the user.
Consider the theme for this week’s event, “advertising that works for everyone.” Customers, businesses, agencies alike. We all benefit when we (PPC pros and search marketers) get it right. So immerse yourself in the new innovations from Google. Doing so will help you maintain relevance for a long time to come.
Among all of the great digital marketing conferences of the year, Google Marketing Live is one that sets the tone and topics for all conferences that follow. Intense analysis, debate and optimism flow from Google Marketing Live, because the event showcases the next iteration of search marketing and the latest insight from the people who make search happen.
Google SVP of Ads & Commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy keynotes this year’s event, providing a first look at the latest tools and innovations that Google envisions will be highly transformative for businesses of all types. Sridhar will also analyze trends that are shaping search – both from within Google as well as the broader search universe.
Optmyzr Co-Founder Frederick Vallaeys will have a command view at the event on Tuesday, July 10, as he takes part in a live-on-the-scene panel discussion with other industry experts. Fred will join fellow search experts for a live-streamed discussion to deconstruct Sridhar’s keynote and provide their unique perspectives of all developments to help search pros get the most out of the event.
Check out all of the keynote details to register for the live stream and then check back on this blog after Google Marketing Live for Fred’s first-hand account of the event and his key takeaways next week.
The PPC Hero Conference in Austin, Texas, just wrapped up and the event gives us all reason to reflect deeply on dramatic changes happening in our industry. From voice assistants to artificial intelligence and machine learning, the way PPC pros interact with data and machines is changing at an incredible pace.
During the Optmyzr keynote, we snuck in a little surprise for attendees that was perhaps a little more mind-blowing than we anticipated. We showcased the real-world prospect of using voice assistant technology to access and work with PPC campaign data. Reactions to the demo were pretty spectacular.
It’s funny what happens when people hear you say “Alexa, start Optmyzr” followed by “How is my account doing” followed by probing questions about the data in a “discussion” with Alexa.
Voice assistant technology is a new frontier, particularly for those of us working in data-rich environments. Beyond a kitschy fad, though, voice assistants such as Alexa – coupled with rich AI and machine learning environments – will reshape the way we do our day-to-day jobs. Deeper insight. Rich context. An extraordinary interface. Portability. We anticipate a revolution on par with the way smartphones and tablets upended our world (in good ways).
It was clear from reactions in the room at HeroConf that people are hungry for voice assistant functionality that does more than turn on a light, change a thermostat or read us news headlines scraped from internet sources.
Still a concept, our dev team is working aggressively to bring voice assistant capability to real-world application quickly. We are wrapping up final coding and testing now, before seeking approval from Amazon as an Alexa “Skill.” We anticipate formally releasing the capability in May.
Check out our video that only begins to explore how voice technology will reshape the way PPC pros do their jobs. BTW – we’ve put Alexa to work for now, but Google Home and others can’t be far behind!
I have to admit, my favorite week of the year has always been Shark Week on Discovery Channel. But this year we’re launching PPC Week and I think it’ll give the Sharks a run for their money. Granted, I do wear custom Adidas sneakers that say “PPC Geek”, but if you’re reading this blog, you probably love PPC as much as I do…
I will host a session on day 1 at noon PT about how to automate your PPC with AdWords Scripts, with no programming skills needed. Optmyzr subscribers can already run our patent pending Enhanced Scripts™ for AdWords where they don’t have to write a single line of code. In my session I’ll cover some other great ways for non-programmers to get started with AdWords Scripts.
Unfortunately some of the session times won’t be great for people outside the US but everything will be recorded and videos will be sent to everyone who registered the week after the event.
So sign up today to get the link to join PPC Week for free next month.
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