Ad Platforms: Should You Or Shouldn’t You Take Their Recommendations? via @sejournal, @jonkagan

Recently, I did the math, and realized I’ve been in the biddable media business (search, social, programmatic, etc.) for over 20 years now.

(Shoutout to Didit.com for taking a chance on a Hofstra University senior with no experience and giving me a paid internship.)

In those 20 years, I have looked back at all of the changes within the industry, including but not limited to:

• Being able to advertise on Meta.
• Yahoo used to be the biggest search engine.
• I spent ad dollars directly on AOL and AskJeeves.com (RIP Jeeves).
• We didn’t call display ads “Programmatic.” It was just “banner ads.”
• Google Analytics/GA4 was previously known as Urchin (Fun fact: UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module). Before that, we used Omniture (now Adobe) as the analytics “North Star.”

But, what really has changed in my mind is how we view support and insights from the platforms.

Google and Yahoo had true human support, and we took their recommendations as gospel.

There were few to no automated recommendations telling us to spend more, and when the platform reps made a suggestion, it was taken as a degree of good faith.

Before I go off on a rant, I should provide a disclaimer that I have numerous friends at all the major platforms in the U.S.

I’ve applied for jobs at all of them and have also been offered jobs from some of them. So, this article is not directed at a particular person or platform but the industry, in general, from the vendor side.

Backstory

While I can’t pinpoint a precise date, I’d say around 2012 is when we really saw consistent evidence of shifts in platforms moving from “We want what is best for you and your ads” to “We have recommendations to move your business forward if you can just spend more, or adopt these things that will cause you to spend more.”

I was with a large holding company agency, running a bit of pharma and a lot of financial services advertising with a small team.

In my not-so-humble and completely biased perspective, we had one of the best search marketing teams around. We knew the industry standard and best practices, and we knew what would help or hurt the business – and so did our reps at “big search and big social.”

Suddenly, their recommendations were not best practices and would clearly drive higher spend and lower efficiency.

Even more noticeably, when something went awry, the reps we turned to to help troubleshoot would say something to us that gave me a cold chill down my spine: “You’ll need to file a support ticket for that. These are now handled by a different department.”

This was the beginning of us really having to scrutinize what was recommended to us.

Human Vs. Machine

Yes, I am well aware that robots are on their way to take our jobs.

But, I keep getting reminded that if I let the machines have at it, several brands would lose a lot of money for absolutely no logical reason.

Google budget reco for a lot more money but not a lot more production (Image from author, March 2025)

Meta making a recommendation for a function we don’t even have (Image from author, March 2025)

Bing recommending a move with a questionable network (Image from author, March 2025)

These are samples of the same suggestions I get every day. The platforms want to drive our business forward, but ignore the following facts:

• The first image shows a 261% increase in spend, for a 94% increase in clicks, 13% more conversions, and a 42% drop in conversion rate (CVR).
• The second image wants to automatically optimize 10 ads (which by the way, given it is a government regulated vertical, that is prohibited) all to lower my cost per acquisition (CPA) by 10%, but fails to note that we don’t even have a conversion pixel, or even record conversions.
• The third image wants to expand into the entire network, one known for notorious amounts of fraudulent activity or the fact that there are no incremental funds to drive that excess traffic.

Yes, I recognize that these recommendations are both automated and optional.

But does that mean scenarios like these should be given a discount and not held to the same industry standards as others? There is only one correct answer: No.

We observe that the automated recommendations are faster, more real-time, and more correlated to actual data. But, the human-based suggestions have a human objective and the little bird saying whether these are actually a good idea.

We also note – and this is more specific to advertisers with a dedicated rep (and I don’t mean those you get for a fiscal quarter and call you at inappropriate times of the day) – that recommendations coming from them (while still salesy), are taking a look at the bigger picture, and making more specific recommendations to enhance your business.

Google wanting to expand into a network known to have questionable placements (Image from author, March 2025)

This is a machine/AI recommendation to opt into a network I intentionally opted out of due to extreme amounts of invalid activity coming from it. (I have more trust in Jenn Shah of RHOSLC safely holding onto my SSN than this recommendation.)

This ratio of Google Search vs. Partner Network does not make sense (Image from author, March 2025)

Rule of thumb: If the click volume in your search partner network is grossly exceeding your Google search volume, then there is likely something wrong.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes … in credits, months later (Image from author, March 2025)

Look at all those credits tied back to that April campaign (this outcome reminds me of Aaron Rodgers leading my NY Jets in 2024).

Meanwhile, my account rep gives me emails like this:

What a proper recommendation should look like (Image from author, March 2025)

Net-net: Quantity (machine/AI) is not better than quality (human), but I will admit, it is faster.

Don’t Disregard Automated Recommendations Completely

While I may sound like a spokesperson for the anti-AI/anti-machine lobbyists, these systems can help save your butt here and there.

But, review these recommendations with a grain of salt while using them for a gut check.

Showing when something was forgotten (Image from author, March 2025)

Catching conflicts I would’ve missed (Image from author, March 2025)

Not Controlling What Happens Is The Devil

Yes, rep support is helpful, and sometimes, machine/AI can be helpful, too.

But, if you are not reviewing what happens in terms of placements, creative, or optimization, you may find yourself up a creek. This is particularly important on the creative side, especially if there are multiple layers of creative approval.

If you do not disable auto-apply, or you let Advantage+ run without oversight, then creative may not meet legal department guidelines.

Nothing gives you a heart attack on a Saturday more than when your client calls to let you know that they saw their ad in a live video on a social platform about some nefarious activity, with part of the creative cut off inappropriately.

If you run Performance Max, you definitely want to keep a close eye on this.

What does this mean? If you have a degree of control over the machine rather than letting it run with it, take control. An extra hour of work now will save you 12 hours of fixing problems later.

Having Control Of What Happens And Not Handling Properly Makes You The Devil

Yes, you read that right. If you want to test out the machine functions and AI suggestions, and you have the control to decide how and when it executes the work, and you still don’t use it properly, well, then that is your fault.

This isn’t just isolated to creative, but it definitely is much more awkward with it:

I really don’t know how Meta thinks this will sell Corned Beef Hash (Image from author, March 2025)

Bing thinks that this is a Jamaican Beef Patty … it is not (Image from author, March 2025)

But, this is the tip of the iceberg; this is the easy stuff to prevent.

When you allow it to add in music, create videos, adjust text, etc., you have the ability to prevent that. You’re even notified if you want to use it, and if you don’t take action, it’ll implement it. That is on you.

What Is This Rant Really About?

To do a very long-winded cut to the chase, this is about separating support and recommendations made by the platforms and the reps from what are industry and standard best practices.

No, your Google Adwords (it’ll always be Adwords), Bing Ads (I refuse to call it Microsoft Advertising), and Meta reps are not out to ruin you financially, with the sole goal of getting you to spend more, by any means necessary.

But, they have quotas and adoption requirements they have to meet. Companies that are not charities are money-making machines.

So, sales-focused recommendations, auto-apply functions, and AI-generated suggestions are designed to ultimately get you to spend more money.

It is your job as the digital marketer to recognize which function, recommendation, and capability your brand should utilize.

Do not be bulldozed – push back. If the platform or the rep makes a recommendation, ask them to show the work and explain how it will help you meet your goal. After all, the platform’s goals may not be your goals.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

The State Of Performance Max: How To Optimize Google Ads In 2025 via @sejournal, @MenachemAni

In the beginning, there was only Search. Then Google said, “Let there be Shopping.” And so began the golden age of search advertising.

Fast forward, and machines now perform the more granular and recurring optimizations at scale that we had to manually.

Algorithmic campaigns like Performance Max have become Google’s golden goose. They claim that in the near future, businesses will be able to input their goals and information, and Google’s system will run its advertising program for them.

Agencies and marketers have naturally pushed back, claiming that Google wants to put them out of business when they’re still needed. Some even say that machine learning isn’t necessary when brilliant human minds are on the job.

The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle.

Performance Max isn’t going anywhere, and neither are agencies and marketers. And if you plan to manage Google Ads this year, you will need to accept both sides of that coin.

So, with some very welcome changes from Google behind us, here’s the state of Performance Max and what I envision for it going forward.

Why Does Performance Max Have A Negative Reputation?

PPC marketers have many complaints about Performance Max. Some are valid, and others feel unfair.

The inability to see most of your keyword data is one of the reasons I hear the most.

The introduction of search categories is welcome, but they are not necessarily the keyword a user searched for.

You can expand the category somewhat and get an idea of intent, but it’s not a one-to-one deal like seeing the actual query.

And while longtime advertisers are accustomed to seeing every search term, the reality is that Google has been removing more and more data for years, all in the name of privacy.

This limited and unclean data around what people search for – what we’re used to seeing in the search terms report – is a valid frustration, especially when budgets are limited, or the pressure to deliver is particularly high.

There are improvements to take note of, though.

By default, the system shows seven days, and you can go back to the last 28 days. Google has also added the ability to look at longer time frames for search terms.

The addition of these new capabilities – even if they don’t cover everything we want – tells me that Google sees that the adoption of Performance Max is not going to reach the desired levels unless we have the tools we need to make use of it.

And even though this data only started in March 2023, having it now is helpful.

Another reason why Performance Max has a negative reputation is its attribution shyness. You can’t fully see where success or failure is coming from, which is a challenge in performance marketing.

A campaign could show you 10x return on ad spend, but you may have, at best, a sneaky suspicion that it’s coming from primarily retargeting traffic. There’s no real way to see the data that confirms that hypothesis (or refutes it).

And so the mindset shifts to one of “it’s not worth the hassle,” compounded by the fact that third-party attribution tools like Triple Whale are still unable to weigh Performance Max very well within its system because it cannot see view data for YouTube like it does for Meta.

This makes Performance Max look like it’s not working as well as it is.

One of the trickiest pieces of Performance Max is that people just have a hard time reconciling the data that Google shows and that they want to get from the campaign, which is typically profitable net new customer acquisition.

By moving back to Shopping – even if it shows a slightly lower return on ad spend (ROAS) – marketers at least know what they’re getting for their money as the reporting and attribution are clearer.

On the flip side, while third-party attribution tools do underreport for Performance Max (likely because of channels like YouTube and Display that affect performance), my experience is that mixing the two – putting some products in Shopping and some in Performance Max – often works well if the campaigns are being used properly.

Do We Need Granular Control In Performance Max?

Playing the devil’s advocate for a minute, I think the whole idea of Performance Max is that you shouldn’t have to add negative keywords.

You’re meant to optimize the campaign based on your bidding strategy, ROAS or cost-per-acquisition (CPA) target, account and campaign structure, landing page, and proprietary data.

This ties into another source of frustration: low-quality ad inventory.

My answer to both complaints is to focus on getting the best performance out of the campaign, or switch back to Search or Shopping.

I think we have to accept some amount of poor traffic and unwanted conversions in exchange for incremental gains in profitable new customer acquisition.

In the bigger picture, search terms and placements don’t really matter as much as the system will learn to focus less on that kind of traffic if it’s not converting.

Performance Max does take time and money to get going, so it’s fully understandable if your niche or vertical means you can’t justify the investment due to factors like limited budget, low search volumes, unavailability of data inputs, or tight industry regulation.

This is your reminder that Performance Max is an option, not a necessity.

The Resurgence Of Search And Shopping: Why Performance Max Won’t Replace PPC Marketers

Performance Max saw widespread adoption at launch, even though we were coming from Smart Shopping, which worked far better at the time.

Still, we were quick to adopt and switch because Google pushed hard on the narrative that it was the future.

Search continues growing in absolute terms, but is losing prominence to PMax & Shopping.

PMax has flattened against Shopping in recent quarters, suggesting a stubborn core of Shopping die-hards. Google may need to make feature concessions to stimulate further adoption. pic.twitter.com/0cdkdMZ4PI

— Mike Ryan (@mikeryanretail) June 24, 2024

Over time and as reality set in, many advertisers started to move back to Search and Shopping for three primary reasons:

1. A high proportion of spam and low-quality leads.
2. For ecommerce, a lack of control over products and campaign behavior.
3. Cannibalization of non-algorithmic legacy campaigns by Performance Max.

Today, I find that we create the most success for clients by running a mix of Shopping and Performance Max side by side.

We haven’t moved away from the latter completely, but I have heard from others that they’ve returned fully to standard Shopping.

This will be furthered by recent developments around which campaign is valued by Google.

Upon the launch of Performance Max, both campaigns running alongside each other meant that Performance Max always took priority while Shopping didn’t enter auctions.

Over the years, there have been some changes to that prioritization. Anything you excluded from Performance Max (such as brand terms) would always fall back to Shopping. And now, Google has announced that Performance Max will not override Shopping.

Both will enter the auctions they qualify for, and ad rank will determine which one shows.

Performance Max In 2025: 5 Optimizations For Better Results

So, how do you regain control when Performance Max takes it away? What can you really do to improve campaign performance, and what options are realistically at your disposal?

Here are five of my Performance Max optimizations to never leave home without.

1. Data input quality is absolutely critical to success with Performance Max and is virtually essential if you run lead generation campaigns.

Offline conversions, audience signals, and enhanced conversions all help improve results.

Synchronizing your customer list and having the campaign focus solely on new customer acquisition is a great way to avoid spending money on people who have already bought from you, improving profitability.

2. Asset group segmentation and how you set up a Performance Max campaign really make a difference in what kind of traffic it brings in.

Without the right decisions here, the campaign will automatically go after traffic that it believes is most likely to convert – site visitors, people searching for your brand, and past/existing customers.

3. The quality of your creative assets and landing pages has a direct impact on your ability to get those big performance lifts that aren’t really possible any longer through old-school account optimization.

You simply must stand out and be relevant in a market where competitive saturation is at its peak, and consumers are bombarded with messages to buy things everywhere on the internet.

4. For ecommerce, feed quality and optimization are non-negotiable for both Performance Max and Shopping.

The feed is the heartbeat of the account – it’s where the system looks for information on your products to help it decide who should see them.

Skipping this step or running a poorly written feed will directly and negatively impact your marketing efficiency.

5. Sculpting options are limited but should still be employed where they make sense. One option is to remove branded traffic using brand exclusions.

You can also add negative keyword lists through Google support and then just block specific keywords. Soon enough, you’ll be able to add campaign-level negatives to Performance Max yourself.

Ultimately, you’ve got to optimize where you can to improve the consumer experience.

This might be something as fundamental as tracking the right conversion actions, writing a sharper landing page with stronger social proof, improving mobile responsiveness, and setting up rules to only advertise products that are in stock.

In short, focus on what you can control and do a wonderful job with those things.

Google Is Listening To PPC Advertisers And Agencies

The PPC community complained about the lack of negative keywords – Google gave them to us. We asked for more detailed reporting – we got it. The cannibalization of Shopping became a problem – Google resolved it.

I think, at this point, Google is due the credit for listening to us.

🌟 Several PMax announcements today — thanks to your feedback!

You likely saw account-level negative keywords started rolling out next month for brand suitabilty & other purposes. Now coming soon are…

— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) February 23, 2023

Not only is it adding more (and more relevant) features to Performance Max, but it is also seeing that agencies and marketers have a role to play in the future of search advertising.

I think the decreased adoption and vocal critique on social media have undoubtedly influenced the decision to give us back a portion of control and visibility.

It’s our turn to adopt these features, adapt to the limitations of Performance Max (when it makes sense for the account), and, most importantly, keep a fair and honest dialog open on social media with Google’s representatives.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Jack Frog/Shutterstock

Why Alignment With Customer Service Is Crucial For PPC via @sejournal, @timothyjjensen

Let’s think through a hypothetical purchase journey. An individual is in the market for an air purifier, and she starts off by searching for [best air purifiers] in Google.

Your ad shows up in results, and she clicks on it, impressed with the mention of being rated No. 1 in product rankings as well as the promise of a 10% discount code. She completes a purchase, and a few days later, the new air purifier arrives on her doorstep.

That’s all a perfect brand/customer relationship story so far, right? Your ad messaging and targeting worked perfectly to reach a prospect at the right moment.

However, the story doesn’t end at the point of purchase. Just over six months later, the air purifier stopped functioning.

She then goes to your website to see how she can contact customer service. After a fruitless, painful attempt to engage an AI chatbot that won’t provide anything further than generic responses, she picks up the phone and calls the number on the website.

She’s then faced with a lengthy sequence of recorded messages and the need to push a few buttons before she finally gets put on hold to talk to a rep. Half an hour later, she finally talks to a “real” person.

After describing her problem, she’s informed that, unfortunately, since it’s one day past the date the six-month warranty expired, and she didn’t pay for an extended warranty, the company will not replace the air purifier.

Beyond frustrated, she then proceeds to write negative reviews for the company all around the web, and tells all of her friends and family never to purchase from them.

We’ve all likely faced similar horror stories in dealing with brands, leaving you with a negative taste after you have to deal with customer service, despite any positive initial interactions.

Even with the best-run ad campaign in the world, unhappy experiences after the point of purchase will make or break a brand in the long run, particularly in an age of free and open sharing across the internet.

According to Zendesk Benchmark data, 3 out of 4 consumers are willing to spend more with businesses that offer a good customer service experience, and 60% of consumers have purchased from a brand entirely based on expected service.

Let’s dive into the importance of building connectivity between customer service and paid media efforts.

Ensuring Truth In Advertising

If you make a promise in your ads, your company should be able to make good on that promise. Think about messaging points in the ad copy that tie to customer service:

• Money Back Guarantee.
• 1 Year Warranty.
• 24/7 Service.
• No Fees.

Screenshot from search for [heating repair], Google, January 2025

Is your business truly refunding all unsatisfied customers within a window of time?

Are you honoring a warranty or nitpicking over minute issues?

Do you indeed have staff standing by for emergency service after hours?

Are there any potential hidden fees customers may encounter despite the promise of “no fees”?

Additionally, think through the list of offers that you currently have in the market.

If you mention a discount in an ad, will customer service staff be familiar with that discount and know how to apply it without hassle? Internal training across the organization is crucial to the effectiveness of ads.

Gaining Ideas For Ad Copy

Feedback from actual users can be one of the most valuable sources for quotes and benefit points to mention in ad copy.

Customer service teams are on the frontlines, hearing from users about what they like (and don’t like) about your products or services.

Perhaps you can listen in to a few customer calls periodically, or you can look at survey data compiled about top items of discussion.

Here are a few questions to think about when reviewing the data:

• Are there points of confusion about what your product does that could be better addressed upfront in ad copy? For instance, if you sell software focused on small businesses and enterprise businesses are still signing up while finding it limiting, can you make “Small Business Software” a clearer part of ads?
• Are there positive experiences you can call out from onboarding processes? For instance, if you have people work with customer service to customize your software for their unique business application, you can monitor the average time involved in the setup and call that out in ad copy if it is a reasonable amount.
• Are there additional features you offer that people aren’t aware of until brought up in customer conversations? You can watch for these and work into ads where it makes sense.

Encouraging Reviews

Positive reviews can be a powerful selling point, and your customer service team is vital in the process of encouraging satisfied customers to leave reviews.

This can happen after phone conversations or email interactions, and people may be more likely to be willing to leave a review after a constructive conversation.

Once you have reviews available to use, you can incorporate these into multiple places, such as your ad copy, imagery, or landing pages.

For ecommerce sellers, you can include store ratings with ads. Microsoft Advertising can also include review extensions from select sites.

Screenshot from search for [shoes for sale], Google, January 2025

On your site, you can feature short statements from individuals talking about their experience with your products.

These can work well as trust signals, alongside mentions of brands that these people work for if selling B2B.

First-Party List Building

As privacy restrictions and limitations on tracking continue to affect how accurately advertisers can target, building your own first-party data can be a crucial piece of marketing.

Encouraging customers to opt into communication can help you build a list that you can then sync to various ad platforms. Your representatives can be key to incentivizing this process of signing up as they deal with people post-purchase.

From that point, you can use the list to create lookalike audiences (see Meta’s or Google’s instructions), in order to target those with similar characteristics to current customers.

Additionally, depending on the size of your list and the fields available in your customer relationship management (CRM), you can segment out lists for categories such as high-value customers, those who have bought select products, etc., and build different lookalike audiences to which you can target relevant messaging.

You also may have the opportunity to upsell customers on other products or features they may be eligible for.

For instance, if you sell industrial printers, you can target a list of purchasers who have not yet opted into a printer servicing program. These ads can align with efforts on representatives’ parts to reach out to customers directly about this program.

Start Connecting The Dots From Customer Service To PPC

If you haven’t made much effort in the past to align customer service learnings, start doing what you can to bring alignment with what you’re doing on the ad messaging front.

Depending on the size of your company and your position, you may have more or less a say in how the actual relationships with customers pan out, but you can be a voice for honesty in ads and only make promises that are backed up by real experience.

Next, work toward communicating with your customer service team to gain feedback that can tie into ad copy, as well as reviews to feature throughout the ad journey.

Finally, see where customer relationships can encourage list building for future targeting and lookalike seeds.

The more you can connect to the work of an organization outside of just being in the bubble of “running the ads,” the more effectiveness you’ll see from your paid media efforts.

More Resources:

Featured Image: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A./Shutterstock