Google Ads Automation: Measuring impact on campaign performance

AI is levelling up PPC results globally, reaching new audiences and aiding in competitive new ROI targets. At the heart of any thriving AI-influenced campaign is automation, the unsung hero of the future of PPC.

But, like any tool for the savvy marketer, automation only brings in the results you’re chasing when you choose to use it at the right moment, in the right context, to the right end goal. The key to harnessing its potential lies in understanding its pitfalls and limitations, as well as its many benefits.

This article will guide you through everything you need to know about automation, to get the best results.

When automation works: efficiency, scale, optimisation

Automation has many benefits that match the demands required of the modern digital marketer. Here are just a few ways that automation can level-up your campaigns.

Smart bidding
Smart Bidding algorithms optimise bids in real time based on thousands of contextual signals. It’s like having an entire team looking after the specifics of bidding strategies and limits across every single element of your campaign.

As with a lot of automation, it works best with sufficient data volume: Google recommends at least 15–30 conversions before Smart Bidding stabilises and becomes efficient. This way, the algorithm has learnt from your data set specifically.

This massively reduces your manual workload and can improve consistency across campaigns. It’s a time-saver, if used effectively.

Scaling campaigns
Performance Max leverages automation to expand your ads reach across all Google inventory, combining search, display, YouTube and discovery, all in one. It’s the ultimate scaling tool as it covers so much ground online.

AI Max for Search (currently in beta) further scales campaigns by matching search terms dynamically, generating creative assets and optimising landing page experiences. The generative creation elements can be especially useful to smaller teams that simply do not have the time or numbers of team members to scale larger campaigns manually in such detail.

Dynamic optimisation can uncover opportunities that you might not have considered, broadening your creative options at speed.

Enhanced reporting
This new reporting feature helps you assess automation, such as asset reporting that breaks down which headlines and creatives are driving engagement. It’s a fast way to get the metrics that you need most, rather than sifting through reports that contain a lot of data that just isn’t relevant to you.

The level of detail and transparency uncovered in these reports into ad combinations and asset performance helps support better creative testing. This is automation for analysis, not just campaign build outs.

Automation pitfalls

As with any new feature of PPC, the most radical and new developments come with some pitfalls that are vital to understand, so that you can avoid making costly mistakes as you get to grips with these new features.

Misleading efficiency
Performance Max can sometimes look like it’s more efficient than it is, simply by capturing branded traffic that would have been won through search campaigns anyway.

Branded conversions can mask the true incremental impact of automation and exaggerate return on ad spend (ROAS). The remedy for this is simple. Take the time to analyse any positive metrics from automated campaigns contextually, alongside relevant data from manual campaigns across your brand.

Rising costs and reduced control
Automation can drive higher overall spend by maximising auction entry, increasing Search Lost IS (Impression Share) costs. In short, you can end up spending more on automation, especially in the early stages, when the algorithm is learning and making adjustments as it goes.

Cost per acquisition (CPA) can rise if lead quality falls despite higher click and conversion volumes. It’s worth keeping an eye on where conversions are coming from, not just broader, funnel-based interactions at a different stage of the buying chain.

Auto apply recommendations
Auto Apply Recommendations can push changes without advertiser approval, altering budgets, targeting and creatives. This isn’t an issue, if you’re checking-in regularly on developments. But if you leave it unattended, you risk unwanted ad spend as a result.

While positioned as efficiency boosters, they can reduce strategic control and risk campaigns drifting from business objectives. So, it pays to be thorough when analysing and safeguarding your automated campaigns.

AI Max for Search
This automated search feature could be the future of PPC, but it still carries some pitfalls. Risks include wasted spend on irrelevant queries, reduced advertiser oversight, and difficulty in diagnosing performance issues due to limited visibility.

In the future, we’re hoping that reporting for automated campaigns allows marketers to retain a similar level of granular understanding of what is driving conversions.

Creative asset generation
Being able to generate thousands of ad variants and creative assets is a hugely time-saving and efficient way to market online. It’s undeniably useful for scaling quickly,  but quality and brand consistency remain dependent on human oversight. Avoid any downsides to this futuristic approach to marketing by maintaining manual overviews of its output.

Measuring performance: metrics and signals to monitor

The key to retaining control is through manual observation and analysis of your automated campaigns. Check in on Search Lost IS (rank), and monitor it to detect whether automation is overspending to recover lost impression share.

Watch for rising CPAs that indicate declining efficiency or poorer lead quality.  And keep analysing your lead quality. Sometimes automation-enhanced increases in volume translates into meaningful business outcomes, not just form fills.

Sometimes you'll come across sudden jumps in conversions. Analyse these to ensure they are incremental (and actually driven by your automated campaigns) and not driven by cannibalised branded traffic.

Best practices: strike a balance

• Segment campaigns to separate branded from non-branded traffic, improving clarity on incremental performance.

• Apply brand exclusions in Performance Max to avoid inflated branded conversions.

• Opt out of auto apply recommendations to maintain manual control over budgets, targeting and creatives.

• Test AI Max carefully with limited budgets and clear KPIs before scaling.
• Ensure high quality creative elements and well-structured landing pages to maximise benefits of automated distribution.

• Maintain a balance between automation’s efficiency and human strategy to ensure campaigns align with business goals.

In Summary

Automation is the transformative element that is working its way into almost every single facet of PPC, delivering powerful tools for analysis, optimisation and management. Through deepening your understanding of all Google Ads has to offer from automation, you can apply these features strategically, unlocking expensed reach, conversions and ROI.

However, success is never guaranteed, and requires more than simply switching on automated elements. Your understanding as a PPC marketer is where the true power of performance lies; you’re leveling up with strategic decision making, via automation.

Combining the two is a surefire way to future-proof your marketing, whilst retaining everything that makes your marketing unique to your business goals.