Abit worried about the Future in PPC

[HyHoang]

If all you do is “set ads” then you’re at risk. Gotta look at Marketing in a bigger picture perspective and how PPC plays a role in driving new business. If your team has the budget to do A/B testing, learn to do it. If not, try to connect the creative part (design, copywriting) with the success of your marketing campaigns.

But still, I don’t think automation is going to hurt anyone anytime soon. You still need a human to manage the robot. The day where humans are completely replaced is still so far, far away. Just keep honing your craft and you will be fine man.

[TrollerCoasterWoo]

Just remember that Google’s AI algorithm is the reason you have to do so much cleanup in every account

[pra__bhu]

the anxiety is real but i think the framing of “will ppc be automated away” misses what’s actually happening
the button-clicking part of ppc is already mostly gone — bid management, ad scheduling, match type obsession. that’s automated. what’s not automated is knowing when the algorithm is wrong, why performance dropped when nothing “changed,” or how to structure an account so smart bidding actually has something useful to learn from
the skills i’d double down on: conversion tracking and measurement (this is getting harder, not easier, with privacy changes), feed management and data quality for shopping, and being able to read what automated systems are actually doing vs what they report doing
the people getting displaced are the ones who were just executing tasks inside the platform. the ones who understand the logic behind the automation, can QA it, and can explain it to a client — those roles are getting more valuable not less
personally i’ve been leaning into scripting and automation specifically because it lets you work with the platform programmatically rather than just through the UI. feels more durable than memorizing where buttons are in google ads

[crawlpatterns]

Automation handles buttons, not strategy. PPC skills translate well into growth, analytics, CRO, even marketing ops. Focus on experimentation design, data storytelling, and cross channel strategy. Those stay valuable.

[QuantumWolf99]

PPC isn’t dying, it’s just consolidating toward people who understand strategy versus button-pushing… automation handles bid management and basic optimization but it can’t fix broken landing pages, terrible offer positioning, or campaigns built on fundamentally wrong assumptions about customer intent.

The irreplaceable skills are conversion rate optimization, customer psychology, offer testing, and interpreting why performance changed beyond just looking at dashboards.

For ecom and lead gen clients I manage the value isn’t running the campaigns, it’s diagnosing that their CPL spiked because the landing page form is too long or their ROAS dropped because they’re targeting bottom-funnel keywords with top-funnel messaging.

Honestly my clients need strategic guidance more now than ever because Google’s automation makes it easier to spend money but harder to understand whether that spend is actually profitable or just inflating vanity metrics while bleeding margin.

[bonkeeboo]

Google wants people to continue using Google Ads, right? It’s where they get a huge amount of their revenue from.

Who wins in Google Ads? Who gets the lowest cost per click? Who does Google send the lion’s share of the traffic to?

It sends it to the people who’ve got the most relevant pages that match what the person is searching for.

Whatever you are optimising for now inside Google Ads, even if that’s going away, the optimisation becomes on-page optimisation. How can you make sure, for yourself or your clients, you are optimising in a way that Google is going to reward you for having the best page with the highest relevancy and user experience – rewarding you the lowest cost per click? That’s what the name of the game always has been. That’s what the name of the game always will be.

[cjbannister]

There’s a massive opportunity right now.

Broad advice is difficult because it depends what you’re into and interested in, etc. but I strongly recommend getting into vibe coding and the data analysis and tooling that comes with it.

If you haven’t already, ask your boss for the $20/month Claude sub. Or cursor. Or anything with a CLI tool.

Automate, learn, then use the time and your new found abilities to expand into other areas like CRO and SEO. Wherever the opportunities are.

As long as you have the ability to get people customers you’ll be valuable.

[IHaveNeverEatenACat]

It is about building the funnel, not the ads.

[newdad710]

Just evolve like the industry is. I was concerned when Google began announcing nee AI features 4 years ago that would make all of us unnecessary. That just for search Ads which is broke AF right now.

The world is changing online more rapidly than ever. Ahrefs came out this month with new data that Google SERP CTR is down 58% since Gemini overview was fully added.

What did (smart) marketing managers do last year in response to losing 30-40% of digital revenue and opportunities? Increase ad spend. Reportedly by 31% so far on average since April 2025.

Google search Ads are dying and Google is becoming a DSP engine essentially with pmax and video. OpenAI Ads are coming soon. Then Gemini overview.

We are still needed but not if you think you’re a master of keyword stuffing and negative keyword lists. Every body needs a new bag of tricks.

[s_hecking]

It’s not a bad idea to add complimentary skills to your quiver. Lots of future roles in PPC will likely require a few different hats (analytics, basic scripting knowledge, HTML, security, etc). After a few years managing accounts, look for mid-management type roles. You’ll likely spend more time in data and analytics once you move up a role (spreadsheets, dashboards, etc)

PPC-only jobs will likely become more scarce unless you’re running larger accounts. Small business PPC is likely to be most affected.

[gryphon89]

I’m yet to see a set-and-forget eCommerce account. Until that happens, you’re safe.

[qaz135wsx]

Your writing ability may be holding you back.

[gladue]

It’s true, experienced strategy and good structured funnel landers is best done by human knowledge. But If you aren’t using adjacent tools like Claude code or cowork or direct API’s in PPC etc you will fall behind at some point.

Also, don’t fear what you are seeing AI do with PPC right now, future proof yourself, because of what you aren’t seeing. There is so much being tested behind the public view that is way more advanced.

[Plenty_Guarantee_928]

fair thought, automation is eating buttons not brains and ppc folks who adapt are doing fine. the move i see most is into growth or marketing ops by doubling down on 1 data storytelling with ga4 and simple sql queries, 2 creative testing frameworks that tie copy angles to audience segments, 3 conversion rate experiments on landing pages not just bids, a teammate of mine shifted from pure google ads to growth lead in 9 months after running one a b test per week and documenting lift in a simple sheet. if you stay only in platform tweaks the runway is shorter, if you own revenue impact the runway gets longer with a rough benchmark of 10 to 20 percent lift from structured testing. 

[Luc_ElectroRaven]

You have to grow up (like a tree) from PPC – it’s the base level skill now. But people are always going to want a trusted advisor to ask about what’s happening with their money. Also with ppc comes the implied assumption you are going to grow their business. This is just real, even if it shouldn’t be.

So in that spirit don’t transition away from ppc but add skills like understanding landing pages, understanding offers, understanding attribution and tracking setup, understanding AI and automation and where it can be applied and where it shouldn’t be applied, understanding more of how business works so you can continue to be that advisor.