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Mainstream PPC Advice…?
Posted by on April 30, 2026 at 7:43 amI manage PPC campaigns, for a living.
I've been doing it for almost 20 years….
I sometimes have nightmares about keywords.
That said…
Mainstream PPC advice.
Where does it come from?
So Glad You Asked!
2 Main Sources.
A. Reps. They've been calling. Emailing. Leaving voicemails. Over, and over… and over. They've called every ad agency on the planet. If they can't get a hold of you, they call the client/advertiser directly. And they WILL throw the agency under the bus.
ANYTHING to get you to adopt their recommendations. Maybe I should check under my bed at night just to make sure there isn't a Google rep hiding there with a clipboard with checkboxes "performance max", "broad match", and "enhanced conversions". (kidding…)
B. Social Media. Click bait posts on Linkedin, YouTube, etc. So many uninformed people posting about things they have 0 ZERO, and I mean… ZERO data to actually back up. AI generated posts just exacerbate this entire issue.
Is the mainstream advice accurate?
In large part, no. It's not. In a way this gives me a lot of comfort because it makes my work more impactful. When I can login and audit an account, and implement a strategy after multiple hot shot agencies have failed, trying to apply these brain washed strategies, and then my "OG" strategy works, sure it makes me happy, and it also validates that the "new age" PPC methods are failing most advertisers, and is the reason why their campaign results are dropping off.
How do I know this? (mainstream advise is wrong)
I've interviewed MANY PPC managers, wanna be PPC managers, but MANY with legit experience.
- Can they demonstrate that they can write an ad?
No. 99% have ZERO ad copy skills. Media Buyers, that can't write ads. They send me examples of campaigns they've written ads for with no CTA. No Value Proposition. Spelling Errors. Just blah in most best case scenarios.
- Do they know how to segment campaigns?
Why would they? When they believe "consolidation" is the way to go. Who needs to separate campaigns into specific themes & avatars, so you can tailor the ad copy and landers to the search intent? Nope. Don't need things like that. Because that would require actual thinking and time.
- Have they heard of exact match?
Yes, but because they are brain washed, they don't use it. All broad match + "the right signals" is all you need! "Let's look at your brand lift Mr Client!" – Don't worry about CaC, what about your MER? That's all that matters! (insert eyeroll)
The list is much longer than this but these a few examples and a couple of the more common issues.
The "new age" model:
- Consolidated Campaigns – Segmentation is not referred to as "Fragmentation". A negative connotation created by META, and now is being passed around the paid media space. Again, for the people in the back – FRAGMENTATION is a new age word made up, by the ad platform to get you to feel like you're stupid if you want to segment.
- Broad Match Only – Too many spam leads? No problem. "HOLD MY BEER" – Time for all broad match – That should fix it!
- No Segmentation – Let's just dump a bunch of semi related keywords into 1 or 2 ad groups. Heck, who needs to actually do any real work here.
- Optimization Score – YAY! As long as it's 100%, we're all good. Let's make sure we don't have those nasty warnings popping up next to the campaigns. "Limited By Budget" – Because the system shouldn't want to get you ROI *BEFORE* raising budget – you should just double your budget before hitting KPI (oh yea, that's GREAT advice).
- Performance Max & AI Max – Is anyone asking WHERE this traffic is REALLY coming from?
The platforms are encouraging laziness, and frankly stupidity.
But Why?
Well, in 2016 Google released their first iteration of smart bidding. If you look at Google' Revenue data, their growth started to slow in the mid 2010's, and that's when they fundamentally changed the system. And the first year – revenue spiked. If Google doesn't constantly grow, they know they will eventually end up like Myspace, so they will do anything to squeeze more juice out of the lemon.
Today if you look at the search results, you'll see there are VERY FEW PPC spots available. In some markets, you COMPETE against yourself by bidding against LSA's. LSA takes most of that real estate now for local service companies like Law Firms, HVAC companies, etc. So how is it, Google keeps growing? Could it be because they are trying to force advertisers to take on ALL of their inventory? Regardless of quality?
It's like if you go to the grocery store produce aisle. They put out ALL the produce. They want to sell ALL of it. They are not going to throw away the bad apples as long there is someone there to buy it.
They're NEVER admit that they are allowing low quality traffic through. But they do. If you call them and call them out on it, they will force you to send gclid/session data to backup any claim about spam leads. (Side Note – offline data is the antidote to much of what I'm ranting about, but not the end all be all)
But alas all is not lost. There are ways to navigate all of this and still win. Most of my clients are winning, but not without challenges, and NOT by following the mainstream. If it were THAT easy. Just setup broad match and pmax, and forget it – everyone would be doing it.
But the game HAS changed. My advice. Don't drink the kool aide. Effective campaigns still require real strategy and real effort, regardless of the AI tools you use. And for lead gen – the only way to survive with Google is by leveraging offline data. This is a component of the "cheat code".
BTW, If you can show me a comparison where the data shows broad match or pmax having a stronger ROI, that phrase/exact match, WITHOUT it behind the scenes cannibalizes brand traffic to show that result, then I'm all ears. I legitimately want to see it.
But please don't comment on this about campaigns that are working with broad match based on brand cannibalization. In other words, if you turn your campaigns off, will revenue actually drop in any meaningful way?
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1 Reply
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Real OG
Can you elaborate more on performance max and AI max? Do you completely avoid them? What about demand gen?
Do you use DKI for consolidation?
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You can just block your brand traffic in PMax. Exact match takes priority PMax, all things equal.
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can you turn down the AI please?
the “just go broad/PMax and trust the machine” advice is usually way too simplistic, especially for lead gen.
AI and automation can help, but you still need real strategy: clean tracking, offline conversion data, segmentation, good ad copy, and a human actually checking whether the traffic is profitable.
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>Who needs to separate campaigns into specific themes & avatars, so you can tailor the ad copy and landers to the search intent? Nope. Don’t need things like that. Because that would require actual thinking and time.
Can do that at the ad group level and still not have dozens of segmented campaigns.
>VERY FEW PPC spots available
Have you looked at a SERP recently? There’s more ad slots then ever
>WITHOUT it behind the scenes cannibalizes brand traffic
Brand exclusions and negative keywords are your friend.
Everything you’ve railed against can work with the right setup, the right conversion event and using value based bidding – either online or offline. If you’ve got low volume, shitty conversion tracking, treating conversions as binary set values etc than you need to still use manual controls.
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