PPC Town Hall

AI can now take on more PPC account work, from analysis and recommendations to parts of campaign management. But if it makes the wrong call, the agency still has to answer for it.In this episode of PPC Town Hall, Kirk Williams joins Fred Vallaeys and Aaron Levy to talk about how PPC agencies should actually use AI without confusing faster work with better work.They discuss:- AI for PPC account management and analysis- Human review and accountability- AI agents making account changes- Client communication and trust- Vibe coding and building internal PPC tools- When to build your own software and when not to- Why practitioner judgment still matters- Measuring AI by business outcomes, not outputIt’s a practical conversation about where AI helps experienced PPC teams, where it creates new risks, and what still needs a human owner.Follow Kirk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ppckirk/Follow Aaron: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theaaronlevy/Follow Fred: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickvallaeys/Check out ZATO Marketing: https://zatomarketing.com/► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts every month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall

In this episode, Aaron and Fred sit down with Joe Martinez to talk about a question more PPC teams are having to answer: when Google Ads is still working, how do you know when the next dollar should go somewhere else?Joe has spent years working in Google Ads, but today he spends much more of his time testing and managing channels like Microsoft, LinkedIn, Reddit, Meta, OpenAI, TikTok, and others. They talk about how he decides where to move budget, what he’s seeing from newer platforms, and why native platform attribution often doesn’t tell the full story.They also get into OpenAI ads, Reddit’s growing role in B2B, Demand Gen versus standalone video campaigns, and why offline conversion data matters so much for lead generation.The bigger theme is how the PPC job is changing. Platforms can automate more of the execution, but someone still has to decide where the money goes, what signals to feed the system, how to measure success, and how to explain those decisions to clients. Joe has a lot of practical experience doing exactly that, and this conversation is full of useful examples.Follow Joe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joemartinezppc/Follow Aaron: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theaaronlevy/Check out Paid Media Pros: https://www.youtube.com/c/PaidMediaPros► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts twice a month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall

AI agents sound exciting in theory. In practice, the useful question is much simpler: can they actually help you manage PPC work better without creating more problems than they solve?That’s what Fred wanted to unpack with Benjamin Wenner in this episode of PPC Town Hall.Benjamin has been working in marketing for about 15 years, and over the past few years he’s spent a lot of time testing agent-based PPC workflows for real accounts. What we appreciated about this conversation is that he doesn’t pretend the work is easy or fully automated.Benjamin and Fred talk about where AI can genuinely help PPC teams today, and where things get messy once you move beyond simple tasks like writing ad copy.A few things they get into:* Why direct access to Google Ads and analytics data matters so much* Why simply giving an AI more data can actually make it less reliable* Why Benjamin recommends starting with read-only access before letting an agent make changes* What data structure and context have to do with whether an agent works well* Why building agentic PPC systems is often more of a data problem than an AI problem* What Benjamin’s own setup looks like today* Why he thinks most marketers only need a small number of core functions, not hundreds of automations* Where human judgment still mattersOne of the things Fred kept coming back to in this conversation is that the goal shouldn’t be to remove the PPC manager from the process.The better goal is to give a good practitioner more reach, more context, and more time to focus on the decisions that still need a human.If you’re already experimenting with AI in PPC and wondering what the next practical step looks like, we think you’ll get a lot from this one.Follow Benjamin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminnadirwenner/Follow Fred: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickvallaeys/► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts twice a month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall

What do you optimize for when the lead you get today might not become a customer for another two years?That’s the problem David Newson deals with in wealth management, where long sales cycles make many of the usual PPC signals much less useful.In this episode of PPC Town Hall, David and Fred talk about what happens when Google Ads gets plenty of conversions, but they’re not necessarily the right conversions. David shares what happened when his team tried Performance Max and saw lead volume increase while lead quality dropped sharply.From there, they get into a bigger question: how do you give Google useful feedback when the real business outcome happens months or even years later?They talk about:- Why early signals can matter more than waiting for the final sale- How David thinks about PPC for a 24-month sales cycle- The problems that come up when CRM data, compliance, and advertising platforms don’t work neatly together- Why more leads can sometimes make campaign performance worse- How to think about measurement when marketing data will never be perfectly clean- Why David believes there’s a finite set of keywords that really matter in wealth management- Why he encourages firms to give away more of their knowledge- What he’s seeing from AI-driven discovery, including one client getting 65% of its year-to-date leads from LLMsDavid works in an industry where a lot of the easy PPC answers stop working. You can’t simply wait for a closed deal and assume the ad platform will figure everything out from there. Sometimes the better question is: what can we learn much earlier in the customer journey that tells us whether we’re heading toward the right outcome?Hope you enjoy the conversation.Follow David here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/newson/Follow Fred: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickvallaeys/► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts twice a month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall

Can AI agents really manage Google Ads accounts? We think they can help a lot, but we should be careful about how much authority we give them.In this episode of PPC Town Hall, Fred sat down with Nils Rooijmans to talk about AI agents, Google Ads scripts, and what account management may look like over the next few years.Nils described agents as “interns with terrifying confidence,” and that phrase captures the problem well. An agent can produce a polished explanation and still miss an important detail about the client, the account structure, or the business strategy behind a decision.They talked about why scripts still matter, even as agents become more capable. Scripts are often better for predictable work such as filtering large datasets, checking thresholds, and narrowing thousands of search terms down to the few that need deeper analysis. The AI can then spend its time on the harder judgment calls.They also covered:- How Nils built an AI-assisted negative keyword workflow- Why confidence scores can help determine when human review is needed- Why Google’s AI does not know everything about your client’s business- How token costs and data privacy affect real agent deployments- Why narrowly scoped agents are safer than one agent asked to manage everything- How better client conversations produce better instructions for AI- Which skills PPC professionals will still need as more execution becomes automatedWe do not think the future is humans versus AI. The more useful model is humans setting the strategy, scripts doing reliable processing, and agents helping with the work that benefits from context and reasoning.This conversation is for advertisers and PPC professionals who are interested in AI but do not want to hand over an account just because a confident-looking demo appeared on LinkedIn.Nils Rooijmans runs a PPC agency. He's also a Google Ads Scripts pioneer, and now deep into AI agents. Check out: https://nilsrooijmans.com/Follow Nils: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilsrooijmansFollow Fred: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickvallaeys/► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts twice a month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall

Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/QGhc7LCLslMHost Frederick Vallaeys sits down with Anthony Higman, founder of Adsquire, to explore how AI and automation are changing Google Ads—especially in high-cost, high-risk verticals like legal PPC.Anthony shares insights from managing campaigns for personal injury law firms and explains why automation can behave differently in practice than expected. The discussion highlights where AI-driven campaigns like Performance Max and AI Max can struggle, particularly when precision and control are critical.They cover:- Why AI can sometimes produce mismatched leads in PPC- The balance between automation and control- Challenges in sensitive industries like legal and finance- The role of first-party data in modern campaign strategies- How conversational search is changing how ads are triggeredThe episode also touches on how platforms are evolving quickly, and what advertisers should keep in mind as they test and adopt new AI-driven features.If you’re navigating AI in Google Ads and want a practical, experience-based perspective, this episode offers useful takeaways.Follow Anthony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-higman-a3656a46/Follow Anthony on X (Twitter): https://x.com/AnthonyHigmanFollow Fred: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickvallaeys/► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts twice a month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall

Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/YhWyTO1vn6EFred sat down with Lars Maat to talk about what it actually looks like to run an agency that’s fully leaning into AI.They get into how Lars introduced AI across his team, what worked (and what didn’t), and how they got people to actually start using it in their day-to-day work.You’ll also hear real examples of what they’ve built — from SEO systems and internal tools to automations that replaced parts of their tech stack — all without relying on a big dev team.They also talk through the less obvious side of this shift: team resistance, setting guardrails, and why not everyone in your company needs to be an “AI person.”If you’re trying to figure out how to bring AI into your team in a practical way, this is a good one to watch.Follow Lars: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annstanley/Check out Maatwerk Online: https://www.maatwerkonline.nl/Follow Fred: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickvallaeys/► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts twice a month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/yAGxJTvj6HoHost Frederick Vallaeys sits down with Ann Stanley, digital marketing expert and founder of Anika Digital, to explore how marketers can move beyond one-off prompts and start building AI workflows that produce reliable and consistent results.They break down why AI outputs often feel unpredictable, and how to fix that using better structure, context, and systems like RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation). Ann explains how tools like n8n, Claude, and custom AI agents can help teams turn repetitive marketing tasks into scalable workflows—without sacrificing quality or control.The conversation also covers when AI is actually worth automating, how agencies are using AI to standardize outputs across teams, and why human input is still essential for guiding, validating, and improving results.If you’re using AI in marketing but struggling with inconsistent outputs or one-off results, this episode will help you build workflows that are more reliable, repeatable, and practical for real-world use.Follow Ann: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annstanley/Check out Anicca Digital: https://anicca.co.uk/Follow Fred: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickvallaeys/► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts twice a month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/FnIwHT0VuD8Host Frederick Vallaeys sits down with Menachem Ani, founder of JXT Group and Google Ads strategist, to break down when advertisers should use Performance Max vs Shopping, why lead quality matters more than lead volume, and how to guide automated bidding without giving up strategic control. Frederick and Menachem also explore practical frameworks for structuring ecommerce campaigns, using phrase match strategically, and deciding when to layer in automation like AI Max or smart bidding.Menachem shares real agency lessons on offline conversion tracking, optimizing for qualified leads instead of cheap leads, and why many advertisers misinterpret PMax performance. The conversation also covers the future of AI in Google Ads, the risks of moving too fast with automation, and what modern agencies must do to deliver real business outcomes—not just better dashboard metrics.► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts twice a month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall

In this episode, Fred sat down with Bia Camargo to talk about something we don’t discuss enough: most Google Ads accounts aren’t ready for AI.PMax isn’t magic. Smart bidding isn’t broken. But the problem is usually messy conversion tracking, over-complicated structure, or unclear intent signals.In this episode, Bia walks through her framework for making Google Ads accounts AI-ready:– Cleaning up conversion actions so the algorithm gets clear signals– Simplifying structure instead of over-segmenting– Using intent to guide PMax instead of trying to control it– Treating Merchant Center and feed health like ongoing plumbingIf you’re running ecommerce campaigns and wondering why automation isn’t performing the way it should, this will help.► Get actionable PPC tips, strategies, and tactics from industry experts twice a month: https://www.optmyzr.com/ppctownhall/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall ► Make your PPC management less complex with Optmyzr's tools. Start a 14-day free trial today: https://tools.optmyzr.com/info/signup?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=townhall