AI is going to have a significant impact on digital marketing (as well as almost every other industry and profession) in the coming months and years. In a follow up to our recent blog on Future AI Plans for Google Ads we now take a look at 6 predictions about how AI – including ChatGPT – .will impact it.
We credit WordStream for the content in this article and you can read the original post here. These are the predictions on the ways in which AI will have an impact on Google Ads campaigns:
1. Increased competition (and higher costs)
If advertisers who are leveraging ChatGPT are able to achieve better results and generate more revenue from their campaigns, then it may lead to higher prices for keywords and make it even more difficult for smaller advertisers to compete.
ChatGPT could be particularly beneficial for larger advertisers who have the resources to use AI to gain a competitive advantage and outbid smaller advertisers for ad space.
Google Search is being used less because of ChatGPT and Google recently announced its own AI search experience, Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), which integrates AI into the Search Engine Results Page. This experience pushes organic search results even further down the page and may impact non-paid search traffic and clickthrough rates, leading to increased competition to show in Google Ads above SGE results.
These AI tools are inevitably going be part of an evolution or transition to a more efficient model than Search.
2. Improved targeting
ChatGPT (and AI in general) has the ability to analyse large amounts of data and generate insights about audience behavior. We already see this to a degree with smart bidding strategies within Google Ads, however AI tools have the capability of analysing user behavior on websites and other digital channels to identify patterns and trends, so could help advertisers segment their audience based on factors like demographics, interests, and behavior.
So advertising professionals who decide to leverage the tool to enhance the audience targeting will have a competitive advantage over those who choose not to.
3. Enhanced ad copy
Using ChatGPT’s strength in natural language processing capabilities to generate the ad copy word-for-word is an extremely powerful tool for PPC.
Google is also using AI to help advertisers create and enhance ad copy. They announced asset creation within Performance Max which will use generative AI to generate ad headlines that more closely match search queries.
As ad copy is such a critical aspect of marketing, any small improvement could have massive returns in regards to CTR and overall ad performance.
4. More efficient ad campaigns
With improvements to both targeting and ad copy, ChatGPT and other AI tools have the ability to help advertisers create more efficient ad campaigns overall. The result of these more personalised ad recommendations could be a better user experience and higher engagement and conversion rates.
Additionally, ChatGPT could help advertisers optimise their ad campaigns based on user feedback.
5. Greater reliance on machine learning
There’s been an increasing use of machine learning in the paid media space over the last few years. It has greatly improved the ease of setting up and running campaigns, however the increased usage and forfeiture of control from advertisers to the “algorithm” that is run by the entity designed to take your advertising budget isn’t always a good thing!
As AI tools continue to evolve and improve, advertisers may become more reliant on machine learning algorithms to manage their PPC campaigns. This could lead to greater efficiency and better results though it may also lead to a lack of insight into how money is being spent which has always been a concern since the integration of machine learning.
Not only that, but as the technology is clearly capable of building and running PPC campaigns, it has the potential to eliminate jobs as human intervention becomes increasingly unnecessary on the surface of it.
Savvy and experienced advertising professionals realise however, that the “best practices” AI implements may be in the best interest of Google and not the advertiser from a cost-efficiency standpoint. This is why it’s going to remain so important to incorporate the human touch and oversight into AI-enabled PPC campaigns.
6. Continued innovation
With AI and ChatGPT, we could experience change at a rapid and disruptive rate that hasn’t necessarily been experienced since the industrial revolution.
As AI and machine learning technologies continue to improve, advertisers will have access to more advanced tools and algorithms for analysing user behavior and preferences, identifying trends, and optimising ad campaigns.
There will also be new ad formats and channels as voice assistants and smart speakers become more prevalent. There could also be more interactive, personalised, or immersive new types of ads, such as augmented reality (AR) ads or virtual reality (VR) ads. Finally, we can expect to see continued innovation in the measurement and attribution of ad performance.
In summary, continued innovation in the PPC advertising industry could result in advertisers being able to reach their target audience more accurately and users experiencing more relevant and engaging ads.
Crucially though, it also means that advertisers need to make changes and experiment to continue seeing good results, as those certainly aren’t guaranteed to benefit the advertiser unless the human steers the use of the technology to achieve their marketing goals, rather than just entirely relying upon it.
If you want to know more about how the use of ChatGPT & AI could impact the advertising results of your business, please get in touch.