Automating Campaigns: Embrace AI & Let Go of "I Wish"

Source: YouTube auto-generated captions, lightly cleaned (repeated caption lines removed, misheard brand names corrected).

0:05what's up John here uh founder of the paid search playground uh and you can always visit me at www itall started withan idea.com let's talk about AI it is crazy uh not so much though um actually today uh there was a person who had posted on LinkedIn that said I wish I wish I wish I had thought of that it's just a GPT agent and so what a GPT agent is you go into uh open AI uh Chad GTP as an example on the left hand side and you add some prompts and some coaching and you add some files and some folders and then it output something for you uh there are a million gpts now a million plus who knows maybe we're not at a million yet but there's quite a few and in terms of marketing the circle small so there's only so many

ideas that you can come up with right and so it was interesting for me um and I say that that somebody today is still saying I wish uh for me it is looking at Claude 3.7 learning and saying what are the possibilities of creating something that is a human well it's realistic but it's super complicated but is it really that complicated and having that conversation with the tool as a marketer like hey we have challenges with space and we have challenges with time how can we as marketers solve for space and solve for time well you know everybody references Google or Amazon or Microsoft or some other storage that exist and I'm like well why do we got to do it that way why can't we treat space like a neuron um and why can't we do that well this is what you need to do in order to do

that well what about building campaigns like I have a product right now that will talk to you like it's me will'll talk to you like it's your friends and it's patented now it's copyrighted it's going through that whole process and I I had not thought in my entire what it would be of a life right now that I would be able to do something like that without having to go to school um and like starting all over again I don't have to start all over I just have to like get a renewed self of imagination and think through what is possible or what I could imagine and then ask a million questions and it doesn't mean it's always going to come to fruition it doesn't mean it's always going to come true but uh to say I wish I wish in what we are doing like you or like 10 years

3:31behind if you're well I'm unsure you're like 20 years behind if you're well we're not going to do that we need to set up this process and do that process and do this process and go through that like just forget it like continue to focus on what you're focusing on and continue to evolve with where you're at Because by the time you get to where you need to be you're going to pay somebody or pay for a tool connects another tool that connects another tool that gives you a tool that everybody's just like uh your team is like uh I don't want to use that and you know the funny thing about it is you're actually only ever using open AI deep seek gemini or uh Claude right you can say anthropic but you Claude and they all do different things and some are good and some are bad and

so your gpts or whatever you're paying for and your eye wishes and your moments of hesitation this isn't a moment of hesitation across engineering development Sciences technology creative writing AI is this is a revolution and it's it's profound yeah it is um so today I saw a post that stirred that rant of I wish but what about imagine imagine a place that is full of space that everything you always thought of that isn't material it could be material you could develop something material like somebody could ask the question how could we solve The World's problem for water how can we convert salt water to just normal everyday drinking water you can do that in your home now you have a tool that's able to process and synthesize all this information solar panels or build a solar car like those patents exist in the world go grab that

patent and study that patent and then say hey I want to take this concept and I want to build this concept for myself and I want to make it unique for myself so that I'm not breaking that pattern and I'm not going after that you're doing it unique for yourself now there are some things that are not common through this whole process and you're like okay yeah and so that's where the patents and ideas are going to hold but the thoughtfulness and the thinking and the ability to do for oneself now it's here it's been gone for a long time the society has been a society of doers and AI is allowing folks and there's some to it to be thoughtful and creative again and imaginative and dream I mean shs I'm asking questions about time and space and quantifying that as it relates to all the stuff that I

6:49do I'm asking how to automate a campaign build I I mean like I I so there's a product uh talking about Google advertising let me just talk about that so I have a product right now where uh it's in a Google sheet you upload a script and it it you can build your campaigns in the sheet your ads your ad groups your keywords and then I have another uh product that um again these are all combined that so I've separated these products out um where it's just a a keyword analyzer right um and then I you know for the ad Builder uh that I have I mean gosh I've been using that for I don't know what 2 three years and now with AI I can put a box here on the right hand side or I can create a UI for it um and

you can type in and Coach it and train it to be just like yourself or your business or the business you're representing and it spit it out now you have to uh of course like just check your work you should check your work anyways even if you built it from scratch and and Google ads but imagine just going into a platform and you know it's cool that like Google ads editor um you know can uh build ads at scale but you still have to manually do the headlines but now just imagine the tool that spits out a sheet that pops it up uh into ads editor and all you need to do is review your work or imagine that you just hit enter and it uploads it to Google ads your whole campaign building all you're doing is checking your work right and there are tools out there that

can build display ads and creative and automate that people will figure that out and then you can bulk upload that as well too um so like this today like the things that we're able to do because of AI if we're not thinking that way um then what are we thinking about I wish yeah I don't know I'm not a fan of I wish I'm not a fan of uh let's just take a pause let's think about it let's come up with a 10-step process before we launch into it or hey yeah this idea anybody could do that's not true right it's not true at all I um for example gosh uh working with um Buddy by Ahmeego uh going through cursor there are limits like if you just let cursor pick what you're going to do it's going to eventually it's going to default to Gemini Gemini is going to erase all your

9:38code and you got to start all over again uh if you use uh open AI it's going to think through some of the process but it could delete all of your work too and so you have to be strategic in what you're going to use and you have to work through it people are like this Vibe coding thing with uh open AI uh or with a ChatGPT or with Claud or whatever like I get the vibe coding thing and great for your three to five minute piece of work that you can't actually manually take out and give to the worldwide web You're just showing a screenshot of what's in the tool itself like that's great I get it but to actually code something uh using Python and uh command and like have it in GitHub and humming face and go through all of this process where

these different repositories of of of information said is tough I up yesterday I woke up at 8:00 in the morning and I went to bed at midnight and I thought for sure by noon I was going to be done and every time I got to a certain spot I was like okay I want to do this and I want to do that and then something would break I'm like what is breaking and because I changed one line of code in over 5,000 lines and multiple uh files I had to then go back and adjust those thousands of lines across multiple pieces and then you get hit with erors because some code doesn't work well together right there's conflict between uh different packages and you're just like ah what is this and then you realize like oh this is what a developer and engineer is fighting like

in their brain they have this idea and they and we think it's like it's just Square Peg and you just put this information in they get to line too and change just something so simple impacts thousands of lines everywhere else and you got to go figure out what the heck that problem is the vibe coding I get you want to build something that's meaningful the tool and the passion and the care and the effort still matter and you still have to know what you're doing and what you're looking for otherwise you're not going to go anywhere you're just going to stall out with something that everybody else is already doing like some report that filters from Google ads API like look you guys today I'm going to give you a cheat code and we're going to wrap this part of um the podcast up here's cheat code go ChatGPT um ask for

12:21a yo for Google ads it'll give you four lines it'll give you everything that you need go into uh um gosh Google ads type into the search bar at the top type in API key and you're going to get the center go to API Center and you're going to have um an API key just for testing go apply for basic in order to apply for basic which allows you to actually make changes live in the account and do those things you're going to have to fill out some documentation print off a spec of what you want to do and you can have ChatGPT do that for you that's simple then you go into ChatGPT and you're like well now I want to uh print reports for this that's one two three bang bang there's so many people that have put so many different iterations of scripts

from the API and Chad GPT now that you're almost nine out of 10 times going to get a first iteration on how to run a report with some cool graph across a campaign type that's ChatGPT today that's clawed like it is that's it the more that people use it the more those agents become smarter right um so that said the ey wishes don't wish y'all go out and do be doers be thoughtful be thinkers if you're just doing like good luck to you couple of topics I've been busy uh posting articles cleaning in my backyard I cleaned a pool this morning um which is a lot of work by the way to clean the pool there's a whole process behind that especially if it's salt and I planted four more trees so I got a couple more citrus actually uh I have uh two more

limes and then I have some tangerines that I just planted as well too which I'm super excited about and I'm probably going to plant probably 10 or 15 more out front they're on sale at Costco plug for Costco 39 bucks look to get Citrus right now it's PL period the best fruit that you can get is fresh off of the tree and Costco's got a better deal than Home Depot I Love You Home Depot you're my break but yeah period okay um that's just a simple plug strategy and bidding let's talk about it uh manual or automated I think it depends manual is a thing I get it for small businesses and big businesses I absolutely get it there was a time in my career more recently uh with not even recently that was a long time ago now that was uh when I was managing uh Nam

15:13and and Global strategy across what was uh you're going laugh what was Gemini Yahoo at the time Microsoft um when it was being and then of course Google ads right and before there were even rsas I remember that winter when rsas broke it was a nightmare we were like what are we going to do we got to add all of these headlines as a beta it was even worse when I the initial before that was the 90 characters it was kill it was killer it was absolutely killer right um the headline expansion the description I so I was doing manual bidding and I was using ecpc and I was beating Raz and I was beating CPA and I was I was beating it I beat it I ran a test uh across um what was it 220 dealers uh based out of Australia across um Eastern and Western

Australia and I ran a test to see if I could beat uh roaz and CPA and I absolutely did I I squashed it and so um in my head I was like oh yeah I could use this brain laabs 247 bid modifier and I could do uh I could do all of that and then I had to come up with a script so I came up with a script on the side that would change the bids um because I was using manual and I had little secret sauce behind me was a tool called boss uh so it was a bidder at the time uh for cdk Global that was proprietary and maybe they're still using it today I think you're going to get some thumb up action and I had saw how it had bit and I had learned that with manual bidding um you could actually still auction and

it's super powerful for brand you can auction um with minimal bid at the lowest possible bid I'm talking like Pennies on the dollar for like strong Brands not so much for for big Brands and still serve like at 90% of the time which is crazy uh and it's still a thing I mean today if you have a big brand uh I don't know let's say apple did Google ads advertising or casley um as an example or Rayband or I don't know what am I looking at LinkedIn uh Riverside uh who made these hats let me see here the NFL um and new error yeah HUD day go bingles um you could still do manual bidding for your brand and it works absolutely 100% uh do you localize it I mean I think it depends do you do it national it depends do you do it International it

18:15depends it depends on your brand it depends on what you want to achieve and what you want to accomplish and then automated strategies just make sense like brand or no brand um we talked about manual manual is historical it's classic requires a ton of effort you're in the tool every day you must adjust your bids by the way I just I'm just I'm going to say this if you're doing manual bidding you should be adjusting your bids every few days up or down couple pennies at minimum using some sort of script like you guys can't just leave it set like as advertisers Hey listen SBS midsize businesses Enterprise businesses if you log into your account and somebody's using manual bidding and they haven't been any adjustments in a week and you have all of these red flags for like first page bid or not serving enough or

and they're like well we need more budget because we only get this no no no no no no no no adjust your bids log into the system you get paid we get paid as advertisers as marketers whether you're inh house or an agency go in and adjust the bid period automated bid strategies same thing right you're either bidding towards an action right CPA cost per action or the event that you're tracking your goal or Raz right so what is your return on ADD spend so what is that value is it 1 2 3 4 1.1 1.6 167 67 whatever it might be you just setting like a round the worst thing is is to go into an account look business owners and you can go to your shared library and if you see all 450% for every product that you're selling is every one of your products

going to get you a return of 450% are your margins all the same no your margins and your bids whether it's cost to acquire a new customer based off of whatever that action that you're going after form submit lead mql SQL whatever it might be your op whatever it might be set that value for that particular product at that and then adjust it up 10 15% 20% 30% depending on how you want to push your account but if you just log into a shared library and you're selling a like 10 different products and all your bids are the same across and your targets are all within 10% are your margins the same for all your products no that's absolutely ridiculous right um I got my cell phone here there's probably a hundred of them that exist in this world and and different versions of I mean I

21:25think iPhone has like 50 different versions of just I what is it on now 16 or 15 or 12 or 13 whatever it is on right it has so many different versions that the and the margin on each one is different that's why one sells for like a 100 bucks and another one sells for a th000 you can't bid the same on them and expect to get the same return on it so your bidding shouldn't be that so when you're thinking about automated or you're thinking about manual point of it all the point of it is it depends there's no right way anybody saying one way is the best way um I probably would just be a little concerned about um anybody just always using manual I probably would be extremely concerned about somebody probably um like just head over heels about row as and you're not even a row

as based business and you don't even know how much value you're getting on your products I probably would have a lot of questions and vice versa for somebody that's CPA um I probably would have concerns at the root of it is when people are talking to you about your business and your strategy and what you want to do are they talking to you about your strategy and what you want to do and what the value is of your products and then assessing how that works like Hey we're going to start out in manual bidding once we get to 50 conversions because we have enough information whether it's Facebook or Google ads or Amazon ads whatever it might be shopping products Advantage Plus whatever you're doing um once you get to that place you're like okay this is what it took to get there this is

what it's going to take to move forward can we get a little smarter I can't continue to adjust bids or yeah I can't continue to adjust bids because it's working um but are you are you growing the business are you just doing the same old same old somebody should be talking to you about that manual versus automated always depends you guys there's no right way there are Nifty tools that are out there there are scripts that you can write I have a bevy of scripts brainlabs has a bevy of scripts you can just go to Google and I mean heck now you could use CH gbt to write a a script that goes in and manages your bids based on how you want to uh be thoughtful be considerate but most importantly talk to the business you guys um in businesses if you're listening to this anybody your

24:02Automotive retail Ecom um gosh uh Legion SAS Finance education nonprofit if you're listening to this make sure somebody's going into the account a couple times a week and adjusting the bids and targets right um and it doesn't have to be significant I mean a couple pennies is okay a couple percentages is okay there shouldn't be big large swings but somebody should be going in and at least changing it and having a meaningful reason behind making those changes and making adjustments uh if your bids haven't been adjusted for two weeks that's a problem 30 days like you need to go find a new business to operate with I'm just going to say that uh moving on we've like AI is dope bidding is dope there's AI behind bidding and and manual but uh performance Max versus tradition ah I'm a fan of new so I just I'm going

to check that box I'm going to be the person that leaps in head first and I'm going be the person that drowns in the new I just I love it uh why because that's where we're going uh so I uh at times um want to be respectful of what works but I also always 100% 101 % of the time and I'm I think s has got me on the 100% thing um great dude SEO if um yeah works with uh OBX great dude that's it's not a plug it's just a general great dude got me on the 100% thing um performance Max do it it might not work it's okay you got $100 put 20 bucks towards it it might not work but probably isn't going to work with 20 bucks you're probably going to need to go all in and you're going to need to get to the threshold of about 50

transactions conversions whatever it might be over what period of time to get there and how much you need to invest in it should be like what is your cost per acquisition do your cost per acquisition times 50 that should be your investment right and so people ask me how much should I always invest when I'm trying something you should invest at whatever it takes to get to 50 to get there at 10 is not going to tell you a good story 15 20 is not going to tell you a good story 50 will tell you there's balance there right and so performance Max I love uh because it takes a lot of the guest work out from the funnel I mean top of the funnel mid funnel bottom of the funnel uh you can do shopping you can do search ads you can do display ads you can do

27:01video it's all encompassing is there right um and the asset groups you can break out all your products or your categories just like your website right so um online uh for example um it's not even talk about my website let's talk about LinkedIn um at a high level right so if I were just to hit the um LinkedIn and I were to like blow this up I have connections contacts followings and groups and events pages and newsletter all those would be my asset groups right with different things different goals different Ambitions for each one right like how many events do you want to set every month how many pages do you want to connect with and see how many newsletters do you want to write and read how many people are following you right how many contacts do you have and how do you want to grow those contacts

right your total connections and it it all rolls up all it rolls up to you your objective is to grow your brand or to grow that business but you need to have different goals for each asset group because each asset group can do different things that's why I love performance Max and you can control that through audiences uh through the different events that you're tracking um I love it and then the traditional way is the traditional way if you're listening to this and you're Noob um I have videos now on my YouTube right it all started with the idea I have videos now that I'm working through just like answering your question like what is a CPC what is a ctrr what is CVR and just like little shorts on why you should do these things forget the rigor remot and the long explanations um so I'm not going to get

into too many details there but uh performance Max to me I like I think uh when sometimes um you should be using it people are have been abstaining from demand gy but are you really I mean if you're doing display ads if you're doing performance Max social style shout out to monum um for that dope dudes knows ABA like the back of his hand knows Ecommerce like the back of his hand super smart probably uh one of the top out there in performance Max um language you can find it all over search engine land uh shopping style right or social style where social style is just all about creative uh and then shopping style is just about shopping now sometimes pmax doesn't do shopping well so you have to then do um gosh traditional shopping either way y'all do AI stop wishing test test test