Writing compelling, must-click ads was, until recently, one of the last aspects of PPC that couldn’t be automated. But with the introduction of ChatGPT and the rise of other large language models (LLMs), automation in PPC is now on a whole new level.
Automation has had a game-changing impact on PPC marketing over the last six months, according to Frederick Vallaeys, co-founder & CEO of digital marketing agency Optmyzr, who spoke at SMX Advanced. So how can you use GPT to your advantage in PPC?
Here’s a recap of Vallaeys’ top tips and tricks that he believes can help you get the best PPC results, from having played with GPT.
1. Building a campaign using just GPT
Advertisers can create campaigns on platforms such as Google’s Performance Max with a generative build experience. Marketers simply need to have a conversation with the Google system to build it out using prompts.
This can be used not just for PMax, but also traditional search and shopping campaigns.
To give instructions via prompts, make sure you are as clear as possible. Try following a similar setup to what we’ve listed below:
- Create prompts: Enter the specified URL, ad text, keyword that you would like to be the focus of the prompt.
- Give simple instructions: Ask Google a clear question such as “Find some keywords to advertise the landing page.”
- Results: AI should instantaneously provide you with an answer to help you on your way to building your campaign.
Vallaeys said he has tested GPT 3.5 and 4.0. There are differences between the two – both work – but he advised running the OpenAI in chat mode rather than completion as it “maintains context.”
2. Using GPT for keyword classification
GPT is an excellent tool when it comes to keyword classification because “it figures everything out for you” at a much faster pace, Vallaeys said:
- “For keywords to be classified, they have to be turned into a mathematical model – which is basically vectors. The AI system is really good at that.”
- “So if you say here’s a list of keywords, put it into categories, you don’t even have to specify what categorization means – like what kind of high level categories you need. GPT does it for you.”
- “You can then go one further and say ‘Well, actually, GPT, can you give me that output in a table format and the second column should be the classification and the first column should be the keyword suggestion – then it become much more usable.”
- “Then you have everything in a sheet that you can copy and paste into either Excel or Google Sheets.”
3. Finding keywords for existing ad groups
GPT is a great tool for finding keyword for existing ad groups. Simply, create a prompt with a simple direction, such as “Find me keywords similar to existing keywords in that ad group.”
During his presentation, Vallaeys shared that he used this exact technique himself and that the results GPT served were “quite good.”
4. Creating ad text using GPT
Using GPT to create ad content has recently been a huge talking point amongst marketers. One aspect of the tool that seems to have really impressed the industry is that the bot remembers your previous instructions and the results it served.
This means that if you have just asked GPT to find keywords, you won’t need to remind the bot of these results before going on to create your ad as it still has this context.
- “It’ll just say ‘here’s a couple of ad texts related to the thing you were asking’ – it still knows what you’re talking about,” Vallaeys said.
Although Vallaeys was impressed with GPT’s ability to create ad content, he did note that it still needs more development (e.g., the bot isn’t great with character counts and the results aren’t always usable).
5. Optimizing landing pages
GPT can help ensure landing pages are as effective as possible.
For example, if you come across a website that you like and think the style of writing is of particularly high quality, GPT can help emulate that same writing style for your campaigns. Vallaeys explained:
- “I found a website I liked, so I then went to GPT and asked what the style was of the text on that page. GPT told me the writing style was business-oriented, customer-focused – along with a number of other bullet points.
- “So I then asked GPT to take a certain piece of text from my landing page and rewrite it in a style more similar to the other website. It took those stylist points and rewrote the text for me – which made my landing page better.
6. Enhancing product pages
If you’re a shopping advertiser and want to create great headlines and product descriptions, GPT can help you.
“This is what it’s good at,” Vallaeys said. “It’s really good at writing.” He added:
- “You can literally say, here’s a URL – what is the product category for this page? Then you can put the product category down in the Google Merchant Center feed.
- “[If you’re not happy with your content] you can say give me a better title description and it’ll give you new title. These are great quick ways to try to do optimization if you’re a shopping advertiser.”
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7. Translating using GPT
Vallaeys and his team have tried and tested GPT’s translating capabilities and were very happy with the results. “GPT is really good at translations,” he added. If you’re in regions such as Europe, you will find this tool particularly helpful because of the huge variety of languages spoken there.
Sharing the results from his own experiments, Vallaeys said:
- “We took a sentence from one of our headlines – and I don’t speak Finnish, so I couldn’t even pronounce the words!”
- “But the Finnish colleagues on my team said [GPT provided a] very, very good translation.”
- “So it’s a nice way to do translations. And again, you can do them at scale through a spreadsheet with GPT.”
8. Creating unique Imagery
You can also use AI to create unique pictures – whether that be creating completely new images or overlaying existing graphics.
- Simply, upload a product image you would like to use.
- Tell the AI to remove the background in the photo.
- Then you can layer the remaining image on top of another picture.
“AI generated images don’t always look fantastic,” warned Vallaeys. However, it can still prove to be a very handy and time-saving tool.
9. Developing audiences
Audiences are becoming increasingly important in PPC. This is another area where AI can help.
“You can have a conversation with AI and ask what characteristics or attributes would a budget-conscious traveler have, for example. And it’ll give you a list,” Vallaeys said. He added:
- “Now, I can copy those keywords and I can make custom audience segments in Google.”
- “You can put in keywords – and this is a really cool way to use GPT to build audiences from scratch.”
- “It is basically like your intern who gives you new suggestions, new ideas about who might be looking for the types of things that you sell.”
- “GPT can give you that insight. They can open up your perspective and give you some insights that you may have otherwise completely missed.”
10. Reviewing performance
Once a campaign is up and running, marketers can use GPT to check that it’s not running alongside poor search terms.
- “You want to make sure you’re not wasting your money,” Vallaeys said.
You can do this by feeding GPT a list of keywords and asking AI to rank them from most to least relevant. GPT then decides by itself how it’s going to group and score keywords.
Vallaeys added:
- “For me, the key point is that there’s always the bottom of the list – the least relevant stuff.”
- “I can look at that and I can quickly get some pretty good ideas for negative keywords, and I don’t have to look through a list of hundreds of potential search terms to figure out what is least relevant to the thing that my website is about.”
- “So this is another way that GPT is quite helpful.”
As the capabilities of AI continue to grow, some marketers have grown increasingly concerned about job security. However, the truth of the matter is that AI is not coming for your job.
- “You’re competing against other advertisers for your job – not AI. And it’s the advertisers who have figured out how to use AI to their advantage that will win,” Vallaeys said.
