How to Use AI for PPC: Strategies, Tools + Expert Tips

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools can help you manage almost every element of your PPC campaigns and save time in the process. Learn the top tools and how to use them to optimize your ad campaigns.

AI for PPC management can completely transform your approach to digital marketing, from researching keywords and creating ads to optimizing campaigns and generating reports.

But should you put your PPC advertising campaigns on autopilot and let AI manage everything? Not so fast.

In this article, we’ll cover how to use AI tools to run and optimize PPC campaigns more efficiently — and how to balance an automated tech stack with human oversight.

Overview of AI for PPC management

Before you add new tools to your tech stack, you need to know how they’ll likely affect your workflow and team.

Here are some of the top benefits of AI tools:

• Save time: AI tools can handle time-consuming tasks like processing large datasets in seconds. They can save you countless hours to devote to higher-level tasks, such as strategy development.
• Optimize automatically: Could your PPC performance be even better? AI tools pinpoint areas for improvement (e.g., ad copy, creative, or landing page) to help you get more value from your campaigns.
• Scale campaigns: Not sure which PPC marketing campaigns to scale and when to do it? AI tools identify top-performing ads and make them more successful by expanding their scope.
• Reduce unnecessary ad spend: Are you wasting money on campaigns generating low returns on ad spend (ROAS)? AI tools spot underperforming keywords to help you get more value from every ad.

How to choose AI tools for PPC

As you’ll see below, there’s no shortage of AI tools for PPC ads. So how do you know where to start?

First, identify the areas where your team needs the most help or has the most room for improvement. For example, say you have a small in-house creative team with limited time to spend on ads.

When you prioritize AI-powered creative tools, you can address a key pain point while helping your team work more efficiently.

Next, consider starting with built-in tools. For example, Google and Meta have AI tools for everything from audience targeting to creative development. These tools allow you to test AI without incurring additional costs.

After experimenting with built-in AI tools, zero in on the workflow steps that still need improvement. Then invest in third-party advancements to take your campaign metrics to the next level.

How to balance AI with human oversight

Remember, just because these tools can automate many aspects of PPC doesn’t mean you should rely on AI for campaign management. You, your team, or a trusted PPC agency should always perform campaign checks regularly.

“Like all marketing and PPC tools, we feel that even the latest AI tools should be an assist to the human team as opposed to leading the way,” explains Rambod Yadegar, President of HawkSEM. “A team who understands the human element and needs of the audience should still guide the strategy, messaging, and landing page experience. From there, AI tools improve efficiency.”

Consider using AI for data processing tasks and relying on human oversight for strategic tasks.

“When analyzing big data, AI is truly the best,” explains Mateusz Calik, CEO of Delante. “I’m aware of how many mistakes a person can make when going through rows of numbers for hours on end. I see AI as a safer way of dealing with data.”

Mateusz adds that he and his team wondered about integrating AI with human expertise for a long time. In the end, they decided to use it for real-time bidding and segmentation, leaving the strategy and brand aspects to themselves.

Develop strategies and manage PPC campaigns with AI tools

Want to know how your ad campaigns are likely to perform before you launch them? Use AI for PPC forecasting and strategy to get maximum value from your advertising budget.

Adzooma

Adzooma is a PPC management platform for Facebook, Google, and Microsoft campaigns. Think of it as a virtual assistant that uses AI for better PPC strategy and automated management.

This platform can audit your PPC accounts, identify areas for improvement, and recommend optimizations automatically. It can also review your account structure, ensure your ads follow best practices, and reduce unnecessary ad spend.

Since Adzooma also offers AI-powered search engine optimization (SEO) and web performance reports, it can give you a complete view of your digital marketing strategy while helping you save time on each channel.

ConversionIQ

ConversionIQ (CIQ) is HawkSEM’s proprietary campaign analysis and attribution tool. We designed it to monitor and analyze conversions, track every step of the buyer’s journey, and optimize campaigns toward a higher ROAS.

Its predictive features reveal performance trends to leverage time-sensitive opportunities, growth signals to scale campaigns effectively, and account anomalies to address errors and limit wasted ad spend.

We also designed CIQ to consolidate cross-channel data and eliminate silos. Whether you’re running ads across Google, Meta, and Microsoft or you want to apply insights across PPC, SEO, and social media, CIQ guides data-driven decisions.

Optmyzer

Optmyzer is a PPC management platform for Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon ads. It’s an all-in-one platform that uses AI for PPC strategy and to optimize every element of your campaigns.

Can’t decide how much to budget for a campaign or which bidding strategy to use? Optmyzer’s spend projections estimate how much you’ll spend, and its budget optimization and reallocation tools ensure you’re spending wisely. And Optmyzer’s automated bid management tools oversee smart bidding strategies to maximize ROAS.

“PPC has become a huge driver for our business, especially with the possibility of cross-channel integration with the help of AI,” shares Ashwin Ramesh, CEO of Synup.

“It has helped a great deal in unifying our customer insights. We use Optmyzr, an AI-powered PPC platform for better management and strategic campaigns.

In Optmyzr, we can easily consolidate customer data from various channels giving us a comprehensive outlook on user behaviour and preferences. At Synup, we have consistently tested AI’s influence on PPC marketing, and bringing a cohesive and synchronized user experience is the biggest advantage.”

Perform keyword research and optimization

Does your approach to PPC keyword research seem more like a guessing game than a strategy? AI-powered research tools can recommend keywords for you and even suggest groups for better account structure.

Google Ads Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner is a free tool that displays keyword ideas and search volume to help you decide which keywords to target. Just enter the URL for your landing page, and the tool will generate hundreds or thousands of keyword ideas.

You can use the competition level and top-of-page bid estimates to gauge your ads’ performance. Then, you can use Keyword Planner’s forecast tool to estimate the number of clicks and conversions you’ll get with the keywords.

PromoNavi

PromoNavi is a keyword research tool that finds and organizes keyword ideas in minutes. It generates relevant keyword ideas based on long-tail variations and autocomplete search queries. Then it breaks keywords down into prebuilt groups.

You can save time by publishing Google search campaigns directly from PromoNavi. Then you’ll get automated reports to monitor top-performing keywords by audience, conversion action, and sales funnel.

Semrush PPC Tool and PLA Research Tools

Whether you’re running Google search ads or Google Shopping ads, Semrush’s AI-powered tools can simplify the process. Its PPC Keyword tool groups keywords and estimates search volume, competition, and cost per click (CPC) so you can plan effectively.

Semrush’s PLA Research Tool makes analyzing product listing ads faster. It automatically pulls in PLA positions, search volume, ad copy, and pricing for any ecommerce site — including competitors. You can use this data to create high-performing Shopping ads more effectively.

Write and improve ad copy

Could your Ad Strength score use a boost? Improving ad copy can go a long way toward better campaign performance. AI tools can suggest copy or create new iterations of ads to keep click-through rates (CTRs) and conversion rates high.

Facebook Ads Manager

When you run ads on Facebook and Instagram, you don’t necessarily need a third-party tool to write optimized ad copy. Facebook Ads Manager automatically generates ad copy ideas for you, based on your inputs.

You’ll find this feature at the ad level. All you have to do is input a draft in the ad headline and primary text fields. Ads Manager automatically recommends several variations that you can add to the ad with one click.

You can continue to refresh suggestions until you find ad variations that capture your offer and fit your brand voice. Once you run the ad, you can review Meta’s creative reports to see which ad copy variation performs best.

Google Ads

Google Ads has an AI-powered ad copy generator that’s even easier to use. When you create a new search campaign, all you have to do is input a keyword list or prompt Google Ads to generate one using your landing page.

Then the Google Ads automation tool recommends headlines and descriptions that feature top keywords. You can click to add any of them to the ad, and use Google Ads’ keyword recommendations to brainstorm more copy.

Once you publish the ad, monitor the performance of each ad headline and description from Google Ads’ asset dashboard. The platform rates each asset’s performance so you know which needs improvement.

Semrush AI Ad Copy Generator

For more advanced AI optimization for Google PPC ads, use Semrush’s AI Ad Copy Generator. This tool allows you to have a human moderate your AI-generated copy, which is a little like having a virtual assistant on your team.

Like the native Google Ads tool, Semrush automatically creates ad copy using your keyword list. The biggest difference is that Ad Copy Generator creates all the ad copy you need for a responsive search ad with one click. All you have to do is upload the spreadsheet to Google Ads and start running the ad.

Generate ad creatives with AI-powered tools

Are your ad creatives successfully stopping the scroll? With the right tools, you can generate ad creatives from text on a smaller budget and iterate on successful ads more efficiently.

Google Ads

When you run Performance Max or display campaigns, you can generate images during the ad creation process. Open your Google Ads asset library and go to the “Generated” tab to get started.

All you have to do is provide a text prompt that describes the image you want. For best results, include style details to increase the chances of the images matching your aesthetic. You can also set aspect ratios to get the exact image formats you need for the campaign.

Pencil

When you need a more advanced tool for ad creatives, Pencil can help. This generative AI tool develops creatives from text prompts for Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon ads.

You can even upload product elements to include in AI images to ensure your brand is represented accurately. Pencil can also generate new ideas for image and video ads, making it easy to iterate and test.

AdCreative

For a complete ad copy and creative suite, use AdCreative. This generative AI tool optimizes for CTRs and conversions, helping you get more out of every marketing dollar.

With AdCreative, you can generate creatives that fit a variety of ad formats to use across advertising channels. You can also connect the tool to your Google or Meta ad accounts to allow its AI algorithms to learn from your data.

Create and optimize landing pages with AI tools

Do your landing pages truly speak to your target audience? AI-powered landing page tools can optimize content, manage A/B testing, and improve conversion rates.

Instapage

Instapage generates optimized landing pages in seconds. All you have to do is input basic information like your brand name and offer details. The landing page builder automatically generates copy and creatives.

Not sure which version will perform best? Instapage automatically runs A/B tests to find the ideal copy and creative combination for your audience. It can even allocate PPC traffic dynamically to top-performing variants for optimal results.

Leadpages

Leadpages uses automation to create high-performing landing pages in seconds. Its AI Engine suggests ad copy and creates custom images based on your prompts.

It can also suggest new messaging and positioning ideas to take your landing pages to the next level. With Leadpages, you can easily A/B test variants against each other to improve the landing page experience and user experience.

Unbounce

Unbounce has a suite of smart tools designed to generate landing pages in seconds and optimize them over time. The platform’s Smart Copy tool generates landing page and ad copy for various audiences.

Its Smart Traffic tool automatically optimizes landing pages for conversions. Rather than using A/B testing, it analyzes visitors and automatically directs them to the page variant that’s most likely to deliver results.

Reach target audience segments with AI-powered tools

Are your ads reaching the right people? With AI for PPC audiences, you can understand your target customer and get your ads in front of them more reliably.

ChatGPT

To create successful ads, you need to know how to connect with your audience. ChatGPT can analyze your target customer and help you understand their pain points, goals, and messaging that’s most likely to resonate.

Once you have the basics down, prompt ChatGPT with follow-up questions for more details. For example, you can ask the chatbots how to frame pain points or which calls-to-action (CTAs) will most likely catch your target customer’s eye.

Facebook Ads Manager

When you run Facebook or Instagram ads, you don’t have to worry about inputting demographics, interests, or any other audience data. Instead, Facebook Ads Manager uses machine learning to build an audience for you.

At the ad set level, choose “Advantage+ Audience” to enable the AI algorithm to target your ideal customer automatically. You can add an audience suggestion to guide the algorithm, but you can simply automate the process.

Revealbot

As a data analysis tool, Revealbot can find your top-performing audiences so you can run more successful ad campaigns. It monitors cost per click (CPC) for each audience to easily find the right groups to target.

Using these insights, Revealbot can split audiences to zero in on the right ones. And with its lookalike builder, you can connect with new audiences likely to engage with your ads and offers.

Analyze and report on campaigns with AI tools

How are your campaigns performing? Thanks to the power of AI reporting tools, you can efficiently analyze PPC campaigns, create reports, and share insights with stakeholders.

ConversionIQ

Which advertising channel is working best for your business? How is performance likely to change in the next week or month? CIQ has the answers.

Our proprietary conversion tracking tool offers robust reporting on all the metrics that matter to your business. Our experienced team adds a human touch to this data, highlighting key insights and making them actionable.

Revealbot

Revealbot provides automated reports to streamline PPC campaign analysis. The tool highlights top-performing creatives so you know exactly which drives the most engagement, the highest ROAS, and the most purchases.

You can easily share these reports with internal and external stakeholders. And you can act on the data by using Revealbot to develop creative variants of your top performers.

Rows

When you need to do a deep dive into your PPC data, Rows can help. This data analysis tool integrates with Google Ads and Facebook Ads to import campaign data automatically.

You can use Rows’ AI assistant to get quick insights or ask more in-depth questions. Then, you can share these insights with your team to help everyone stay informed about ad performance.

Expert tips for building a successful PPC campaign

This question of what elements make up a quality PPC campaign is like asking, “What makes Beyoncé a great artist?” The answer is: so many things. But since you asked…

We chatted with Katie Blatman, a lead strategist at HawkSEM. Here are her 6 steps to building a successful PPC campaign.

1. Know your offer

“First off, you gotta know your offer,” explains Blatman. “What makes your product or service valuable to people? Why should they buy from you? What’s your story?” Answering these questions will clarify your offer so you can build campaigns and calls to action (CTAs) accordingly.

2. Determine your primary goal

Blatman says knowing your primary goal is equally important to knowing your offer. For example, if you have an online shop, your goal is likely driving more purchases. If you own a medical clinic, new patient appointments would be the primary goal.

3. Prioritize account organization

Whether you’re partnering with an agency or managing the account yourself, staying organized is crucial. “I mainly see PPC search campaigns segmented by theme (e.g. Women’s Shoes), geo + theme (e.g. Womens Shoes | US”), and keyword match type (e.g. “Women’s Shoes | Exact” or “Women’s Shoes | Broad”),” explains Blatman.

“Retail or ecommerce shopping campaigns can additionally get segmented by top/bottom margins, products by price, top/bottom geos, etc.” For example, “Women’s Shoes | $50 to $300.”

She adds that it’s also worth taking the different campaign-level settings into account, like budget and bid strategy, which are set at the campaign level. If you have a specific budget in mind for a product or service, it may be worth building a campaign around that to control the budget more effectively.

4. Be strategic about keyword choice and grouping

“Keywords and other targeting are very important as well, both with content and organization,” Blatman continues. “We’re past the single keyword ad group (SKAG) stage at this point in Google’s evolution, but I still strongly feel that grouping keywords by theme is important.”

If you have a ton of keywords in an ad group and see a few themes, it’s a good idea to break those out into other ad groups. Plus, it helps you write more effective ad copy (also an important element) and optimize your ad strength scores, which range from Poor to Average to Good to Excellent.

5. Leverage sitelinks and ad extensions or assets

In general, sitelinks and ad extensions (now called assets) are effective ways to boost clickthrough rate (CTR) and also improve the look and feel of your ad.

“There’s so much you can do here,” Blatman says.

“Are you going to click on the boring headline and description ad or are you more likely to click on one with pricing and promo extensions that let you know how much you can expect to spend and if any sales are coming up? Or a call extension that gives you an additional path for users to convert? Or images that show a side of your brand that text can’t capture?”

The takeaway

As an advertiser, you can leverage AI for anything from keyword research to audience targeting. But you don’t necessarily have to integrate these tools into your PPC workflow independently.

Our experienced search engine marketing team is here to show you how to use AI for PPC. Contact HawkSEM for a free consultation and learn how we can optimize your campaigns with CIQ and other AI technology.

This article has been updated and was originally published in April 2024.