You spent $5,000 on a PPC campaign—and your highest-performing keyword was misspelled.
It happens more often than you’d think. Clicks go up, conversions stall, and budgets burn faster than you can say “broad match.” In 2025, wasting ad spend isn’t just a cost problem—it’s a competitive problem. With Google Ads automation and AI now deeply embedded into the platform, the rules have changed, and the brands seeing better results aren’t necessarily spending more—they’re working smarter.
In this blog, we’ll break down how AI in PPC is rewriting the way marketers think about paid search. We’ll look at what’s new, what’s working, and what you should be paying attention to if you want your ads to do more than just exist—they should perform.
The Shift: From Manual Management to Machine Learning
Back in the day (okay, 2018), managing PPC meant adjusting bids by hand, A/B testing ad variations, and pouring over spreadsheets. Fast forward to now, and those manual methods are falling short. Google Ads automation has stepped in to fill the gaps—and then some.
AI in PPC today means your campaigns are constantly adjusting in real-time based on user behavior, device, time of day, and hundreds of other data points. It’s not just about who’s searching—it’s about when, how, and why they’re searching.
If you’re still setting bid caps manually or guessing which ad copy hits best, you’re working with outdated tools. Google’s AI now pulls signals from a wide net: user intent, past behavior, device usage, and even predicted future actions. That data fuels everything from ad rank to which keywords even make it into the auction.
Smart Bidding Strategies: More Than Just a Buzzword
Let’s talk smart bidding. No, it’s not just a catchy term for “bidding automatically.” It’s Google’s AI making micro-decisions at scale. These strategies now go beyond maximizing conversions—they can align with business goals like:
- Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
- Maximize Conversion Value
- CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) Targets
- Impression Share Goals
But here’s what matters most: Smart bidding works best when you feed it good data. If your conversion tracking is off or your landing pages are slow, AI can only do so much. The machine is smart—but it’s not magic.
And in case you’re wondering: yes, smart bidding strategies are now more accurate than most humans at managing high-volume campaigns. But they still require you to ask the right questions and set the right goals.
What’s Changing in 2025: AI-First Everything
2025 is officially the year Google Ads became AI-first. This doesn’t mean humans are out of the loop—it means your role changes from manual tinkerer to performance strategist. You’re not bidding; you’re steering.
Some of the biggest changes:
- Performance Max Campaigns are gaining traction, giving advertisers the ability to show up across Search, Display, YouTube, and more—from a single campaign.
- Predictive Audiences are now standard, allowing you to target people who haven’t interacted with your brand yet, but are likely to.
- Automated Creative Testing is running behind the scenes—AI tests variations of headlines and descriptions, keeping what works and dropping what doesn’t without asking for your permission.
The question isn’t “should I use Google Ads automation?” It’s “how well is my business adapting to it?”
Control vs. Trust: Letting AI Work With You
If the thought of handing campaign decisions to a machine makes you squirm, you’re not alone. Plenty of marketers still crave control—and that’s valid. The trick is knowing what to hold onto and what to let go of.
You don’t need to write 100 ads anymore. You need to write 5 great lines that can be mixed and matched across 100 scenarios.
You don’t need to monitor bids 12 times a day. You need to monitor outcomes.
Your job is shifting from micromanaging to measuring. The best campaigns in 2025 are those where marketers trust AI to handle the heavy lifting, but still hold the wheel when it counts.
The Role of Humans in an AI-Powered Ad Game
If everything’s automated, where do you fit in?
- You make the calls that AI can’t.
AI doesn’t understand brand tone or nuance. You still decide the messaging, direction, and intent behind your campaigns. - You see the forest.
While AI is analyzing each tree, you’re looking at whether this forest even belongs in your marketing strategy. - You translate the numbers.
Performance reports are still just data—until someone gives them context. That’s you.
So no, your job isn’t going away. It’s just changing. And if you play it right, it’s changing for the better.
What to Fix Before You Automate
Here’s the part most people miss: before you turn on all the smart features, your foundation has to be strong.
- Are your conversion events correctly set up?
- Do your landing pages load quickly and clearly answer user intent?
- Is your creative consistent with your brand voice and goals?
Automation only multiplies what’s already there. If your base setup is shaky, AI will scale the wrong results faster.
Before blaming the algorithm, check your inputs. Fix what’s broken, simplify what’s bloated, and then let automation do its job.
What This Means for Agencies (Like Us)
At The it Crowd, we’re not handing the wheel to AI and clocking out. We’re getting even sharper at making the calls that matter.
We don’t just launch campaigns—we study the performance, shape the messaging, and keep refining the human parts that AI can’t replicate. We use Google Ads automation to amplify results, not autopilot them.
For our clients, this means better results and more room to grow—because the time we used to spend crunching numbers is now spent building strategy and creating content that works.
So, What Now?
If you’re still running your PPC campaigns like it’s 2020, this is your nudge. AI in PPC isn’t hype—it’s here, it’s changing the way results are built, and it’s only going to keep moving.
But this isn’t a race to be the most automated. It’s a call to be the most attentive. To be the one in the room who knows when to trust the tools and when to tweak the formula.
Need help figuring that out? You know where to find The It Crowd
