The Pros and Cons of Automated PPC

To Automate or Not to Automate

Automating your pay-per-click or PPC campaigns sound like a great idea. You set up your campaigns, implement some rules for the algorithms to follow, and sit back and let Google Ads do its thing. It’s not all easy breezy when it comes to automating your dealership’s PPC campaigns. It takes more to manage PPC campaigns and more work that goes beyond the initial setup. Let’s dive into some reasons why you may not want to automate those PPC campaigns.

Not as Easy as Setup & Go

You’ve put in the hard work, set up your keywords, adjusted your bids based on the bidding parameters, and now you’re good for the next few weeks or the duration of the campaign. Not so fast. Google Ads is only as smart as the users using the PPC. Keywords change, people are searching for different topics, and you need to be acting quickly to make sure you’re not bidding on keywords that aren’t bringing in the right customers. Likewise, you want to make sure you’re not missing out potential keywords that are on the border of being good enough for your bids. If those keywords fall under the automated campaigns’ radar, then you’ve lost that bid and potentially lost out on that click. Don’t turn a blind eye and think your work is done just because you’ve put in the necessary setup to kick off the PPC campaigns.

Campaigns Need to be Large Scale

If you’re managing PPC for your dealership and the campaigns are new, or the campaigns are only going to run for a week or so at a time, it’s probably best you don’t choose to automate those PPC. Car dealer PPC campaign bids need history to see what has worked and what hasn’t to best determine which bids to vie for and which ones to skip. If your campaigns are fresh out of Google Ads, you likely won’t have enough data to set up automated PPC campaigns effectively. You just need to make sure you’re choosing automated PPC campaigns because it’s what will be best for your dealership and not because you’re afraid to make adjustments in the beginning.

Automation Can Build Lazy Habits

Automatic technology can easily build lazy habits in workers, so it’s important that you don’t allow your automated PPC lead you down that path. For starters, you won’t be learning or improving your PPC strategy, if you just let the PPC campaigns run on their own. As a PPC strategist, you want to help your dealership and do your job well. When you’re able to take the time and care to manually check on your automated PPC campaigns, you’re also giving yourself the chance to learn what works and figure out what doesn’t, so you can change your bids for the better. Managing PPC can be a guessing game, in the beginning, so don’t fall into that trap of becoming a nonchalant PPC strategist.

The Downside of Automated PPC

Automating PPC campaigns is great in some cases, but when you’re working with smaller, shorter-lived campaigns, it’s really best for you and your dealership to just stick with manually adjusting those PPC Google Ads. You’ll be building smart habits and learning the ins and out of the bidding process and increasing your clicks in the long run.