PPCChat | Let’s Talk About Scaling in PPC | 12th May 2026

During this week’s PPCChat session, host Julie F Bacchini sought PPCers views on the need for regular scaling for clients and stakeholders, some of the hardest parts about scaling in PPC, platforms’ role in making scaling easier and whether it varies by platform or industry.

Q1: Is “scaling” something you are asked about or feel like you need to be doing for clients or stakeholders on a regular basis? And if so, what is the context of the scale requests? You can also share how you define “scaling” here as well.

I feel like it is not specifically asked about in lead gen like it is in ecomm…To me, scaling is adding budget to a platform until it hits the wall of diminishing returns. @NeptuneMoon

Yes. There are lots of questions about scaling, but also more broad ‘how do we do more’ and the forever ‘what’s the opportunity?’ @JuliaVyse

Scaling to me is increasing spend and return beyond just an incremental 5%. Scaling would often come as a request from execs that didn’t all the way understand search logic and/or do and choose to ignore it. Can’t we just do more of the same thing and spend more and get more conversions at the same CPA/ROAS? And the answer is so often no because search is finite/demand capture. If there’s no more demand to capture…. well…….that and the next click always costs more than the last – we already got the cheap ones guys and gals! @Aaronlevy

Clients and stakeholders do often ask about this. Most of the time it’s “how can we get more leads?” For most clients, the answer is “add more budget” but sometimes it’s “improve your slow irrelevant 2001 website” (improve ad rank) or expand to other platforms. Bing Ads are underrated; low added effort, often better returns. @williamhboggs

@JuliaVyse Yes – typically “are there more leads we could get on this platgform?” @NeptuneMoon

Well, and ‘should we be on Microsoft Bing PMax?’ or ‘how much can we spend on AI Max?’ If we ever get a planning tool that helps me show the ceiling I’ll die happy @JuliaVyse

So many questions about scaling – a lot of clients want to be getting more leads / making more revenue / selling more product, etc. @revaminkoff

Sometimes scaling also means looking at internal business practices to CLOSE more of what you’re already getting. It’s amazing listening to calls from customers trying to book services at businesses with apathetic sales teams. Eg: Auto repair shops: Someone calls looking for a part, and the service team just tells them to order it on eBay instead of trying to convert to a service appointment. Or not having nurturing flows in place. Just 2 examples @williamhboggs

@williamhboggs SALES TEAM TOLD ME THE LEADS ARE NO GOOD ok, well we checked the records, and they haven’t answered the phone since 1972, and wait a week to follow up on leads so…… maybe fix that before we spend more money, k? @Aaronlevy

Worked at a place where the sales team were ‘gatherers’. They’d only take inbound calls; couldn’t be bothered to follow-up and make outbound calls to current leads. … So we hired a company to make the outbound calls to our leads and warm transferred them to the sales team. Success!!! @JeffreyHain

Scaling is a tough question and almost all clients ask about it. Many times I actually tell them to work with a CRO, because we already have a lot of traffic and we just need to get more conversions with the same traffic. Website optimizations and looking at your sales process can often times increase the revenue without just adding more ad spend. Doing the usability testing, changing up landing pages, looking at sales processes, sitting in on sales calls, etc.. are all very valuable tactics. In the platforms, it is like @NeptuneMoon said though and finding the spot where increased spend begins to hit a wall. If they have caps on what they need ROAS to be or CPA, etc… then we need to scale to that. Oftentimes getting on a new platform can yield more than just increasing spend on Google, Microsoft, FB, etc… The first part of my answer though is generally where the real value is. @Ichasse

I’ve rarely gotten this question as a direct ask in the last few years, but I’m aware that plenty of stakeholders need to scale. Most want more conversions at the same or lower cost as goals are met but refuse to accept the idea of diminishing returns and will sacrifice efficiency chasing after scale. @JulianPhillip

Yes, but more often than not, clients don’t know their numbers when asking to scale. Unless they are financially fluent – scaling will always lead to an abrupt halt – stock issues, poor planning, inventory management, financial literacy …Then there are those who come with our budget is unlimited as long as CPA is X @alimehdimukadam

Q2: What are some of the hardest parts about scaling in PPC for the accounts you work on? What industries do you work with? And does it vary by platform?

I think @Aaronlevy ’s point about clicks getting progressively more expensive/less efficient at a certain point is a great one to reiterate here. @NeptuneMoon

Lots of businesses don’t want to put in more budget, even when they have a clear positive ROI and plenty of room to expand. I never understood why. If you have a money tree, water that thing! Lol
(mostly small service businesses)  @williamhboggs

Clients typically want to scale volume without losing efficiency, and it’s hard to figure out where that drop-off point is. @revaminkoff

@revaminkoff I think it is almost impossible to know you’ve passed that point until you pass it too @NeptuneMoon

My public sector accounts just want….everybody, and my retail clients want people to come to stores, no matter how far away they are. i can only capture what demand is there! @JuliaVyse

Also, the clients we work with typically don’t have unlimited/flexible budgets — so they want to see more volume, but it’s hard to get someone to agree to spend any extra money / add additional budget to see that volume. (We work with a lot of small businesses/start-ups but also some big corporates who do annual planning) @revaminkoff

might be a question later, but there is a real convo to have about demand generation, the product and the activity. @JuliaVyse

I was just about to say that scaling is often used for search, and that has built-in ceilings. @NeptuneMoon

@revaminkoff the annual planning is such a gift! until Q3 when there’s no additional budget even in the reserve fund for opportunity @JuliaVyse

1: It will NEVER be more of the same. want to scale pmax/broad match/ai max/anything max? Great, you’re going to get new queries and new goodies as the tool explores. 2: Reallocating tofu budget to search generally equals less search, not more. 3: Your TAM is likely finite as well – there’s only so many times you can talk to the same person. IMO scaling effectively (not necessarily efficiently) requires looking at new things, not just feeding more fuel to old things. @Aaronlevy

I’ve found a sweet spot for a lot of Local Service businesses is around 30% Impression Share, ±5%. Past about 35% I start seeing bigger rises in CPLs. It’s important to have strong ad rank as well; I feel like this is often overlooked @williamhboggs

Now, if you add social into the mix, it becomes a different conversation. But one that then has to talk about spending on demand creation and not just capture. And SO MANY BUSINESSES want to magically capture demand they have done nothing or nearly nothing to generate…@NeptuneMoon

@NeptuneMoon 100% – we’ve been focusing a lot more this year on generating demand for a few clients because they want to scale, but to your point, only x people might be searching for them and they need x+y to hit their goals. @revaminkoff

the natural next step for a lot of brands is competitor conquesting, and they are often NOT ready for that cpc conversation @JuliaVyse

@JuliaVyse or going after competitors without a compelling “why we’re better than them” story @Aaronlevy

Also, sometimes there is a reason outside of anyone’s control why people might not be interested in their product right now. In particular, thinking about a luxury big-ticket client in an uncertain economy and political climate wondering why volume has limits…@revaminkoff

I think the early internet mythos of “if you build it they will come” is baked in to a lot of people’s thinking when it comes to specifically search advertising. And it simply is not the full picture or equation, but man, is it persistent! @NeptuneMoon

All my luxe clients need to get into VIP mode NOW. Scarcity and low volume is the way forward for the next two years, min @JuliaVyse

@JuliaVyse Definitely helps – but there are still only so many people willing to pay $50,000 for a new custom patio deck, for example. @revaminkoff

The hardest part of scaling is getting the brands to understand what scaling actually means. They see they are getting great returns and expect that to continue into the stratosphere. We all know that is not the case, and we need to find the first ceiling as marketers within their segment. Every segment has a limit. I don’t care what market you are in. Then you enter a zone where the return on spend decreases for a period, and then the next level it decreases again, etc. It gets progressively more expensive to acquire a new customer as you scale any brand. If more competition enters your segment, it may get more expensive even where you had already scaled (added little bonus when that happens). The other tough part is when you start using social media to start scaling, and yup, social media ads have a pretty significant impact on your paid ads in Google/Microsoft as well in a positive way. It just takes a ton of work to make this stuff all work together. @Ichasse

Client education is the toughest – when they aren’t aware of the second-order effects – have to almost verify – are you sure, have you ran your numbers, is the inventory in stock, etc. Gets very tricky on Amazon specifically coz you loose your organic rankings fast if product goes out of stock – have to climb the ladder again @alimehdimukadam

Echoing Lawrence’s point. Getting clients to understand that there are limits to scaling and that finding and respecting those limits is not quitting. It’s a healthy understanding of capturing the demand that’s there when it comes and goes. @JulianPhillip

For me it is networks insisting on having us compete for less qualified demand, especially at scale, instead of being able to more efficiently target precisely at volume. @Chriskostecki

Q3: Have you found it easier to scale for your brands on some platforms/networks versus others? What do you think makes it easier on the platforms where it works the best?

I can say that it’s been easier on Google and on TikTok. Video for amplification and discoverability is very helpful. @JuliaVyse

Google Search is “easy” in the sense you can turn the dial up and down and tend to have a defined end point. Microsoft search is similar, though I have found an increased reliance on the partner network (not an amazing thing) as you turn the dials up. Demand Gen/YouTube/Social can be easy as there’s no ceiling regarding inventory, but is a ceiling in terms of RFM/TAM (aka how often you’re talking to your addressable audience). @Aaronlevy

100% yes. You need to be where the customers are. The good news is today we have a lot of platforms to advertise on, so you don’t have to just depend on Google, Microsoft, FB to get new customers. Those 3 happen to be the biggest ones, but they are not the only ones. You can advertise on Amazon, Twitch, TikTok, Spotify, etc… as well. Even some of the traditional media like radio can be extremely effective. Just do a bunch of testing and find where you are getting the best traction. @Ichasse

Love the callout on traditional media formats – they’re much more trackable than they used to be and direct mail works weirdly well. @Aaronlevy

I am such a proponent of putting dollars into all parts of the funnel. I honestly think that is the single biggest thing you can do if you want to scale PPC results. So if you’re not using say, Microsoft Ads – try it. If you’re not on any socials, try it. If there are other formats, (even non-digital ones!) take a good look and try them. @NeptuneMoon

@Aaronlevy DM is IT!!!…also support Canada Post @JuliaVyse

I feel like Google is much easier to judge how much you can scale, but also has a pretty hard ceiling. I’ve had very few problems scaling on Meta. I’m really curious: What’s your tolerance on Frequency in Meta? I feel like I’m shooting too low sometimes – when I get served 40 ads from the same brand and still end up buying lol @williamhboggs

Had a chuckle at that @NeptuneMoon made me realize my own post (and many others) state the best thing for us to do to scale as PPC-ers is to do…. non PPC things.. @williamhboggs personally I don’t know that seeing an ad too often has ever swayed me from my decision one way or the other. I get annoyed by ads that I see all the time that I’ll never buy and I forgive high frequency ads from brands I like. That said MY GOODNESS FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY USE BURN LISTS why do I keep getting ads for the pants I JUST BOUGHT @Aaronlevy

@Aaronlevy Yes, and… If you want to get a leg up on competitors, you have to generally do stuff they are not. So you can both spend and spend on Google and that may be enough for many businesses. But if you want more you have to do more and think/look for opportunities that are not being used by everyone. @NeptuneMoon

Frequency and converted audiences go hand in hand! @JuliaVyse

I started in DM so it is easy for me to find the value in things like post cards, catalogs, radio, etc… Never sleep on these things as they can be a big part of the success as a marketer trying to increase revenue for brands. I do still love traditional media, especially if you target the right media markets and segments. @Ichasse

@Ichasse … also started in DM; very good training ground!  @JeffreyHain

@Aaronlevy 100%.. ! More brands definitely need to use them. I am guilty of intentionally triggering more ads from Thursday Boots. As a photographer, I really liked their ads and wasn’t seeing them enough on my feed @williamhboggs

@NeptuneMoon hehe leg up as I’m whining about pants……I’m a 7 year old. @Aaronlevy

The amount of lazy marketing by mid to large brands should be studied. Most clearly do not use exclusion lists @NeptuneMoon

DM taught marketers how to measure success without a last click attribute, so it makes us a little more agile in some cases and can show impacts of different advertising channels a little better than folks who never had to show success without all the nice reporting you can get from pure digital platforms today. There is a lot of value in that when you have a CFO or CEO breathing down your neck about performance of different channels and their value to the brand. @Ichasse

It’s just as much bad incentives as bad behavior. If I’m incentivized on sales through my channels, you bet your behind I am keeping that frequency HIGH @Aaronlevy

My anecdotal findings. I find it easiest to scale Google when I’m selling something with an AOV around $1,200 – $1,500. Product, software, subscription, whatever. With that AOV I’ve seen I can sustain sub-$30 CPLs, or if it’s a direct purchase, then a CPA of $150-200. Rarely do I need to convince a B2C client that sees revenue in Shopify or GA4 or wherever else. So scale comes easier with faster turnaround type clients. Meta – It depends on the brand. In the case where I see an opportunity to scale and indicators within their eCom platform or analytics are telling me the same story, I’ll let them know there’s room to grow or give them a ramped sort of recommendation. Sometimes they just don’t want to spend more, even if the data says to. It comes down to comfort levels, and belief in the attribution more often than not. @timmhalloran

@NeptuneMoon I am of the honest opinion that “lazy marketing” is the new normal. Nobody will admit it, but I have audited way to many accounts and sales/marketing processes for companies to think any differently. Lazy marketing also includes things like what Google does and just email everyone on an account even if they have nothing to do with the management of the account, etc… If you show value and you work hard you will get much better results than by these very grey area tactics companies take today. @Ichasse

And now that you can “just plug in Claude” the laziness is about to be WAY worse @JuliaVyse

@JuliaVyse Don’t get me started on AI, lol. Amazon cannot even get Alexa to work right, so why would you trust AI yet with people’s livelihoods and careers? @Ichasse

But @Ichasse I have been repeatedly told that AI is the future of everything and if I don’t adapt to that or accept that or make it my religion I will perish? @NeptuneMoon

@NeptuneMoon & @Ichasse I’m stuck in the middle as far as AI sentiment goes. On one hand, I think that AI shouldn’t make us into lazy marketers, but I wonder if AI can enhance work product as long as we learn how to use it properly. I’m seeing more job descriptions calling for marketers who are open to using AI, so I feel compelled to experiment with Agents over basic prompting. @JulianPhillip

Have I mentioned the 4S strategy lately. Any search scale should be based on demand, and if demand is tapped out it needs to be created elsewhere @Chriskostecki

Q4: What could platforms do to make scaling on them easier?

Show me what the potential opportunity is! If I can’t go to an Enterprise client with ‘here spend this much’ you’re getting whatever dollars are leftover after everything else is allocated. @JuliaVyse

Forecasting tools that are even on the same planet as reality. @Aaronlevy

I would LOVE some predictive tools that would actually show you roughly where that diminishing return line is @NeptuneMoon

Fred cobbled a few together – will see if I can dig them up @Aaronlevy

Predictive tools that also allow you to see how the scale will affect your performance would be really helpful. Scale suggestions that don’t start at 300% of your current spend…@revaminkoff

I use a Custom Column formula in Google to calculate Estimated daily budget increase required to minimize Search Lost IS (budget). I think this should be native to the platform. Google also has problems with how it utilizes your alloted daily budget. They should fix this to make it more intuitive. Basically if you use a schedule, you’re probably underspending. FB should add Impression Share metrics.@williamhboggs

For this I look at opportunities to capture new customers and that is still hands down Google. Microsoft’s platform is still pretty bad at scaling very much unfortunately, because I do like Microsoft better than Google as a user. I would say pairing Google with social media is the best combo out there to scale if I had to only pick one. Smaller scaling is using traditional media with website improvements. Postcards, catalogs, radio, etc… can all point to a landing page (squeeze page for us old DMers) or even just a dedicated phone number for that platform to call. @Ichasse

@NeptuneMoon We love a reach curve here in TV land @JuliaVyse

Ooohhh, I would love for the platforms to give more data on your potential market on their platform. They have data on which types of people have converted for products or services like yours. I would be great to see more and richer data provided to show you (and stakeholders)  – hey, here is an audience you’re kind of missing that might be great for you. Although I do not hold out much hope for this because all the platforms keep moving toward more and more “we got this and trust us” than showing what’s happening and where specific audiences might have impacts. @NeptuneMoon

You can also calculate Impressions Eligible For by dividing Impressions by Lost IS %. This helps to understand if there are changes in Search Volume vs Ad Performance (eg: if you start ranking worse, you might not be eligible in the auction). Always mark changes in your graph timeline so you can understand fluctuations and visually see how your changes affect performance @williamhboggs

You know they have it because as soon as you look at one ad, say on Facebook, you IMMEDIATELY gets served every single competitor ad. But give advertisers those insights @NeptuneMoon

@NeptuneMoon Meta serves me ads about my DREAMS. I need to understand this tech lol @williamhboggs

I wish Google, meta, Bing, etc. would tell you which audiences are working when you use optimize audiences / expanded audiences, etc. that way you could invest and double down on audiences that are yielding results @revaminkoff

Oh, and how about being able to BOTH target some audiences and observe others???? @NeptuneMoon

I would like to always be able to pull any custom date range. Some cut you off after 90 days and that makes it harder to pull the data argument to support scaling or defend the scaling you’ve done. @revaminkoff

@revaminkoff That’s a great one! I want deeper insights on Meta Ads. If I run a broad audience, I’d love to know what Interest categories my customers fall into. I audited an account for a prospect recently. Their agency had 300 Ad Sets all targeting a different audience. The client was B2B. Interests: Artificial Intelligence was the top performer. Probably not something I would have thought of but makes sense given Business Owners’ interest in AI. @williamhboggs

Agree with forecasting/scale tools within a smidgen of reality. And predictive diminishing return line.
Similar to what Boggs said, I’ve built some ratios for clients where we screenshot expected return at different ROAS & budget thresholds and did that for nearly a year. Then compared it to what actually happened in Google (budget & ROAS), and then compared it to the client’s actual backend payments processed data. And those forecasts where accurate about 15% of the time, but we found that if we expected return to clock in around 80% of what the planner forecast said, then we could take another 18% off that, and it would be really close to what the backend system said. So if planner said a 13x ROAS at $100,000 in spend, and our goal was an 8X ROAS for the month, that would work (80 minus 18 = 62, then multiply what planner said our ROAS would be by a 0.62 ratio and we’d be within 10% of what they ended up achieving). Largest discrepancy came in winter months (seasonal client). I’d love custom ratios or forecasts built in, so we could tweak these tools to adjust for expected vs. real and learn from it. @timmhalloran

Q5: What do you wish clients or stakeholders understood about the whole concept of scaling when it comes to PPC? Does it vary by platform or industry?

That you cannot infinitely scale. @NeptuneMoon

It’s not a spigot. You can’t just open the tap and expect more of the same to come out. And speaking to specific industries (mostly home services) – PPC can’t fix a slow season. sometimes it’s a cold winter so there’s less bugs for the summer. Or there’s not as much rain so nobody’s roof is leaking. we can’t change the world (yet) @Aaronlevy

The whole concept of TAM (total addressable market) needs a lot more talking about. No Bob, “everyone” is not your target market. @NeptuneMoon

It’s not a vending machine, it’s more like a slot machine. @alimehdimukadam

@NeptuneMoon people realllllllllllllllly overvalue their SAM (serviceable addressable market, aka who you can realistically land as customers). ambition never matches reality @Aaronlevy

If there isn’t a clear product, if there isn’t product market fit, if the price doesn’t match the demand, if the consumer can’t afford it… then scaling probably isn’t going to work until those type of issues are resolved. Also, can you handle the scale? Are you going to run out of stock? Do you have the sales team to handle the influx of leads if this works? Because those are also big factors in a successful scaling attempt. @revaminkoff

Also, customers come in concentric bands – like a dartboard. The tendency to think everyone who becomes a lead or buys something are somehow equal is so aggravating and unhelpful. @NeptuneMoon

1. You need a good product / good offer or people won’t buy.
2. Your audience might be bigger than you think, you just need to speak like the rest of them and be willing to open up.
3. Capturing market share is an investment not a quick win
4. Ballpark CPA x {How many leads you want} = Budget. This skews as you get more volume but is a good starting point especially for low-budget advertisers.
5. Understand your market and how your goal aligns with reality.
6. Know your goal @williamhboggs

To point #5 once had a client tell me their goal. I did the math and they would’ve needed 13% of the population of their area to need their service every single day, and only come to them, never the competition. Completely unrealistic for their industry. @williamhboggs

Scaling within your market is one thing, scaling into additional markets is another and takes additional business resources beyond digital marketing to do it successfully. @Chriskostecki

PPCChat Participants

• Julia Vyse @JuliaVyse
• Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon
• Ali Mehdi Mukadam @alimehdimukadam
• Tim Halloran @timmhalloran
• Reva Minkoff @revaminkoff
• Aaron Levy @Aaronlevy
• Boggs  @williamhboggs
• Jeffrey Hain @JeffreyHain
• Lawrence Chasse @Ichasse
• Julian Phillip @JulianPhillip
• Chris Kostecki @Chriskostecki

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