{"id":26093,"date":"2025-06-11T15:45:38","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T10:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/?p=26093"},"modified":"2025-06-11T15:45:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T10:15:42","slug":"ppcchat-preparing-yourself-to-work-in-the-ppc-of-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/ppcchat-preparing-yourself-to-work-in-the-ppc-of-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"PPCChat | Preparing Yourself to Work in the PPC of Tomorrow | 10th June 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The PPC industry is evolving rapidly. With AI being integrated into nearly every aspect, the fundamental nature of search and its results is shifting, and data is becoming less and less visible. Amid all these AI-driven changes, how can PPCers be sure there will still be a place for them in this industry five years from now? Here is the screencap of this week’s PPCChat discussion, hosted by \u00a0Julie F Bacchini<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Q1: Where do you see PPC going in the next 1, 3 and 5 years? What will the work look like for PPC professionals?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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I think about this a lot. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be ready to become true creatives and strategists. The value of keywords is diminishing as more people lose the affinity for the written word. @navahhopkins<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can confidently say I don’t know. But I do expect less visibility into specifics, more black box products, and more consolidation in the industry. Walled gardens abound! @JuliaVyse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital Growth Professionals > Digital Paid Media Professionals. @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some parts will come down to what ultimately happens with AI. Right now we are in the huge bubble inflationary period of AI. Everything is awesome. AI can do so much – just wait til you see, etc. There will be a reckoning at some point between what companies want to sell for their stock prices and what people actually want\/use. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also think ethics will be one of the most powerful value adds. @navahhopkins<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like, storyboard this: in a conversational AI search, trusting a brand to answer questions well is unrealistic. Perplexity and OpenAI will learn from Google’s mistake of turning SERPs into an ad litterbox and tightly control answers, conversational guides, and overall answer narratives. Get ready to partner with search engines, not enter a keyword auction. @JuliaVyse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agents are the key. @navahhopkins<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@NeptuneMoon<\/a> We have talked about this a few times, but I think PPC marketers will have to go back to being just “marketers” again. There is not going to be a role for someone to manage CPCs and do all the manual stuff folks have been able to do over the years. What will shift is being an expert on what platforms for what audiences. There is also still a role for making the right creative for your audience. I am not sure how fast it will be before AI can create the right copy\/images for brands, but seeing what Google comes up with now, it is absolutely not yet. Folks need to lean into other platforms and understand the demos they represent and how to use them. Basically, we are going back to the 90s in some ways with the introduction of these new ad types and the directions platforms are moving in. Now, if you are looking 5-10 years, it could be even more different, but for now, just expand your expertise if you are only a Google\/Microsoft person currently. We will still have a TON of value for many years to come, though. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to market your ads to AI agents, \u2018Agentic Checkout\u2019, optimize for Glasses, Voice, AEO, GEO all of these will dominate for the next 3 years. @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, we need to position ourselves in the places AI cannot. I am curious if there will be defensive tactics that will need to be deployed as AI does more and more inside platforms @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hello old friends! It will become more of a Growth manager role over multiple disciplines as the in-depth technical work will be mostly automated. Offers, pricing, creative, landing pages are the levers. Things have already skewed this direction for quite some time but it will just become more and more mandatory. @markpgus<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like how to make sure your stuff stands out and\/or doesn\u2019t get absorbed by the borg of platform AI. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@markpgus<\/a> So great to see you here! @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m curious about the impacts to advertisers in heavily regulated industries–finance & banking, tax compliance (the space I operate in) etc. @KristenLienemann<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@KristenLienemann<\/a>, I think that is a great question. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think coders will be more in danger than marketers in the short term if I am being honest. Good marketers will be in need for the foreseeable future. Someone needs to shepherd the spend in the right places where the customers are and today we have more options than we have ever had with so many platforms from Google, Microsoft, Twitch, Discord, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Spotify, Amazon, Pinterest, TikTok, etc… It is actually getting pretty crowded out there and brands need someone to help them navigate to the right platforms, not keywords and CPCs. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@KristenLienemann<\/a>  I’m curious if you find Microsoft’s vertical ads (specifically finance) are helpful. @navahhopkins<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe Digital roles are going to fall under product marketing, and they\u2019re going to be driving most things. You see in a lot of orgs where product & growth aren\u2019t on the same page. That’s going to change. @markpgus<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@KristenLienemann<\/a>  I work with a lot of regulated industries as well, and I believe @JuliaVyse does as well. I am guessing some platforms will continue to cater to us, and the ones who don’t will end up losing that business over time. We have legal issues with automated copy and things like that. We cannot let platforms just create what they want, or we end up in legal trouble in some cases. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@navahhopkins<\/a>  – We actually have not utilized them yet. @Ichasse<\/a> – That’s exactly our issue as well.  @KristenLienemann<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Q2: Are you doing anything now to try to be prepared for how the industry is shifting? If so, what are you doing and if not, why not?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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I’m trying to learn as much as I can. I’m trying to be in AI groups and spaces inside my giant holdco. Trying to hear the different things AI groups are saying, and how they’re saying them. @JuliaVyse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One piece of business advice I have long given to PPCers is that you have to always be selling things that people want to buy. And that often means both learning new skills or ways of doing things as well as sometimes repackaging stuff you already do in ways that are attractive in the current market. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Playing with different AI models is important to understand how they function and tasks they’re best suited to. @navahhopkins<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I chat with GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity a lot (1 hr+ a day easily). Implementing automations with n8n & MCP.MCP is going to be the new API. @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it means putting something out front that has historically been more in the background. As I look forward, competitive analysis stands out on this front for me. No platform\u2019s AI is going to be able to do the same type of analysis a smart PPCer can on what your ad competitors are doing and how they are doing it. And, where opportunities lie for our clients\u2019 brands. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess you could use AI to help you with analysis? But what the platforms will be doing will not be the type of analysis I am talking about. I\u2019m talking positioning. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please also play with image and video AI. Creative is often the way in to AI for many clients, and it’s something for them to hold onto. @JuliaVyse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making sure you\u2019re providing value outside of platform expertise. After spending the last few years working with larger more sophisticated clients where it\u2019s clear that having technical media buying at 80% and focusing more on offers\/pricing\/LP\/lead scoring etc makes a much larger difference than investing the disproportionate amount of time creating the \u201cperfect platform campaign\u201d I\u2019ve taken some smaller clients on recently that want pure media buying and full control over the outside variables\u2026 the performance difference is very clear between these types and more sophisticated partners. @markpgus<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anyone is using ChatGPT, you can schedule tasks – I\u2019ve set up an AdTech\/Agency + AI News Radar – it runs twice a day and shares the latest. @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So @alimehdimukadam<\/a>  what is n8n and MCP? Help a Gen Xer out. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/ppcchatgroup.slack.com\/files\/U05FB23FD8X\/F090V8TQ8JE\/mcp_guide_for_marketers.pdf<\/a> @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@NeptuneMoon<\/a> That 39 Pages of Guide was generated by Gemini 2.5 Deep Research after scanning 100\u2019s of resources. I think about it a lot lately, fascinating to see Deep Research work across YouTube, Podcasts, and Articles. But worry about attribution, content repurposing, traffic drop and loss of outsourcing the act of searching, researching, maybe even cognition. @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

100% doing things already. Google started pushing that narrative a couple of years ago as CPCs started going up and ROAS started going down in their platform. Every brand I speak to just wants to go back to 2019 again and gets upset those ROAS numbers are not as easily attainable as they once were. This has caused advertisers to shift spend to these other new platforms to test and see what they can get. It is good news for other platforms such as Microsoft, LinkedIn, social media, Spotify, Twitch and others, though, because that frustration has caused marketing dollars to be shifted in other areas. One of my weaknesses is having a hard time saying no, but since we have worked in technology, it means I am also okay with learning new platforms and not being stuck in one area. You just have to be open to testing and learning new platforms. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I touched on this in the previous post, but I really think the skillset is going to skew more and more over under \u201cproduct marketing\u201d as things get more optimised. You will always have control over your product and variables within. Features\/pricin,g etc, will become more and more accessible to test. Some of my biggest wins over the past few years have come down to pricing tests for self-serve SaaS. @markpgus<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think this is also a great time to really ask yourself what types of work do you want to be doing. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With SO much information being fired at us every day from all different angles, how are you guys absorbing it all? I catch myself in analysis paralysis sometimes because I’m not sure what to tackle first. @KristenLienemann<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leveraging or learning skills that have been more under the CRO umbrella is not a bad bet either. Landing pages and website destinations have always been important, but with AI crawling them and using what it finds in a multitude of ways, skating by with an average website is not going to cut it. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@KristenLienemann<\/a>, that is why I said it is not a bad time to prioritize what you want to be doing. Things are shifting faster than they ever have. And that is saying something in this industry! It\u2019s ok to decide that you want to learn X but not really Y, and then proceed accordingly. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone else mentioned it as well, but make sure you are using the different models. Some are better at specific tasks than others. Like Claude, I am told is better at code than the other platforms. All these platforms are only as good as the data they are being fed. Over time, the differences will fade a bit, but they will always have a skew in a certain direction. Usually, the direction will be determined by what can make them more $$$ for shareholders vs. what is right or the best. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@NeptuneMoon<\/a> I started in this game in 2005 and I’m just feeling a bit like a PPC, right now. @KristenLienemann<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 1st is my 26th anniversary being an independent marketer, then digital as that grew, so @KristenLienemann<\/a>, I feel you. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@KristenLienemann<\/a>  You are not alone. Some of us were using Lotus 1,2,3 to send mass emails back in the day and sifting through server logs to try and get user data with the websites. We literally saw the invention of this stuff, and it has only grown since then. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@Ichasse<\/a> Oh! how I remember this. @KristenLienemann<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marketing used to send the campaign emails by just bccing everyone on your list and there were a lot more AOL emails back then, lol. I still laugh when I see someone still using an AOL email address. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember using different phone numbers in print ads to track where customers and leads came from???? @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Q3: What are you most excited about in the next 5 years of PPC?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Just excited about the times we are in and the pace of rapid change. It\u2019s gonna be a roller coaster and will make for good stories for my kids. @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am interested in using my more general marketing skills regularly again. Having been in marketing since before digital, I do feel like I have a built in perspective that should be quite useful in the next 5 years. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m looking forward to more meaning. Brands will need to think more about what they offer, and not just in the product sense. As opposed to thinking about decimal of cent differences in CPCs and nothing else. I’m looking forward to bigger conversations. @JuliaVyse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A question I ponder over – what if the model of free internet powered by ads is flipped altogether. What happens then\u2026 @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like @NeptuneMoon<\/a> mentioned, getting back to regular marketing is going to be fun. There will be fewer hacks to win clicks and revenue, and it will be more about the products and the positioning. I am also excited about all the new platforms, because that means being able to target different users with different messages based on who and where they are. Let the robots do the robotic stuff, and we can get back to being creative and pushing our brands to have better products and the best prices, and offering the best service. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was also in web design many, many moons ago and so many brands do not give their web experiences the attention to detail that they deserve. I am hoping that will change soon. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think there will be a lot of opportunity for SMBs OUTSIDE of PPC. I think in the world of algorithms and aggregated data, the small guys are going to be left out. You already see this to some extent. I think it creates interesting challenges and opportunities for us to help solve. For larger brands, more strategy is exciting. That being said, I think bringing things in house and perhaps \u201coutside marketing strategy consultants\u201d will become more common. @markpgus<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@alimehdimukadam<\/a> that is a massive question that we don\u2019t yet know the answer to but would obviously seriously impact us all @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, the last site I fully redesigned and launched was for a company who was making iPhone screens (the glass in particular) out of Germany. After that, I was fully booked with ad-based work, so I have never looked back. Most companies these days, including Google, let their designs rule vs. usability and testing how fast folks can accomplish tasks with their designs. They are prioritizing design aesthetics over usability. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Q4: What are you most worried or concerned about in the next 5 years of PPC?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Nearly everything we have used as our selling propositions for PPC has changed or is changing. Particularly with data and attribution. We have long sold PPC as being the most transparent way to do advertising because you could clearly track how your dollars spent impacted sales. That has changed and will keep changing away from that being the case. Apple threw out there at their developer conference yesterday: \u201cAdvanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection (ATFP), which was introduced to Safari Private Browsing mode in 2023, will be enabled by default in all browsing modes. Among other things, ATFP removes tracking parameters from links rendered in Safari.\u201dThis could be huge and have ripples akin to their ATT rollout. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a proud member of the doom squad: everything. The term enshittification was coined by a brilliant Canadian, Cory Doctorow. He was right, and it’s going to accelerate. https:\/\/doctorow.medium.com\/https-pluralistic-net-2025-05-08-who-broke-the-internet-bruce-lehman-76cb47d153b9<\/a> @JuliaVyse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These AI tools are all designed by companies with shareholders, so the tools are going to have biases. I worry they will prioritize answers based on what brands are spending the most or what will positively impact them the most, vs. the best outcomes. These platforms are still fed data by people and programmed by people at the end of the day.You mentioned it Julie, as well, but over the years, we have trained brands to measure and look for certain things for success, and those are changing drastically. We are almost back to catalog days where attribution is super difficult and like it or not the bean counters want to know exactly where the sales came from. This is going to get more and more difficult. I am glad that I will be retiring fairly soon and will just be working with dogs or veterans for 20+ hours a week to keep from being bored one day in the not-too-distant future, lol. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

@JuliaVyse<\/a> Cory Doctorow is a great follow. @NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlearning of expectations – especially by brands and SMBs of what PPC can deliver and it\u2019s not a magic wand. Ads alone can\u2019t work in isolation – PPC is a subset of \u2018Marketing\u2019. @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again @Ichasse<\/a>  – same wrt retirement – few more years for me and then I can stop worrying about this stuff haha @beyondthepaid<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not that we are counting…@Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Q5: Are there resources that you wish existed to help prepare for the future of PPC?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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I am asking this partly so I can make them\u2026@NeptuneMoon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

lol. I honestly don’t know what I don’t know. @JuliaVyse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh this is a tough one and probably impossible to fulfill for anyone at the moment. We would need a roadmap and then how best to utilize the tools not only available, but what may be available in the coming year(s). In 5 years marketing is going to totally look different than it does today. We probably won’t even have a PPC title available anymore, because that will be considered something for the history museums of marketing. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been battling with this education\/training material for what\u2019s next and little bit of AI, the pace of developments would mean getting on the treadmill and would be hard to get out of if pulled in. @alimehdimukadam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrestle with the conundrum of specialization (search) vs. generalization (managing multiple channels). How can we learn to be experts if we’re juggling so many platforms. @JeffreyHain<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had someone ask if I would make some classes, and I told them that would not even be possible right now with how things are changing. I am skeptical that even next year, things will be similar enough that a class you made today would even still be relevant in a year.Also had a couple universities ask if I would adjunct professor some digital marketing classes for students, and I had a similar sentiment. The curriculum has be approved, and as soon as you would approve it changes would need to be made for the changes and you would have to go through the approval process again, lol. In the semiconductor world, they used to have a rule called Moore’s Law: Moore’s law is the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. I feel like we are at that point in marketing technology where every 2 years, things don’t even look close to what they looked like before. @Ichasse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PPCChat Participants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n