Why You Need a Marketing Agency, Even in a World of Marketing Automation

In a world of continual advances in marketing automation, what makes a paid search marketing agency relevant? The world of paid search marketing is constantly evolving, and Google is at the forefront of those changes. Google Ads has started introducing automated features geared towards making it easier for a small business to run their own paid search campaigns.

What Automation Features Does Google Offer?

Google Ads has launched Smart Campaigns, automated bid strategies, and their recommendations tab which is full of automated recommendations. They also have the ability to apply most of these recommendations automatically.

Smart campaigns are almost entirely automated. These campaigns differ from typical search campaigns in the fact that the only information you provide to Google are themes of keywords and your type of business; the rest is all done by automation from Google. The only thing you control in these campaigns is your actual ad copy.

Smart campaigns can be set up to focus on goals including phone calls, website visits, and requests for directions. According to Search Engine Land, “Smart Campaigns will even create and host auto-generated and optimized landing pages if a company does not have a website.”

Smart campaigns may be easy to set up and see “results”, but just like with anything in business, you should never settle! One thing to ask yourself:

Does Google really have your best interest in mind?

Google, like any business, has many incentives to balance, and while their intention is to provide a meaningful service, no one knows your business like you do. There is no doubt that you will receive some type of results with their campaigns, but are they going to be the best results you can get?

To know what kind of results you can get through automation, you have to understand what it is. Auto applied recommendations sound fun, but what exactly are they?

According to their FAQ’s, Google uses “performance history, campaign settings and trends across Google” to continually apply settings and adjustments to:

• Optimize your ads
• Tailor your bids
• Refined keywords
• Address repairs (fix issues within your account)

While this all can be helpful, we highly suggest keeping a close eye on any changes that Google recommends making to your account. There are as many as 60 different recommendations that are available, as you can imagine, this can very quickly get out of hand without some human oversight. In some cases, they are great performance enhancers, in others they can bring in unqualified traffic causing wasted spend, among other issues. Here are just a few issues that advertisers have experienced using Google’s automated recommendations:

• Misspelled business name in ad copy
• Overspending account/campaign budgets
• Irrelevant or extremely broad keywords

Automating Your Campaigns vs. Hiring an Agency

With all of these changes in digital marketing automation that can automate your paid search campaign management, you may be asking yourself why you would need a digital marketing agency to help run your campaigns.

Machines are great and are able to optimize media campaigns in ways humans never could, right? While this is accurate, a machine will never be able to provide the human touch and advanced strategy that your paid search campaigns deserve and need to run at optimal performance.

Even Tesla learned the hard way that full automation was a mistake and had to rehire employees and remake their factory to suit its production needs.

“There are some things that are very well-suited to manual operation and some things that are very well-suited to automated operation — and the two should not be confused – as I’ve mentioned in a tweet a few months ago, we did go too far on the automation front and automated some pretty silly things,” Elon Musk said.

Automation is a relationship between machines and humans and by using both, you can create the perfect combination.

Advantages of Automation Within an Agency

Most agencies run on a “set it and forget it” model for their client’s campaigns. This could include a lot of automation along with certain settings to allow the account to run decently with little attention month after month.

Automation at its core is powerful and beneficial in assisting with tasks, but should never be the forefront of any strategy. So, now you might be asking yourself where the human touch specifically comes in and why you need a marketing agency to help run digital marketing campaigns. Here’s a few reasons:

• Automation enables us as humans to further specialize in our area
  • This allows for time to better learn and understand each client’s market and demographics along with their brand. We can then really personalize a strategy that aligns with each client’s business goals.
• Less time acquiring info, allowing more time to interpret and apply it
  • We understand budgets only go so far, so by automating data capture, we can spend more time actually digging that little bit deeper to interpret the data and how best to apply it.
• Creativity
  • A computer only knows what it is programmed to understand. A computer does not know emotion. This is where our agency takes information and creates relevant ads that speak to the individual.
• Adaptable – things within the industry change constantly
  • Because Google is constantly changing its product offerings, the way keywords run, what types of ads can run, and more, we have to be able to adapt our strategies quickly. AI simply could not adapt these changes on a personalized level.
  • The market is also constantly changing, take the pandemic of 2020 for example. At the height of the uncertainty, search volume dropped, and if Oozle had not been hands-on and creative with our clients’ strategies we could have seen many clients go out of business.
• Proven Results
  • In a year of uncertainty and reduced search volume, Oozle’s accounts actually saw a 9.57% increase in overall conversions by simply switching our strategy and staying relevant to the individuals with the right message at the right time.

Each and every one of our marketing accounts are automated in some way, because let’s face it, there are some tasks that should be automated because they can benefit greatly from it.

However, no matter what automation we decide to apply to a paid ads account, we maintain a hands-on approach at all times to analyze data and personally optimize each one through advanced targeting and strategy.

Oozle Media prides ourselves on that special, customized approach and attention to detail for each of our clients. We are able to spend the time on each individual client and learn their brand, their target demographics, and what sets them apart from their competitors. This in turn allows us to effectively market them across multiple platforms with proven success; something a machine cannot do on its own.

Rely on Oozle Media for Your Pay-Per-Click Strategy

The question is not whether you can do it on your own, it’s should you do it on your own. Oozle Media has proven results time and again, even within a constantly changing industry and platforms. So, if you want the best results and that personal touch, we are the answer. Reach out to our team to get a free analysis of your current marketing strategy and learn more about what Oozle Media can do for you.