There was a time in the SEM world when exact match and phrase match were more useful tools. Now, one of those doesn’t exist, and the other is just little better than broad match. Thankfully, Google’s AI has caught-up and broad match is often a better performing option, but it still feels like we’re given less and less control over what we’re buying. Performance Max campaigns often perform well, but require a complete lack of control or visibility. Visibility is slowly improving, but if I can’t take action on what I see in the data, I’m even more frustrated.

Some of us remember Yahoo!’s transparent (top 5) bid landscape, which made me feel more like a penny stock day trader, leapfrogging over competitors a few pennies at a time. There were also flat rate, negotiated CPCs with AOL and Microsoft, as part of annual sponsorships and media buys. Imagine that, lending someone a list of 100 phrases with a single per-unit cost, and doing so in-person as a portion of a days-long discussion in an office. A real office with everyone sitting at a table. Consider me thankful to have participated, but even more thankful to have moved-on.

The translucent nature of today’s ad targeting forces us to ensure proper conversion tracking, integrate GA4 data wherever possible, and navigate ad formats and bid strategies like digital ninjas. There are helpful tools out there, including Google Ads, but if the tools you’re relying on are the same applications that charge you, or even determine how much you’ll be charged, you need more control and greater expertise managing your paid ad campaigns.

There are still levers to pull, boxes to check, and otherwise safeguards to be had. That varies by client and ad platform, and it often means painting outside the lines or doing what an ad platform would never suggest that you do. Sometimes it means directly violating a best practice, per ad platform support. Way before you start going rogue, be sure to disable auto-application of platform recommendations, monitor for auto-settings that are turned on by default and need to be turned off. Some even revert back to ‘active’ or turn themselves back on when you make an unrelated change. There are still things in Meta Ads that will turn themselves back on if you so much as open-up an Ad to view it in a browser.

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