PPC

THE STATE OF

GLOBAL REPORT 2024

1. Introduction 4

2. Partners 5

3. Survey methodology and demographics 6

3.1 Geographic breakdown 7
3.2 Company type 8
3.2.1 Type of agency 9
3.2.2 Advertiser industry 9
3.3 Role 10
3.4 Experience 10
3.5 PPC Team sizes 11

4. Ad platform adoption and spend 11

4.1 Ad platform adoption 11
4.1.1 Platform adoption by geography 12
4.1.2 Platform adoption by monthly spend level 13
4.1.3 Platforms managed on a weekly basis 13
4.2 Monthly spend by company type 14
4.3 Monthly spend per team member: agency vs. in-house 15
4.4 Global yearly ad spends 16

5. Goals and challenges 18

5.1 Priorities for 2024 18
5.2 What does success look like for PPC professionals 19
5.2.1 For agencies and freelancers 20
5.2.2 For in-house teams 21
5.3 The most likely goal for PPC campaigns in 2024 21
5.4 Is managing PPC campaigns harder or easier than two years ago? 22
5.4.1 Why 16% think it’s easier now 23
5.4.2 Why 49% think it’s harder now 23
5.5 Agency challenges 25
5.6 In-house challenges 26
5.7 Challenges with multi-channel advertising 27
5.8 Expected tenure at current company 28

6. The agency-client relationship 29

6.1 Challenges with the agency-client relationship 29
6.2 Agency pricing models for ongoing PPC management 31
6.3 Viability of billable hours with AI and automation 32
6.4 How agencies charge for software used on their client’s behalf 33
6.5 Agencies offering services to in-house teams 34
6.6 Are in-house teams considering external help? 36
7. PPC Platforms and Management 37
7.1 Change in the level of trust in the ad platforms 37
7.2 Segmented budget expectation for 2024 38
7.3 Google Ads feature adoption 38
7.3.1 Targeting options & campaign types 39
7.3.2 Bid strategies 39
7.3.3 Additional tools & features 40
7.4 Google Ads feature satisfaction 40
7.5 Performance Max 42
7.5.1 Performance Max campaign structure 42
7.5.2 Performance Max challenges 42

8. Software and AI adoption 43

8.1 Adoption of generative AI for PPC activities 44
8.2 Satisfaction of generative AI for PPC activities 46
8.3 Number of scripts running in each Google Ads account 47
8.4 Project/task management solutions 48
8.5 Reporting/data visualization solutions 49
8.6 Marketing data pipeline (ETL) solutions 50
8.7 Competitive intelligence solutions 51
8.8 Feed Management 51
8.8.1 Feed management solutions 51
8.8.2 Feed management challenges 52
8.8.3 Feed management wish list 54
8.9 Solutions for analysis, monitoring and optimization 55
8.10 Budget management solutions 56
8.11 Multi-channel campaign management solutions 56
8.12 Click fraud solutions 57

9. PPC communities, events, and resources 58

9.1 Most popular resources 58
9.2 Most popular communities 59
9.3 (Search) marketing events 60
9.3.1 Event attendance 60
9.3.2 Event preference 61
9.3.3 Event availability 61

10. The Top 50 Most Influential PPC Experts 62

1. Introduction
You’re reading the second edition of the global “State of PPC Report.” After a
successful first edition in 2022, we’re happy to return bigger and better than ever.

We’ve updated and expanded the questions to reflect changes over the past two years.
The number of valid and complete1 survey responses increased by 110%, from 540
to 1,135. This makes it the largest survey ever conducted with online advertising
professionals.
Three new partners joined this project: Datafeedwatch by Cart.com, Optmyzr, and
smec (Smarter Ecommerce).
We took over the Top 25 Most Influential PPC Expert list from PPC Hero, as they
stopped doing this after their last edition in 2021. PPC Hero gave us the green light
to carry on their legacy, and we expanded it to include the Top 50 Most Influential
PPC Experts.

As in the first edition, we created a dynamic survey that asks relevant questions based
on our respondents’ company type and role.

Company type

Freelancer/ Advertiser that Advertiser

Agency contractor manages PPC that hires an
in-house agency

Executive (Director, VP,

Specialist Team manager
CxO, Owner)

Role

1
To prevent pollution of the survey results and “friends & family” votes on the top expert list, each survey entry was manually
reviewed, and over 200 invalid entries (including their votes) were dismissed.

4
By doing so, we were able to go deeper into the challenges, satisfaction, and
technology adoption that are unique to each company type and role.
And wherever it makes sense, we’ll share segmented results to allow for comparisons
between regions, company types, experience levels, and spend levels.

2. Partners
As mentioned in the introduction, three new partners joined this research, which
helped increase our reach, especially outside of Europe and with e-commerce
agencies and brands.
We provide this research free of charge and don’t gate it behind a form asking for your
personal information.
We hope the short descriptions below sound promising enough for you to visit our
websites and learn more about how each partner helps PPC professionals get better
results in less time.

DataFeedWatch by Cart.com is a leading The God Tier Ads Framework is the always
feed management solution that combines updated Google Ads training, giving
data transformation with help & advice, you instant clarity and done-for-you
empowering merchants and agencies to templates, so you don’t devote your life to
succeed on 2,000+ eCommerce channels the machine.
like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. The
company operates in 60+ countries and Trusted by over 3,500 PPC agencies and
fuels over 0.5 billion product listings daily. professionals around the world.

Optmyzr is a complete PPC management Producthero helps e-commerce

suite with everything agency and in-house advertisers get more conversions from
teams need to run Search, Shopping, their shopping ads. Producthero is
Performance Max, and Amazon campaigns Europe’s largest Premium Google CSS
their way. Partner and offers a platform that allows
you to optimize your product titles,
Optmyzr customers use automation and automatically segment products and
customizable workflows to manage a monitor competitor prices so you can
collective $5 billion in yearly ad spend. adjust your campaigns.

5
 Smarter Ecommerce (smec) is a tech-led Swydo is an automated reporting and
and full-service performance marketing monitoring platform that enables online
partner, supporting online retailers since marketers to monitor, analyze, and
2007. communicate meaningful insights.

We help ecommerce businesses to run Marketers can integrate data from 30+
inventory-driven, large-scale performance marketing platforms (like Google Ads),
marketing campaigns resulting in and generate fully customized reports to
sustainable growth. share with customers and stakeholders.

TrueClicks aims to set and raise the PPC

quality standard and as such, to be the
independent source for grading and
analyzing paid search accounts.

Offering user-friendly monitoring, auditing,

insights and automation for Google Ads
and Microsoft Advertising.

Free forever up to $50K/mo.

We hope you’ll enjoy reading this report as much as we did creating it!
For questions, suggestions, and potential future partnerships, please email
[email protected]

3. Survey methodology and

demographics
PPC professionals could fill out the survey on PPCsurvey.com between November 2nd
and December 24th, 2023.
Respondents were invited to the survey by one of the partners above or learned about
this initiative through social media (mainly LinkedIn) or through word-of-mouth,
especially from the Top 100 experts we nominated on our website.
Leaving an email address was optional. We offered various prizes and early access
to this report as incentives. We also planted a tree for each survey entry through our
partner Eden Reforestation Projects.

6
For respondents to be eligible for a prize and early access, we required an email
address, but we won’t use it for anything other than these purposes.
We thank all our respondents for completing our rather long survey. We hope this
report shows it was time well spent.
In the rest of this chapter, let’s dive into our participants’ backgrounds.

3.1 Geographic breakdown

Continental Europe

North America
United Kingdom & Ireland

South & Southeast Asia

Australia & New Zealand

Middle East
Latin America

Africa

We asked respondents to choose their country and grouped these into the regions
below to allow for comparisons later in this report.

Continental Europe: 455 respondents (40.1%). All countries on Europe’s mainland,

including the Nordics. All the way to (and including) Greece in the southeast and all
the way to (but not including) Russia in the east.
North America: 341 respondents (30.0%). The United States and Canada.
UK & Ireland: 165 respondents (14.5%).
South & Southeast Asia: 69 respondents (6.1%). This included the following countries
in our survey: India, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Australia & New Zealand: 42 respondents (3.7%).
Middle East: 25 respondents (2.2%). This included the following countries: United Arab
Emirates, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt.

7
 Latin America: 23 respondents (2.0%). All countries in the Americas that aren’t the
United States or Canada. This included the following countries in our survey: Brazil,
Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico.
Africa: 13 respondents (1.1%). All countries in Africa except Egypt. This included the
following countries: South Africa, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, and Namibia.
Three main factors can explain the distribution above.
Most partners are based in Europe.
The survey was in English.
Many questions were about Google Ads.
Outside of English-speaking countries, we saw that most respondents came from
countries with an online advertising industry dominated by Google and a high level
of English proficiency. This explains why we didn’t see respondents from countries like
China, Russia, and Japan.

What type of company do you work for? Over a half of respondents are PPC users from agenc

3.2 Company type Advertisers and freelancers make up a fifth of the sam
each, while the smallest group is advertisers hiring an

Advertiser (brand) hiring

an agency for PPC

5%

Freelancer/contractor
20%

55% Agency

20%
Advertiser with in-house team

n=1,135

n=1,135
If we add up agencies and freelancers, we see that 75% of our respondents manage
PPC campaigns on behalf of their clients, while 20% work in-house.
As in the previous edition, it was very hard to reach people who work at brands that
hire agencies or freelancers (5%). Unfortunately, we aren’t able to share their data in
this report because we don’t have enough of their responses.

8
What type of agency do you work for? Half of all agencies are boutique agencies, and 38% are large
local/national agencies. Only 11% are international.

3.2.1 Type of agency

An agency that’s part of
an international network

11%

51% Boutique agency (< 25 people)

Local/national marketing agency 38%

(>=25 people)

n=621

As in the previous edition, more than half of n=621

our agency respondents work for a
boutique agency with fewer than 25 employees. Nearly 40% work at a larger agency,
and 11% work for an agency that’s part of an international network.

3.2.2 Advertiser industry

What's your company's industry? Advertisers work in many different sectors, but the most
common are e-commerce (selling online only or also in
Our advertiser respondents work in the following industries: physical stores), SaaS, Travel & tourism and Finance &
Insurance.

E-commerce (selling online only) 23%

E-commerce/retail (also selling in physical stores) 15%
Software/SaaS 12%
Travel & tourism 6%
Finance & insurance 6%
Business services (B2B) 6%
Other 5%
Home & garden 5%
Business and industrial products (B2B) 4%
Education 3%
Health 2%
Real estate 2%
Law & government 2%
Food & drink 2%
Autos & vehicles 2%
Arts & entertainment 2%
Internet & telecom 1%
Sports 1%
Computer & electronics 1%
Beauty & fitness 1%
n=284
n=284

We split out e-commerce into pure players (selling online only) and retail players with
physical stores. Together, they represent 38% of our advertiser respondents.

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 What best describes your role in the company? Almost half of respondents are Individual Contributors, a third
are managers and a quarter are Executives.

3.3 Role
Executive
(VP, Director, C-level, founder)

25%

44%
Individual contributor
(consultant, specialist, analyst, strategist)

Manager
(Team lead, Head of)

31%

n=852

For all respondents working at an agency or in-house,

n=852 we asked which of the three
options above best describes their role in the company. We didn’t ask freelancers and
brands that hire agencies this question.
We’re happy to see a nicely balanced distribution of roles in our survey. The individual
contributors and freelancers got the most questions in the survey, as their hands-on
roles allowed them to answer questions about daily campaign management, platform
features, and tools.

3.4 Experience
How long have you worked in PPC/online Most respondents are very experienced in PPC/online
We didn’t ask this in the previous edition, but knowing how long
advertising. A thirdour survey have 10+ years of
of respondents
advertising?
respondents have worked in online advertising makes sense. This allows
experience in this area, us to third
and another compare
have 5-10 years.

answers based on experience level.

Less than 1 year

1 to 2 years
4%
8%

More than 10 years

30%

24% 2 to 5 years

34%
5 to 10 years

n=1,135
n=1,135

As the graph shows, most respondents are (very) experienced PPC professionals.

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3.5 PPC Team sizes
We asked all respondents, except brands hiring an agency, how many people in their
company
How are dedicated
many people to PPC.
are dedicated Below,
to PPC you’ll see PPC
at your theteams
distribution
in agencies are 3 oftimesteam
as big assizes
in-housewithin
teams.
In agencies, it's usually more than one person (and 23% have
agencies and in-house teams.
company? 20+ people on the team). In in-house teams it's either 1 person
(42%) or 2-5 people (48%).

Agency In-house
1 person 11-20 20+
6-10

8% 1%
3%
More than 20 people 6%
23%

42% 1 person

11 to 20 people 11% 42% 2 to 5 people

2 to 5 people
48%

17%

6 to 10 people

n=621 n=231
n=231
n=621

As expected, most in-house teams are rather small, with just 10% of in-house PPC
teams being more than five people. Even within agencies, the most common PPC
team size is two to five people.

Still, larger team sizes are much more common at agencies: 51% of agency PPC teams
consist of six or more people.

4. Ad platform adoption and spend

On which platforms are you (or is your team) Google is clearly the most popular platform for PPC
campaigns. The second tier are Facebook, Instagram,
currently running PPC campaigns?
4.1 Ad platform adoption Microsoft (Bing) and YouTube.

98%

76%
70%
67% 67%

48%

31%
24%
17%
15%
11% 11% 9%
4% 6%
2% 1% 1%

Google Facebook Instagram Microsoft YouTube LinkedIn TikTok Pinterest Amazon Twitter (X) Reddit Apple Snapchat Quora Yandex Baidu Yahoo! Other
(excluding (Bing) Search Japan
YouTube)

n=1,135
n=1,135

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For the overview above, we asked our participants, “On which platforms are you (or your
team) currently running PPC campaigns?”
We didn’t ask for the distribution of spend across these platforms. The percentages
in the chart above simply indicate how often a platform was part of the advertising
mix, not necessarily the relative spend on that platform. To learn more about the total
global spend on the main networks, we’ve created a table at the end of this chapter.
As expected, Google, Facebook, and Instagram comprise the top three of this list.
The advertising mix becomes more interesting when segmented by geography and
monthly spend under management, so we’ll do that in the following two paragraphs.
For respondents who selected “Other” and entered additional platforms, these were
the most commonly mentioned platforms (not listed above): Display & Video 360,
StackAdapt, Capterra (Gartner Digital Markets), Spotify, Criteo, Taboola, Outbrain, RTB
House, AdRoll, Naver, and Seznam.
We’ll be sure to add those options next time to show a more detailed breakdown of ad
platform adoption.

4.1.1 Platform adoption by geography

On which platforms are you (or is your team) The top 5 platforms are the same across all regions, although
using Microsoft (Bing) is less often used in the Middle East.
currently running PPC campaigns? Some smaller platforms have regional usage, e.g. Amazon and
Reddit in N-America, Snapchat and Yandex in the Middle East.

TOTAL Continental Europe North America UK & Ireland South & Southeast Asia Australia & New Zealand Middle East

Google (excl. YouTube) 98% 98% 96% 97% 97% 100% 96%

Facebook 76% 76% 79% 70% 65% 79% 96%

Instagram 70% 69% 70% 65% 58% 76% 92%

Microsoft (Bing) 67% 68% 73% 73% 51% 57% 24%

YouTube 67% 67% 70% 59% 65% 69% 68%

LinkedIn 48% 48% 52% 45% 32% 38% 56%

TikTok 31% 31% 33% 32% 23% 24% 48%

Pinterest 24% 27% 26% 21% 16% 26% 4%

Amazon 17% 15% 25% 18% 19% 2% 0%

Twitter (X) 15% 11% 20% 18% 12% 5% 28%

Reddit 11% 7% 19% 8% 13% 12% 8%

Apple Search 10% 11% 8% 14% 14% 28%

11%

Snapchat 10% 10% 4% 9% 7% 36%

9%
3% 6% 2% 12% 2% 8%
Quora 4%
2% 0% 1% 3% 2% 16%
Yandex 2%
2% 1% 1% 3% 0% 0%
Baidu 1%
1% 0% 2% 4% 2% 0%
Yahoo! Japan 1%
6% 8% 2% 1% 5% 12%
Other 6%

n=1,135 n=455 n=341 n=165 n=69 n=42 n=25

= significantly higher % = significantly lower % vs

vs Total Total

As you can see in the chart above, some platforms have significantly different
adoption across different regions:
Microsoft Advertising is less popular in the Middle East, where it’s used by just
24% of respondents vs. an average of 67%.
Amazon Ads are most popular in North America, with 25% of respondents using it
vs. an average of 17%.
The same goes for Reddit, which is used significantly more in North America (19%)
and significantly less in Continental Europe (7%).

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 Finally, Snapchat and Yandex see higher adoption in the Middle East, 36% and
16%, respectively.

4.1.2 Platform adoption by monthly spend level

On which platforms are you (or is your team) Those who spend more on PPC use more often YouTube,
currently running PPC campaigns? Microsoft (Bing), Tik Tok and Apple Search.

TOTAL Less than $5K Between $5K and $50K Between $50K and $500K Between $500K and $3M More than $3M

Google (excl. YouTube) 98% 91% 97% 99% 100% 96%

Facebook 76% 58% 75% 79% 78% 80%

Instagram 70% 43% 65% 74% 73% 75%

Microsoft (Bing) 67% 19% 49% 73% 89% 87%

YouTube 67% 22% 50% 75% 83% 81%

LinkedIn 48% 29% 46% 46% 53% 61%

TikTok 31% 11% 21% 28% 44% 57%

Pinterest 24% 10% 15% 20% 34% 49%

Amazon 17% 5% 8% 15% 26% 40%

Twitter (X) 15% 7% 10% 11% 19% 34%

Reddit 11% 2% 6% 10% 13% 30%

Apple Search 2% 3% 7% 20% 28%

11%

Snapchat 3% 6% 6% 16% 23%

9%
1% 2% 4% 3% 13%
Quora 4%
0% 1% 1% 3% 2%
Yandex 2%
0% 1% 1% 1% 5%
Baidu 1%
0% 0% 1% 2% 4%
Yahoo! Japan 1%
2% 3% 8% 7% 6%
Other 6%

n=1,135 n=91 n=268 n=442 n=192 n=142

= significantly higher % = significantly lower % vs

vs Total Total

When monthly spend levels are below $50K, Google and Meta make up most of the
advertising mix. But once spend levels increase, we see the following platforms being
adopted more:
YouTube Ads is the first platform to see a significant increase in adoption once
monthly ad budgets exceed $50K.
The following platforms see increased adoption once monthly spend levels exceed
$500K: Microsoft Advertising, TikTok, and Apple Search.
Finally, these platforms are included more often once the monthly spend level
(under management) exceeds $3M: Pinterest, Amazon, Twitter (X), Reddit, Quora,
and Baidu.

4.1.3 Platforms managed on a weekly basis

We asked individual contributors and freelancers which of the channels below they
manage weekly (they could select all that apply). Interestingly enough, Performance
Max is already more prominent than Standard Shopping. Our audience isn’t as
involved with Amazon Ads as one may expect when looking at the growing ad spend
on that platform at the end of this chapter.

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 Which advertising channels do you manage Almost every respondent manages Paid search – Search only
(text ads). Performance Max and Standard shopping are also
on a weekly basis? popular Paid search channels. 50%+ use paid social and
YouTube ads, too.

94%

74%

62%
56%
52%

44%

7% 6%

Paid search - Search Paid search - Paid search - Standard Paid social (Meta, YouTube Ads Paid search - Other Amazon Ads (and/or Other
only (text ads) Performance Max shopping LinkedIn, TikTok, X) feed-based campaigns other marketplaces)

n=602
n=602

Most of our specialist respondents focus primarily on paid search. A deeper analysis
of this question revealed that 55% of specialists managing paid search also manage
paid social and YouTube campaigns weekly. This didn’t differ significantly between
agencies and in-house teams.
So, about half of PPC specialists manage paid search only, and the other half manage
other channels next to it.

4.2 Monthly spend by company type

As expected, we see agencies managing higher monthly spend levels ($3M/mo on

average), followed by in-house teams ($950K/mo) and freelancers ($575K/mo). Not all
What's your average total monthly PPC ad Agencies spend $3M per month on PPC ads, companies with
freelancers are solopreneurs; some hire one or two employees.
in-house PPC teams spend $950K, and freelancers only spend
spend (under management)? $575K.

Average: $3M $950K $575K

5% 3%
More than $3M 20% 10%
14%

Between $500K and $3M 20% 38%

41%
Between $50K and $500K

39%
Between $5K and $50K 33%
29%

Less than $5K 18%

11% 16%
3%
Agency In-house Freelancer

n=621 n=231 n=230

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4.3 Monthly spend per team member: agency vs. in-house
As we asked for company type, team size, and the monthly spend under management,
we were able to combine these answers to find out how much PPC spend one person
manages on average within agencies and in-house teams.

Agencies In-house teams

Avg. monthly Avg. monthly

Monthly spend Avg. team Avg. team size
spend per team spend per team
level size9B 9.5B
member member

< $5K $114.1.61.6 $1,585

$5K - $15K $31.2B1.7 $6,000

$15K - $50K 6.0 $5,417 $8.5B2.1 $15,395

$50K - $100K 6.8 $11,020 $4.5B2.4 $31,065

$100K - $250K 7.7 $22,796 2.9 $59,945

$250K - $500K 9.1 $41,271 4.9 $76,049

$500K - $1M 10.0 $74,655 5.3 $141,089

$1M - $3M 15.2 $131,705 6.2 $323,699

$3M - $5M 22.0 $181,818

$5M - $10M 21.1 $355,380

$10M - $20M 26.5 $566,686

> $20M 26.0 $962,067

We didn’t have enough data from in-house teams managing more than $3M/mo, so
we left that out.
We had to average both the team size and the spend level, so this table is less about
the exact values in each cell and more about the pattern that quickly emerges when
comparing agencies and in-house teams and different spend levels within a company
type.
Given the same total spend level, in-house employees can manage two to three
times as much monthly spend per team member. This makes sense, as in-house
teams don’t have to deal with many different clients (and all the corresponding
communication), pitching, onboarding, etc.

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 Agencies managing less than $250K/mo will have a hard time making a profit
on their employees based on the numbers above. Even at 20% of ad spend, the
resulting fee doesn’t cover the fully loaded cost of hiring an employee in most
Western countries. We’ll have to assume their team is also generating revenue by
providing services other than PPC management.
Once agencies manage more than $1M/mo, the average team member manages
more than $100K, which makes them more efficient than in-house employees who
manage less than $500K/mo.
Once agencies manage more than $5M/mo, they make a huge jump in efficiency,
with more than $350K of monthly spend per employee under management.

4.4 Global yearly ad spends

To get a feel for budget distribution across platforms, it’s best to investigate the
financial reports of the corresponding companies, so we did.
The table below shows the advertising revenue (the flip side of all advertisers’ ad
spend) between 2020 and 2023 on the leading ad networks.
Microsoft has a fiscal year ending on June 30, so their data lags behind by six months
compared to the other platforms. TikTok doesn’t publish its advertising revenue, and
Microsoft doesn’t break down LinkedIn revenue by service (total 2023 LinkedIn revenue
was $15B). That’s why we included estimates for TikTok and LinkedIn advertising below.

Yearly advertising revenue in billions (USD)

Platform
CAGR
2020 2021 2022 2023

Google - Search & other2 $104 $149 $31.2B$162 $175 19%

Google - YouTube $20 $29 $8.5B$29 $32 17%

Google - Network $23 $32 $4.5B$33 $31 10%

Microsoft search3 $9 $9 $12 $12 10%

Amazon4 $20 $31 $38 $47 33%

Meta5 $84 $115 $114 $132 16%

TikTok (estimate)6 $1 $4 $10 $13 111%

LinkedIn (estimate)7 $3 $4 $5 $6 25%

2 5
Alphabet Inc., Form 10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2023 Meta Platforms Inc., Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Highlights
3 6
Microsoft Corporation, Form 10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2023 eMarketer, TikTok Net Ad Revenues Worldwide 2021-2025 (April 2023)
4 7
Amazon.com Inc., Form 10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2023 Statista, Annual advertising revenue generated by LinkedIn worldwide

16
As published by WARC in August 20238, global advertising is expected to grow by
8.2% in 2024, and it will top $1 trillion this year for the first time ever. Over 50% of that
global advertising spend goes to these five major tech firms:

Alphabet (Google, YouTube)

Meta (Facebook, Instagram)
Amazon
Alibaba
Bytedance (TikTok, Douyin)

What may surprise the paid search readers of this report is that social media ad spend
is expected to equal paid search spend by the end of 2024. If this trend continues, it
will surpass paid search in 2025.
As the WARC report states, the key drivers for social media growth are social
commerce and short-form video (TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts).
Younger generations (such as Gen Z) use social media more than TV and are more
likely to search for recommendations and discover brands on TikTok and Instagram
than on search.

8
WARC, Global advertising to top $1 trillion in 2024, as big five attract most spending (August 2023)

17
 5. Goals and challenges
5.1 Priorities for 2024

We asked all our respondents the same open-ended question: “What’s your top priority
for 2024?”
Some entered just one priority; others mentioned multiple priorities. We tagged each
answer with recurring themes below to create the following word cloud and table:

Privacy
Business Growth
Profit Client Retention
Campaign Performance
AI & Automation
Profit Measurement Client Acquisition
Personal Development
Revenue Growth

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In the table below, we clarify some of the themes above. Some are self-explanatory
(like client retention), so they’re not in this table.

Theme Examples/clarification

AI & Automation Implementing AI/ML/automation, further develop AI (skills)

Campaign performance Improve ROAS, CPA, conversions, leads, etc

Measurement 1st party data, attribution, cookieless, conversion tracking, GA4

Personal development Improve knowledge and skills, learning new platforms and technologies

Profit Increase profits, POAS

Privacy Being compliant

It’s no surprise to see AI & Automation written largely in this word cloud. This is
the story of the last several years in Google Ads, from broad match keywords to
automated bidding to automated creatives and placements. Following this trend, every
platform now has highly automated campaign types, from Google’s Performance Max
and TikTok’s Smart Performance to Meta’s Advantage+ and Amazon’s Performance+.
None, however, is more creatively named than Pinterest’s very own Automated
Campaigns.
Indeed, the next largest topics, Campaign Performance and Personal Development,
intersect sharply with AI as teams both in-house and agency-side scramble to retrain
and upskill employees while navigating a challenging macro-environment with new,
arguably unwieldy technology.
The last topic to highlight is measurement, which is more complex than ever in
the age of cookie deprecation and tough regulatory actions. There is likely to be a
strong increase in topics like Marketing Mix Modelling and high-level metrics such as
Marketing Efficiency Ratio, where the challenges again are ones of skill, tech, and how
to derive action.

5.2 What does success look like for PPC professionals

We asked all our respondents, “What does success look like for you in your role, and
how do you measure it?”
Below, we’ll split out the results for agencies and freelancers and for in-house teams.

19
5.2.1 For agencies and freelancers

Employee satisfaction
Client satisfaction
Increase campaign efficiency
Meet client expectations Client retention
Increase campaign volume
Revenue growth
We clarified a few themes in the table below.

Theme Examples/clarification

Meet client expectations Hitting or exceeding the client’s targets/KPIs

Increase campaign efficiency Improve ROAS, CPA, ROI

Client satisfaction Happy clients. This is often measured by NPS or other surveys.

Increase campaign volume Increase conversions, leads, revenue from advertising, traffic

Employee satisfaction A happy team with low voluntary turnover.

“There is a heavy bias towards measuring performance, with

little or no appreciation of the soft skills. If you are serving
clients as an agency or freelancer, you should be measuring
communication.
For example, when was the last time the client got in touch and
what was the sentiment? Measure that, but also act on it too. If
things have been silent for 30 days, then you should sound the
alarm and get proactive!”
Ed Leake, Founder at God Tier Ads & The Agency Forge

20
 5.2.2 For in-house teams
For in-house teams, we see a very similar frequency for the most common goals.
Obviously, none of the client-related goals apply here.

Profit
Increase Campaign Volume
Meet Expectations
Increase Campaign Efficiency
Employee Satisfaction
Revenue Growth
at will be the (most likely) goal for (most of) The large majority (three quarters) of companies ai
efficient growth in their 2024 campaigns. 19% want
ur PPC campaigns/accounts
5.3 The most likely in 2024?
goal for PPC campaigns
efficiency. in 2024

Decrease spend:
decrease budget while keeping
volume at the highest possible levels

2%
Aggressive growth:
grow volume and accept a 7%
worse efficiency to allow for
this growth
Efficient growth:
72% grow volume but only if
efficiency targets are met
Improve efficiency:
try to get more volume out of 19%
the same budget

n=1,131

A substantial majority of 72% picked efficient growth

n=1,131
as their most likely goal for 2024.
This means they’re allowed to increase spend as long as their efficiency targets (such
as ROAS or CPA) are met.

21
 If you combine that with the “Improve efficiency” results, more than 90% say that
their 2024 PPC goal is around efficiency rather than the more aggressive “growth at
all costs.” Key priorities for PPC practitioners will likely include reducing wasted spend,
building safeguards through layers of automation, and optimizing performance from
outside the ad accounts (e.g. landing pages).
For the nearly one in five that need to improve efficiency, it means there’s no room for
more ad budget, so they will need to find ways to get more volume out of the same
budget.
Finally, just 2% expect they’ll need to decrease spend for most of their PPC campaigns.

5.4 Is managing PPC campaigns harder or easier than two years ago?

ng PPC campaigns harder

We asked individual or easier
contributors and freelancers with Managing PPCyears
at least two campaigns seems harder than 2
of experience
Almost half of all respondents find it harder, and
rs ago? if they thought managing PPC campaigns was easier, theharder, orOnly
same. about16% the same
find vs. now.
it easier
two years ago.

Much easier
Much harder
Somewhat easier
11% 2%
14%

Total easier: 16%

Total harder: 49%

38%
Somewhat harder
35% About the same

n=569
n=569

Nearly half of specialists think it has become harder than two years ago, 16% think it’s
easier now, and 35% consider it about the same. For those who answered that it has
become easier or harder, we asked them to clarify why in a few words. We’ll dive into
their responses next.

22
5.4.1 Why 16% think it’s easier now
If respondents answered managing PPC has become easier, we asked an open-ended
follow up question to explain why.

AI/ML
Tools

Automation
Performance Max
Automated Bidding
We split out the themes above, but essentially, they all come down to the same thing:
thanks to increased automation (including AI, ML, Smart Bidding, Pmax, and third-
party tools), it’s easier to get started with advertising and less time is needed for
manual optimization.

5.4.2 Why 49% think it’s harder now

In a similar fashion, we asked respondents who answered it became harder to explain
why.

GA4
Automation
Decreased Control
Increased Competition
Decreased Insights
Performance Max Tracking
Automated Bidding
Privacy
23
To illustrate some of the themes in the word cloud, we clarified them in the table below
based on our respondents’ comments.

Theme Examples/clarification

Decreased insights Google hiding data, less data to work with, black box campaign types

Automated bidding, Performance max, exact match becoming

Decreased control
increasingly looser

More competitors in the auction, rising CPCs leading to worse efficiency

Increased competition
(CPA/ROAS)

Implementing optimal tracking became more complex; attribution is

Tracking
harder

Automation Automation is leveling the playing field

GDPR, iOS, third-party cookies going away, consent, all making it harder
Privacy
to track campaign results

The number one reason why 49% of practitioners say managing PPC has become
harder is the loss of insights and data due to automated campaigns (like Pmax). Not
getting all the search term data is a common complaint here. It’s hard to act on data
you don’t have or don’t have control over.
This also explains the popularity of scripts that help bring back visibility into this
obfuscated data.
Increased competition and corresponding rising CPCs are a close second. Many
advertisers experience they’re spending more without getting more.
Finally, all the changes around tracking, privacy, and attribution make it increasingly
hard to measure the success of your campaigns.

24
 5.5 Agency challenges
Please rate how challenging (or how much Hiring new talent seems to be the biggest challenge, followed
of an issue) each of the below is for you or by Changes and support from the ad platforms, and Growing
We asked
your agency? our agency and freelance respondents to rate how challenging each of
agency revenue.

the following is for them.

Very challenging Often challenging Sometimes challenging Not challenging at all

Finding talent 40% 28% 23% 9%

Changes and support from the ad platforms 28% 33% 33% 6%
Growing agency revenue 22% 34% 36% 8%
Acquiring clients 21% 29% 36% 14%
Being too dependent on the top 3 clients 21% 24% 34% 22%
Coaching and training of team members 13% 28% 41% 18%
Meeting client expectations 12% 29% 51% 8%
Clients decreasing advertising budgets 16% 24% 44% 16%
Retaining talent 16% 23% 39% 22%
Staying relevant 12% 25% 40% 23%
Clients in-housing activities 9% 27% 45% 19%
Increased competition from other (cheaper) agencies/freelancers 14% 22% 39% 25%
Retaining clients 9% 22% 51% 18%

n=818n=818

Finding talent is clearly the biggest challenge for agencies, with 68% rating this as
(very) challenging. Second place goes to “Changes and support from the ad platforms,”
which we see reflected in other parts of this report.
This also aligns with recent complaints about the declining support quality from
Google, as covered by Search Engine Land in January 2024: Google Ads support is at
an ‘all-time low,’ and Google advertisers are confused between support and sales.
Hiring is tough. You need to put the odds of finding the right candidate in your favor.
First, your application form should contain a question (or two) about personality traits,
for example: ‘Who is your favorite comedian?’ This is a simple way to see if you will gel
or not. Next, plan to hire ahead of schedule and give yourself plenty of time to find the
right candidate. If you rush hiring, you generally fail at hiring. Finally, avoid trying to
find those broad-skilled unicorns. You should hire for a particular weak point or blind
spot you have because the right candidate can learn the rest as they progress.
We found the following significant outliers when diving deeper into different agency
segments:

A larger percentage of agencies managing between $5K and $50K/mo find it “Very
challenging” to grow agency revenue (33% vs. the 22% average).
Agencies managing more than $3M/mo find themselves much less dependent on
their top clients (7% vs. the 21% average).
Retaining talent is a significantly greater challenge for agencies in Continental
Europe, where 57% find this (very) challenging.

25
 At the same time, this is significantly less challenging for agencies in North
America. 34% say it’s not challenging at all vs. the 22% average, and just 6% say
it’s very challenging vs. the 16% average.
Finding talent is also less challenging for agencies in North America, with just 29%
rating this as very challenging, vs. the 40% average.
Finally, European agencies also have a harder time with “Staying relevant”
compared to their North American counterparts. Just 16% of European agencies
say this is not challenging at all, while 32% of North American agencies consider
this not challenging.

5.6 In-house challenges

Please rate how challenging (or how much
The top 2 challenges are the same for advertisers as for
For in-house
of an issue) teams,
each of the we is
below seeforthe exact
you or same top twoagencies.
challenges as with agencies:
finding talent and dealing
your company (in-house teams)? with the changes and (low-quality) support from the ad
platforms.
Very challenging Often challenging Sometimes challenging Not challenging at all

Finding talent 40% 26% 26% 8%

Changes and support from the ad platforms 25% 40% 28% 7%

Growing revenue/leads generated by PPC 22% 39% 38% 1%

Making PPC profitable 21% 30% 40% 8%

Quality assurance 12% 34% 40% 14%

Marketing budget cuts 16% 30% 35% 18%

Staying up-to-date with the latest (technological) developments 12% 26% 43% 18%

Retaining talent 17% 19% 40% 24%

Coaching and training of team members 8% 27% 42% 23%

n=227
n=227

It might seem counterintuitive that in an age of increased automation and machine

power, the biggest challenge right now is finding qualified talent. And yet that is
exactly the predicament reported in this survey. Respondents also claim that retaining
talent is not hard at the moment, suggesting a market dynamic where talent is sitting
tight, contributing to limited options for those seeking staff.
Another interesting pair is the two-fold dilemma of growing revenue and making paid
acquisition profitable. Efficient scale is a long-standing challenge, yet in the current
economic climate, the profitability part of this equation is facing more scrutiny. This
dilemma is not resolved by the platform technology alone.
Interestingly enough, we didn’t find significant differences between in-house teams
when segmenting them by region or spend level.

26
 5.7 Challenges with multi-channel advertising
We asked our respondents to choose up to three of their biggest challenges regarding
Please select your
advertising biggest
across challenge(s)
multiple (up to
channels. 3) question
This was optional,
Attribution butthestill,
modelling is clearly 92%
biggest challenge
regarding advertising across multiple channels. Time-
regarding advertising
answered it. across multiple channels. consuming campaign setup doesn't seem to be an issue.

66%

48%
45%
44%

28%

21%

Attribution modeling First-party/business data Aggregated reporting Syncing/aligning efforts across Budget allocation Time-consuming campaign
integration channels setup

n=1,041

Reconciling paid media efforts across different ad platforms remains a challenge,

with two-thirds of our respondents citing attribution as a particular hurdle. Also on
their radar are using first-party data and building a cohesive strategy, which indicates
that digital marketers everywhere are focused on privacy and user experience. As the
digital playground grows more siloed, cross-platform reporting and collaboration will
likely play a larger role in securing buy-in and budget.
For budget allocation, we saw some interesting outliers. On average, it was selected
by 28% of our respondents, but the following segments found budget allocation more
challenging:

It was the most challenging part for people with less than one year of experience:
62% of this audience selected it.
The same goes for monthly spends below $5K: 54% of this audience selected
budget allocation as one of their top three challenges.

27
do you expect to keep working at
5.8 Expected tenure at current company
nt company?
PPC experts are rather loyal to their current c
than half of them expect to leave within 5 yea

We asked all respondents how long they expect to keep working at their current
company.

Less than 1 year

6%
I honestly have no idea
1 - 2 years
24%
14%

Average:
4.5 years 13% 2 - 3 years

6%
31%
5% 3 - 4 years
At least 5 more years

4 - 5 years

n=863

n=863
The answers get especially interesting when segmented by the years of relevant
working experience:

People with two to five years of experience are least likely to stay at least five more
years at their current company (20% vs. the 31% average).
While people with more than ten years of experience are most likely to stay five
more years at their current company (45%).

If you are a business owner or leader, ask yourself: What would you do if your best-
performing team member left tomorrow? That question should keep you up at night,
and yes, you should be planning for it. Be proactive and consider a) what is the least
enjoyable part of their job and b) how can you remove or replace that for them?
Likewise, as the employee you need to be thinking the same and working with your
boss to improve your situation. It is a two-way street.

28
 6. The agency-client relationship
In this chapter, it’s all about the dynamic between agencies and their clients. We
would have loved to share data from both sides of the table, but as mentioned above,
we didn’t receive enough responses from brands hiring agencies for solid benchmarks
from their side.
Luckily, marketing matchmaker Setup does a great job covering both sides of this
relationship with their yearly Marketing Relationship Survey.
That survey covers agencies delivering all sorts of marketing services (content, design,
PR, etc.), not just paid media. Nevertheless, PPC agencies and their clients should note
insights like the one below.

Every year, they find a massive disconnect between why clients end the relationship
(dissatisfaction with value and delivery) and why agencies think the relationship ended
(budget cuts and change in leadership). This is a great (but dangerous) example of
agencies exhibiting self-serving bias.
The rest of this chapter will focus on what our 851 PPC agency and freelancer
respondents shared about this relationship.

6.1 Challenges with the agency-client relationship

In the word cloud below, you’ll find the most common themes we found when asking
agencies and freelancers the open-ended question, “What’s your number 1 challenge with
the agency-client relationship?”

29
 Lack of Data
Client Education
Time Management Building Trust
Expectation Management
Client Satisfaction
Communication
Budgets Client Retention
Client Acquisition
To illustrate some of the themes in the word cloud, we clarified them in the table
below, based on our respondents’ comments.

Theme Examples/clarification

Client education Explaining to clients how things work and what to expect

Client satisfaction Meeting the client’s expectations, making/keeping them happy

Scope creep, resource planning, having enough capacity to serve all

Time management
clients

Expectation
Managing the often unrealistic client expectations
management

Lack of data Not having access to all relevant client data

Finding the right meeting cadence, getting on the same page, reporting,
Communication
getting clients to respond

Budgets Budgets not matching the expectations, budget cuts

Expectation management is the clear number 1 challenge in this relationship. Agencies

are having a hard time dealing with and meeting the expectations of their clients.

30
 “Mastering the client-agency relationship entails managing
expectations and being transparent with reporting and
communication. Regular, insightful reports demonstrating
progress, highlighting successes, and addressing setbacks help
foster transparency and trust.
Coupled with a commitment to accountability — taking
ownership of results and proactively addressing concerns
— agencies can solidify their position as reliable partners
dedicated to driving mutual success.”

Jeroen Maljers, Founder & CEO at Swydo

6.2 Agency pricing models for ongoing PPC management

We asked our agency respondents for their most common pricing model for ongoing
ow does your agency price (most) ongoing
PPC management. Not for the one-off projects or custom Companies
requests butuse different pricing models for PPC m
for the very
Flat fees (in a tiered model), Billable hour-based,
C management?
mature, quite predictable, bread-and-butter type of work their team
by client, andhas
Flat been doing spend are all
fee + percentage
for years.

Don't know/
No answer
Other
Performance-based Flat fee based on the monthly
6% spend range (tiered model)
3%
Based on a percentage of 2% 20%
spend under management
8%

Flat fee based on other variables 11%

19% Based on billable hours

15%
Flat fee + percentage of spend
16%

It's fully custom for each client

n=851

31
 When it comes to pricing, we see just one significant difference between agency
segments:
Billable hours are much less common in North America (11% vs. the 19% average),
while it’s much more common in Continental Europe, with 28% of agencies selling
ongoing PPC management by the hour.

“Especially for agencies who provide the type of tangible value

created by PPC programs, simply billing for time is a wildly
suboptimal way to capture the value created for clients.
A subscription model — various levels of solution sets — is the
modern way to price these types of services and is being used
not only by agencies but by virtually all kinds of professional
service firms, from law to accounting to IT consulting.
And with the widespread adoption of AI, agencies will have
no choice but to migrate away from the outmoded concept of
billing for time, which is completely losing its relevance as a
pricing model.”

Tim Williams, founding partner at Ignition Consulting Group

Guest commenter

6.3 Viability of billable hours with AI and automation

Do you believe billable hours is a future- PPC experts are rather optimistic about the billable hours pricing
If a respondent selected “billable hours” as their primary pricing
model. Half of them model,
believe it's they got this
a future-proof model despite the
proof pricing model, given the rise of rise of automation and AI. A quarter are looking into other
follow-up question: “Do you believe billable hours is apricing
future-proof
models andpricing
the othermodel, given
quarter have the
no opinion.
automationriseand AI?
of automation and AI?”
No, but our clients insist
on paying by the hour

4%
Yes, and we can keep our hourly rate
the same (adjusted for inflation)
No, we’re looking into other
23% 29%
pricing models

Total Yes: 46%

Total No: 27%

17%
27% Yes, if we can significantly increase our
hourly rate thanks to increased productivity
I’m not sure/have no opinion on this

n=161

n=161
32
 Surprisingly enough, 46% of this group believes the billable hour is future-proof. We’re
curious to see how this will change in the coming years.

6.4 How agencies charge for software used on their client’s behalf
our agency charge clients for the PPC
re you(rAs we’ll see in Chapter 8, PPC professionals use a wide range
team) use(s)? Most of tools in consider
companies their work.
wanted to know how agencies handle these costs and asked the following question:
We software cos
the PPC

“Does your agency charge clients for the PPC software you(r team) use(s)?”

I don't know

12%
Other

4%

Yes, all (or most) clients get

charged a technology fee 10%
No, we consider those
costs as overhead

57%

17%
We only charge clients for the
technology they get access to

n=851

Most agencies treat these costs as overhead. Agencies

n=851 that manage more than $3M/
mo are more likely to charge all their clients a “technology fee,” 19% vs. the 10%
average.
Treating these costs as overhead is an appropriate solution for technology used in
more or less the same way for all your clients and for all pricing models except hourly
billing. For example, if the agency charges a flat fee for a clearly defined deliverable
and, thanks to the technology it bought, it can deliver the same work faster (or better),
this investment pays off quickly for the agency. And the client gets a better result
faster, making it a win-win situation.
Respondents who selected “Other” commented that it depended on the type of
technology. For example, a reporting solution was an agency cost (overhead),
while clients pay (directly) for tech that’s dedicated to their accounts such as feed
management, call tracking, custom builds, and Search Ads 360.

33
 “If agencies charge their clients by the hour and pay for
technology, they’re being punished twice.
First, their costs go up - not just for buying the tech, but also
for the time needed to learn and implement it. Normally, this
should be an investment with a positive ROI.
However, as they’re billing for time (and all technology aims to
save time), their revenue per client should go down, assuming
they pass on the time savings to their clients.
This combination is deadly for agency profitability, and it will
make them resist investing in technology, which is also deadly
in this age.
The solution? Either let the clients (partly) pay for the
technology or switch to any pricing model other than billing by
the hour.
Wijnand Meijer, co-founder & CEO at TrueClicks

offer services (or products) to brands

6.5 Agencies offering services to in-house
Aboutteams
half of companies offer services or produc
PPC in-house? that do PPC in-house.

We asked our agency respondents if they offer products or services to brands that
manage PPC in-house.
I don't know

9%

48% Yes
No 31%

12%

Not yet, but we're

planning to
n=851

n=851
34
 Nearly half of agencies already do, and another 12% are planning to. Working with
in-house teams is a potential new area of revenue generation for agencies, but it does
not come without risks. The allure of cash flow can distract you from the additional
work that might be out of scope for your typical arrangement. Consulting requires
a different approach to ad account management. Before jumping on the in-house
servicing bandwagon, consider if you are well-positioned to resource this type of work.
Agencies managing more than $3M/mo were more likely to offer services to in-house
teams: 64% vs. the 48% average.
Which
Forservices (or products)
the agencies do you offer
that answered to to this question,
“Yes” we asked the follow-up question:
Those who offer services or products to brands that do PPC in-
house mostly offer consulting or auditing. Half of them also
brands that do PPC in-house?
Which services (or products) do you offer to brands that do PPC in-house?
offer training.

93%

71%

53%

27%
23%
19%

8%

Consulting Auditing Training Creative/content Third-party technology Bespoke technology Other

production (including custom scripts)

n=405

The answers nicely align with the timeless spectrum Daniel Gilbert shared back in 2019
in his Campaign article In-house or agency? It’s not a binary decision. We shared it in
our first report, but believe it deserves to be shared again.

35
 Clients (brands) should in-house most of the activities on the left-hand side of this
spectrum, such as data ownership, partnership with the platforms, budgeting, long-
term strategy, and brand ownership.
On the other hand, they’re better off outsourcing activities like third-party/bespoke
technology, learning & development, and auditing. For the activities in the middle, it
depends on the advertiser’s goals, budget, and in-house capabilities.

6.6 Are in-house teams considering external help?

We asked respondents working in-house if they were considering outsourcing any

PPC activities to an agency or freelancer in the coming 12 months. With nearly
half of in-house teams not in-market for agency services, it reinforces the strategy
above for agencies to look for ways to offer services to in-house teams. It becomes
then a matter of interpretation: how committed is the “100% in-house” answered by
ms: are these
you considering
respondents? Are narrowly scoped projects likeaconsulting,
Almost audits,
third of those and training
who currently to PPC activities in-
sufficientlyto
PPC activities attractive
an agencyand non-invasive
or to woo these businesses?
house are planning to outsource it within the coming 12
months.
comingMeanwhile,
12 months?1 in 3 respondents are in-market for agency services, and 1 in 4 are unsure.
Considering the size of the market, the glass may indeed be half full for agencies.

I don't know
25%

44% No, we’ll keep PPC management

100% in-house

31%
Yes

n=231

36
 7. PPC Platforms and Management
7.1 Change in the level of trust in the ad platforms
We asked all our respondents how their level of trust in the ad platforms has changed
compared to a year before. Answering this for at least one platform was mandatory
while answering for additional platforms was optional. Each platform got at least 694
responses.
e indicate the change in your level of trust Trust in most platforms remained fairly stable, but there is a
To compared
ch platform clarify the word “trust,”
to last year.we added the following
hugesentence
drop in sometoof the
them:question:
PPC experts By
trusttrust, we
Twitter (X) Ads,
Google Ads and Meta Ads much less than last year.
mean the trust that is earned by being as transparent as possible and keeping the users’ and
advertisers’ best interests in mind.

Considerably lower Slightly lower About the same Slightly higher Considerably higher

Google Ads 20% 34% 31% 10% 6%

Twitter (X) Ads 34% 17% 43% 4%2%

Meta Ads 11% 31% 43% 12% 2%

Microsoft Advertising 8% 16% 60% 14% 2%

TikTok Ads 7% 14% 59% 15% 4%

Amazon Ads 7% 12% 71% 8% 2%

LinkedIn Ads 4% 13% 61% 19% 3%

n=694-1,116

As we can see in the graph above, trust in ad platforms has taken a hit in the past
year, with only LinkedIn recording a net positive sentiment. Google (54%), Twitter
(51%) and Meta (42%) recorded the largest deficits in trust. All three platforms have
been struggling with issues such as trading user control for platform-side automation,
reputation damage, presence of unwanted content, and general unreliability. While
this is a transitionary period for digital advertising, our respondents were clear:
platforms can do more to keep advertisers and agencies informed and feeling valued.

Interestingly enough, respondents from South & Southeast Asia and advertisers
hiring an agency were much more trusting in Google than the average.
Respectively 41% and 35% of these audiences said their level of trust in Google Ads
increased (vs. the 16% average).
On the other hand, respondents with at least ten years of working experience were
much less trusting of Google Ads: 63% said their level of trust decreased vs. the
54% average.

37
7.2 Segmented budget expectation for 2024
We also asked all our respondents about their expectations
How do you expect budgets to change in 2024
for budget increases or
PPC experts expect to increase budget for many platforms:
decreases
vs 2023 forineach
2024.
of Answering this
the following for at least one platform
campaign (or campaign type) was
mostly for Google Ads (Performance Max without feed, Demand
Gen – Discovery, YouTube). They plan to decrease budget for
mandatory, while additional
types or ad platforms? ones were optional. Twitter (X) Ads, Quora Ads and Snapchat Ads mostly.

Significantly decrease budget Slightly decrease budget About the same budget Slightly increase budget Significantly increase budget

Google Ads - Performance Max (with product feed) 4% 7% 26% 42% 21%
Google Ads - Demand Gen (Discovery) 6% 8% 38% 39% 10%
Google Ads - YouTube 3% 9% 39% 39% 10%
Google Ads - Performance Max (without product feed) 7% 10% 36% 37% 9%
Meta Ads - Instagram 2% 13% 39% 37% 9%
Meta Ads - Facebook 3% 13% 40% 36% 8%
Google Ads - Keyword-based text ads 4% 15% 39% 35% 7%
TikTok Ads 6% 7% 47% 29% 12%
LinkedIn Ads 4% 11% 51% 28% 6%
Microsoft Advertising - Search Ads 4% 9% 54% 29% 4%
Microsoft Advertising - Performance Max 7% 9% 52% 25% 7%
Google Ads - Standard Shopping 11% 21% 40% 22% 6%
Amazon Ads 7% 8% 60% 21% 5%
Google Ads - Display 14% 23% 42% 17% 4%
Microsoft Advertising - Audience Ads 8% 13% 59% 17% 3%
Pinterest Ads 10% 12% 60% 15% 2%
Microsoft Advertising - Standard Shopping 8% 14% 61% 14% 3%
Google Ads - App campaigns 13% 9% 62% 12% 4%
Reddit Ads 13% 9% 64% 12% 2%
Apple Search Ads 12% 8% 66% 12% 2%
Snapchat Ads 12% 11% 65% 10% 2%
Twitter (X) Ads 23% 12% 57% 6% 2%
Quora Ads 14% 10% 68% 6% 1%

n=431-1,091

Advertising budgets are mostly on the rise, with 12 out of 23 campaign types
anticipating increases, particularly on Google Ads and Meta platforms. Notably,
PPCers are planning for increased spending towards campaigns targeting ‘ready to
buy’ prospects at the bottom of the purchase funnel.
The top choice for increased budget allocation is Google’s product feed-based
Performance Max campaign, selected by 63% of experts. Over half of respondents
across diverse company models — Agencies, In-house, Advertisers hiring an agency, or
Freelancers — plan to amplify spending on feed-based Pmax in 2024.
This underlines that no matter the business type, PPCers find it profitable to invest in
automated campaigns, which a high-quality product data feed can precisely target.
On the other side of the spectrum, over one-third of advertisers running Google
Display and Twitter (X) ads are planning to decrease their spending on these ToFu and
MoFu channels. Twitter (X), in particular, may see significant budget cuts, with 23%
expecting substantial decreases.

7.3 Google Ads feature adoption

We asked the individual contributors who manage paid search how often they use different
Google Ads features and grouped these features into the following categories:

Targeting options & campaign types

Bid strategies
Additional tools & features

38
 Please indicate how often you use each of
Exact match keywords and phrase match keywords are used
the following targeting options/campaign
7.3.1 Targeting options & campaign types
most often as targeting options/campaign types.
types in Google Ads.

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always

Exact match keywords 2% 6% 17% 33% 42%

Phrase match keywords 4% 7% 19% 36% 33%

Performance Max (with product feed) 21% 10% 18% 32% 19%

Dynamic Search Ads 12% 12% 25% 35% 15%

Display campaigns for retargeting 11% 14% 27% 39% 9%

Broad match keywords 9% 21% 32% 30% 7%

Standard Shopping 22% 15% 29% 24% 10%

Performance Max (without product feed) 21% 19% 27% 23% 9%

YouTube Ads 14% 26% 35% 21% 5%

Display campaigns for prospecting 21% 31% 28% 16% 3%

Demand Gen (Discovery) campaigns 33% 27% 27% 11% 2%

n=570-579

Exact match is as popular as ever (take note, Google), whereas the new Demand Gen
feature has yet to take hold. This is because most ad accounts can benefit from using
exact match, whereas a much smaller portion of advertisers require expansion beyond
Google Search. Performance Max (with feed) is now being used more often than
Standard shopping, but the old guard, with nearly a third of votes, still has its fans and
use cases.
Please indicate how often you use each of Maximize conversions value with tROAS, Maximize conversions
with tCPA and Maximize conversions are used almost equally
the following bid strategies in Google Ads. often. Not many use Manual CPC, Maximize clicks and Target
7.3.2 Bid strategies impression share.

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always

Maximize conversion value with tROAS 12% 9% 19% 46% 14%

Maximize conversions with tCPA 9% 10% 25% 45% 10%

Maximize conversions 7% 11% 29% 43% 10%

Maximize conversion value 11% 13% 29% 39% 7%

Manual CPC 17% 27% 29% 21% 7%

Maximize clicks 17% 31% 31% 18% 3%

Target impression share 28% 33% 24% 12% 4%

n=581

The adoption of automated bid strategies is now the standard for most advertisers.
Manual bidding still holds on but is overshadowed by the automation powers of tROAS
and tCPA. Target impression share bidding might be last on the list, as it has its place
for specific strategies such as brand protection, but it is not widely used outside of
that.

39
Please indicate how often you use each of More than half of PPC experts use Google Ads Editor and

7.3.3
the following Additional
additional tools
tools and & features
features Custom columns. Scripts are also popular. Not many use Auto-
applied recommendations.
in Google Ads.

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always

Google Ads Editor 7% 8% 23% 26% 37%

Custom columns 8% 10% 21% 29% 31%

Scripts 15% 16% 28% 22% 19%

Optimization score 15% 20% 37% 19% 10%

Ad variations 18% 22% 31% 20% 8%

Ad customizers 21% 24% 31% 19% 4%

Automated rules 19% 24% 36% 17% 4%

Recommendations 14% 31% 37% 14% 5%

Auto-applied recommendations 44% 35% 15% 4%2%

n=581

From the additional tools and features, we see “the classics” populating the Top 3: the
Editor, custom columns, and scripts. Number 1 helps you make changes in bulk, and
numbers 2 and 3 let you customize your reporting and optimization.
There’s not much difference in adoption between number 4 (Optimization Score) and
8 (Recommendations), but it’s very clear what the least popular feature is on this list:
auto-applied recommendations. A staggering 79% of respondents said they never or
rarely use this feature.
That doesn’t surprise us as much, but we were surprised to see useful and customizable
features such as ad variations, ad customizers and automated rules having a relatively
low adoption rate.

7.4 Google Ads feature satisfaction

For each of the Google Ads features respondents said they used sometimes, often, or
always, we asked, “How satisfied are you with the results (or usefulness) of {insert feature}, on
average?”.
Just like with a customer satisfaction (CSAT) score, the percentages below are the sum
of the percentages of respondents who answered “Satisfied” and “Very satisfied”. The
remaining answers were neutral or (very) unsatisfied.

40
 Google Ads Edito
results of … [Satisfied + Very satisfied] dissatisfied only

Google Ads Editor 80%

Custom columns 79%
Scripts 77%
Exact match keywords 70%
Maximize conversion value with tROAS 67%
Performance Max (with product feed) 64%
Maximize conversions with tCPA 63%
Phrase match keywords 60%
Maximize conversions 59%
Manual CPC 59%
Standard Shopping 59%
Maximize conversion value 57%
Automated rules 56%
Dynamic search ads 55%
Target impression share 51%
Maximize clicks 48%
Performance Max (without product feed) 47%
Ad customizers 46%
Display campaigns for retargeting 41%
YouTube Ads 40%
Broad match keywords 37%
Ad variations 35%
Optimization score 31%
Demand gen (discovery) campaigns 31%
Display campaigns for prospecting 29%
Recommendations 25%
Auto-applied recommendations 23%

n=120-528 n=120-528

Are PPC specialists set in their ways, or are the newer features simply not up to
the task yet? Perhaps there is a little bit of both here. The manual control tools
and features sit at the top of the list, with the satisfaction in Google’s automated
suggestion features sitting plumb last. One thing is clear - paid search practitioners
still enjoy a level of control, and some of the automations lack the sophistication to be
fully adopted.
We also see another interesting correlation here that appears again later in this report
with respect to using AI: the more often our respondents use a feature, the more likely
it is they’ll be satisfied by the results.
So, for some genuinely useful features like ad customizers and ad variations, it’s
probably a matter of learning how to get the most out of them by using them more
often. For other features, the initial dissatisfaction could have led to low adoption.
We saw just one significant outlier in the satisfaction levels for Google Ads features.
27% of South & Southeast Asian respondents are very satisfied with auto-applied
recommendations, compared to the 2% average. This aligns with the higher level of
trust in Google in this region we saw earlier.

41
he following Performance Max
7.5 Performance Max Performance Max full-funnel approach is somewhat pr
structures do you currently use over the other 2, but all 3 have a wide user base.

antly)?
7.5.1 Performance Max campaign structure

Performance Max feed-

only approach 25%

41% Performance Max full-funnel

approach

34%
Performance Max & Standard
shopping combined

n=444

n=444
While overall adoption of Performance Max campaigns is high, the way this
technology is applied varies significantly, and it is not always used “as intended.”
In fact, less than half of respondents use a dedicated full-funnel approach, which
means the inclusion of assets needed for placements like YouTube and elsewhere.
Motivations can vary; for example, some advertisers might struggle to supply the
needed assets. Google aims to remedy this pain using generative AI and other auto-
created assets.
Others, however, might purposely deny Google the needed assets to achieve a
campaign build more similar to now-deprecated Smart Shopping campaigns.
With one in four respondents using feed-only builds and a significant one in three
combining Performance Max with Standard Shopping, Google’s product teams have
certainly taken note. Starting with ads for YouTube Shorts, Performance Max has
already begun serving video placements based on the product feed alone. This trend
can be expected to continue.

7.5.2 Performance Max challenges

We asked practitioners who manage Pmax campaigns to select the biggest challenges
(up to three) they’re facing with this campaign type. The lack of control is the clear
number one challenge

42
Please select the biggest challenges you’re The biggest challenge with Performance Max is lack of
granular control & steering possibilities. Ability to learn and
facing with Performance Max understand how to improve performance is also mentioned by
more than half of PPC experts.

65%

51%

45%

39%

29%

22%

17%

3%

Lack of granular control Ability to learn and Transparency about the Data interpretation and Lack of testing & Attribution modeling Budget allocation Other
& steering possibilities understand how I can system's decision- reporting experimentation
improve performance making process possibilities

n=444

“This survey reveals concerns about transparency and control,

which are not new to PMax. Yet, with a new category of AI
blooming before our eyes, we’re forcefully reminded that black
box technology has undeniable benefits as well. It becomes
a balancing act between testing and adopting new tech on
the one hand and verifying positive business outcomes on the
other. Google’s algorithms think on a per-auction basis, with
no view longer than a month’s budget.
It remains our task to take a longer view – a strategic one
– and to think of our first-party data as more than just
remarketing audiences. What are the things that only you
know about your business, and how can you translate that into
more effective campaigns?”

Mike Ryan, Head of Ecommerce Insights at Smarter Ecommerce

8. Software and AI adoption

This chapter delves into how PPC specialists use AI, scripts, and software for different
activities. There are hundreds of solutions and scripts out there, but in this chapter,
the graphs will only show the ones selected by at least 3% of our respondents for
readability. At the end of each paragraph, we’ll mention the “long tail” of other
solutions.

43
To dive deeper into all potential solutions, we recommend visiting ppc.software.
It’s a free directory with 200+ free and paid tools for PPC (including generative AI),
categorized and enriched with relevant data (pricing, reviews, free trials, etc.), and
updated regularly.

8.1 Adoption of generative AI for PPC activities

Since ChatGPT launched on November 30, 2022, the PPC community has been using
generative AI for all sorts of PPC activities. The first use cases obviously involved
creating ad copy and imagery, but this quickly expanded to writing and editing scripts.
With the added power of Advanced Data Analysis (formerly Code Interpreter) and over
three million(!) custom GPTs that have been created so far, it opens up a whole new set
of capabilities.
Of course, it’s not just OpenAI’s ChatGPT; there’s Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude,
Microsoft’s Copilot, and dozens of point solutions for text, images, audio, video, and
code.

Generative AI is not only changing the way we create, it’s also changing the way we
search, as you can experience with Google’s SGE, Bing’s Copilot and AI-powered
search engines like Perplexity AI and You.com.
For a potential glimpse into the future, Arc is re-inviting the browser and search
experience with Arc Search and “browse for me,” demonstrated in this 14-minute video
that shouldn’t bore search professionals.

44
 So there’s no question that AI will profoundly impact the (search) marketing and
advertising industry if it isn’t already. How (much) exactly remains to be seen.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, recently said the following about the impact of AGI
(artificial general intelligence) on marketers. He expects AGI to be a reality in about
5 years. “It will mean that 95% of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative
professionals for today will easily, nearly instantly and at almost no cost be handled by the
AI — and the AI will likely be able to test the creative against real or synthetic customer focus
groups for predicting results and optimizing. Again, all free, instant, and nearly perfect. Images,
videos, campaign ideas? No problem.”
Another interesting perspective comes from Mark Read, CEO of WPP. He recently told
the Financial Times, “It is too early to say whether these [AI] moves will lead to more or fewer
jobs in the sector. It’s much easier to see all the jobs that AI will disrupt than all the jobs it will
create. But it’s going to make creative people even more important because it can level the
functional playing field and make the idea itself even more critical.”
Finally, author of “Madison Avenue Manslaughter” Michael Farmer expects AI to handle
20% to 40% of a creative agency’s man-hours. This further underscores the urgency of
moving away from hourly billing.
So, a year after the launch of ChatGPT, it was a good time to ask individual
How contributors
often do youand
use AI-based solutions
freelancers AI-based solutions are primarily used for writing ads: 42% often
how often they use generative AIThere
forarespecific PPC-related
or always use it. 3 areas where almost 10% always
outside of the ad platforms (such as
activities. uses AI: writing ads, writing emails and writing/editing scripts.
Also, 75% at least rarely use AI for keyword research.
ChatGPT) for the following activities?

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always

Writing ads 13% 12% 33% 30% 12%

Keyword research 25% 15% 33% 22% 5%
Writing emails 35% 12% 25% 19% 8%
Writing/editing scripts 43% 12% 22% 14% 9%
Audience research/analysis: 37% 15% 29% 16% 3%
Landing page optimization 43% 17% 24% 14% 3%
Generating insights and recommendations 43% 15% 27% 13% 1%
Strategy 47% 16% 26% 9% 3%
Campaign creation 46% 16% 27% 9% 2%
Reporting 53% 16% 21% 8% 2%
Feed optimization 56% 17% 17% 8% 2%
Query mining/adding negatives 53% 16% 22% 7% 2%
Meetings 61% 13% 17% 6% 3%
Experiments and testing 51% 17% 23% 7% 1%
Forecasting 55% 19% 19% 6% 1%
Budget management 66% 17% 12% 4%1%

n=531-585

As you can see in the chart above, despite all the hype, GenAI isn’t common practice
for most PPC practitioners yet, but we expect this to change significantly in the coming
years.

45
 8.2 Satisfaction of generative AI for PPC activities
How satisfied are you with the results (time Those who use AI for sp
mostly
a in writing email
savings, improved
If a respondent performance)
answered that they used thanks to
GenAI sometimes, often, or always for
satisfied with AI-genera
usingspecific
AI task, we asked a follow-up question about how satisfied they were with the
for …for[Satisfied
results of AI this task. + Very satisfied]

Writing emails 71%

Writing ads 69%

Writing/editing scripts 64%

Keyword research 59%

Landing page optimization 55%

Strategy 52%

Campaign creation 52%

Reporting 51%

Audience research/analysis 51%

Meetings 50%

Query mining/adding negatives 49%

Feed optimization 43%

Generating insights and recommendations 42%

Experiments and testing 40%

Forecasting 39%

Budget management 31%

n=100-429
n=100-429

There are two striking features of satisfaction with Generative AI tools such as
ChatGPT. First, satisfaction is not that high. Second, satisfaction is broadly correlated
with frequency of use (8.1).
Regarding overall satisfaction, only one task, writing emails, delivers high or very high
satisfaction to >70% of users. Otherwise, use cases quickly drop off into the 50/50
range – hit or miss. This is a reminder of the novelty (and immaturity) of both the
technology and the users.
Secondly, usage frequency and satisfaction are roughly correlated. The causation here
is not given, so it becomes a chicken-or-egg dilemma: are marketers using AI more
often for tasks when satisfied, or are they more satisfied after using AI more often (and
gaining skill)?
As a final thought, many of the low-satisfaction tasks, such as forecasting and
budgeting, are tasks that are not immediately well-suited to technology like Large
Language Models that have become synonymous with AI. There might be a mismatch
between expectation and reality.

46
how many scripts do you have Two thirds of companies have 1-5 scripts ru
ch Google Ads account? Google Ads account.

8.3 Number of scripts running in each Google Ads account

11-20 scripts 20+ scripts

0 scripts
6-10 scripts 1%3%
14% 19%

Average:
3.8 scripts

63%

1-5 scripts

n=576

Not a week goes by on LinkedIn without a paid search expert sharing his or her latest
script and getting loads of (incentivized) engagement on it.
But when it comes to the actual implementation, 82% of specialists have fewer than
six scripts running in their accounts, on average.
19% of the PPC specialists participating in the survey don’t use any scripts at all.
While this question only shows the data about the usage of scripts, it’s interesting
to think about the reasons for this. PPC specialists may choose not to use scripts for
various reasons despite the potential benefits they offer. Some professionals may lack
the necessary programming skills or find script implementation too time-consuming
or error-prone. And, reliance on scripts may raise concerns about their ongoing
maintenance and potential errors, which could impact campaign performance.
The only significant outlier we found in this data were companies managing more than
$3M/mo. 11% of these companies use over 20 scripts vs. the 3% average.

47
 8.4 Project/task management solutions
tion do We
youasked
useallfor (most) about project management and
respondents The most popular
reporting tools foras
solutions, project/task manag
Asana and simple Google Sheets/Excel: 1 in 5 c
k management?
everyone has to work with these. After these first two categories (8.4 and 8.5), we only
each. ClickUp and Monday.com are the second
asked individual contributors and freelancers about the tools they use for different
PPC activities.

None

3% Asana
Other
19%
19%

Notion 6%
18% Google Sheets/Excel
7%
Jira

7%
Trello 11%
10%
ClickUp
Monday.com

n=1,135

Jira (11%) and Notion (10%) are more popular in Continental Europe.
In North America, Monday.com (16%) and Wrike (6%) are more popular.
Agencies are less likely to use Google Sheets/Excel for project management (13%),
while companies managing less than $5K are more likely to use spreadsheets
(34%).

Solutions that were mentioned in the “Other” category were (in order of frequency)
Teamwork, Wrike, Basecamp, Workfront, Smartsheet, and Accelo.
Project management in PPC remains a largely underrated form of efficiency gains.
Having a process and writing it down is one of the simplest ways paid media teams
can deliver consistent, high-quality service and results. In a revelation that comes as
no surprise to any digital marketer, Excel and Google Sheets are second only to Asana
in popularity.

48
 8.5 Reporting/data visualization solutions

Reporting and data visualization solutions facilitate the processes of aggregating data
from multiple platforms and data analyses. They also help to effectively and efficiently
communicate insights to improve performance and decision-making.
They typically fall into two categories: Business Intelligence (BI) tools and Marketing
Analytics tools, with BI tools offering broader data analysis capabilities and Marketing
on do you use for
Analytics tools(most)
focusing on marketing-specific metrics and
By far, the reporting.
most popular tools for reporting/data visua
is Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio). Almost
ata visualization?
Agency Analytics and Swydo are Marketing Analytics tools, while
companies use it. Looker, Tableau
and Power BI fall under BI tools. Which to use depends on the user’s or organization’s
specific needs. The use of these tools, even in mixed forms, shows the professionalism
and maturity of the PPC industry.

Other

15%
Swydo
4%
AgencyAnalytics
5%
Looker Studio
47%
(formerly Google Data Studio)

Tableau 6%

23%

Google Sheets/Excel

n=1,135

n=1,135
Full disclosure: Swydo is one of the partners of this survey, and therefore, the results may be
slightly skewed in their favor. However, as you can see, 96% of respondents weren’t Swydo
users, so we believe we reached enough people outside of their user base to make the data
worthwhile.

Looker Studio is more popular in Continental Europe (55%).

Tableau is more popular in North America (12%) and for monthly spend levels
above $3M (19%).
Spreadsheets are used more often in South & Southeast Asia (55%) and for spends
below $5K (45%).
Agencies are less likely to use spreadsheets for reporting (16%) and more likely to
use Swydo (6%).

49
 Solutions that were mentioned in the “Other” category were (in order of frequency)
Power BI, Databox, Whatagraph, Oviond, Ninjacat, and Dashthis.

8.6 Marketing data pipeline (ETL) solutions

Closely related to, but not to be confused with, the previous category are marketing
data pipeline solutions, i.e. tools with ETL (extract, transform, load) capabilities.
This category of solutions pulls marketing data from different sources and powers your
reporting and analytics. In software terms, it’s “middleware”: you can’t actually see or
ion do you use
log in to assolutions,
these marketing data
as they work in the background, piping data from
Supermetrics different
is the most popular tool co
sources to the destination(s) of your choice. marketing data pipeline (ETL). But more
L)? companies don't use any solution.
As Looker Studio doesn’t offer native integrations with non-Google products (besides a
CSV workaround), these solutions can help get marketing data more easily from non-
Google sources into Looker Studio, Google Sheets, or any other destination.

Supermetrics
21%

Funnel.io
9%
None 54%

4%
Dataslayer

12%
Other

n=602

n=602
We see that nearly half of our respondents use one of these solutions, and
Supermetrics is the clear market leader in this category.
Solutions that were mentioned in the “Other” category were (in order of frequency)
Power My Analytics, Adverity, and Two Minute Reports (Gox.ai).

50
 8.7 Competitive intelligence solutions
For this
Which category,
solution(s) respondents
do you could select up to two
use for (most) Almost solutions,
half of companieas suseit’s common
Semrush to use
for competitive
multiple solutions
competitive for competitive intelligence. Forintelligence.
intelligence? example,
platforms, and a free solution from
A third use free solutions provided by the
the ad
platforms (such as Auction Insights) and a third-party solution for additional insights.
45%

35%

21%
19%

15%

11%

Semrush Free solutions by the platforms, Ahrefs Spyfu Similarweb Other

such as Auction Insights and Ad
libraries n=581
n=581

Spyfu was the only solution with significantly different popularity between regions:
It’s much less popular in Continental Europe (5%).
It’s much more popular in North America (31%) and South & Southeast Asia (44%).

h feed management/optimization
8.8 Feed managementsolution DataFeedWatch by Cart.com and Channable are the m
u use (primarily)? widely used feed management/optimization soltions.

8.8.1 Feed management solutions

DataFeedWatch by Cart com

18%

None
40%

16% Channable

6%
4% Feedonomics
16%
GoDataFeed
Other

n=497

n=497

51
Full disclosure: DataFeedWatch by Cart.com is one of the partners of this survey, and
therefore, the results may be slightly skewed in their favor. However, as you can see, 82% of
respondents weren’t DataFeedWatch users, so we believe we reached enough people outside of
their user base to make the data worthwhile.

Channable is more popular in Continental Europe (30%).

Feedonomics is more popular in North America (16%) but much less popular in
Continental Europe (2%).
Shoptimised is most popular in the UK & Ireland (15%).

Solutions that were mentioned in the “Other” category were (in order of frequency)
Shoptimised, ChannelEngine, Producthero, and Simprosys.

“For most PPC specialists, feed management is a hideous task,

and it requires a lot of specific knowledge.
Luckily, in the past few years, platforms like Shopify have
standardized the syncing of product data to other channels.
Also, Google is putting in a lot of effort to make it easier
with the introduction of Google Merchant Center Next. It
automatically pulls in products and information from websites.
Synchronizing product data from your store to the ad platform
has become table stakes. Now, analyzing and optimizing
your product data to have a competitive advantage is more
important than ever. Optimizing your product content with
generative AI will be a lifesaver. It will help you to easily
improve product feed quality and enrich product data.
This will improve the performance of your feed-based
campaigns. By using tools like Producthero you can easily
analyze your product performance, optimize your product
content by using AI, and decide on winning campaign
structures.”
Martijn Beumer, co-founder at Producthero

8.8.2 Feed management challenges

The number one challenge in managing product feeds is “Errors or missing product
data”, mentioned by nearly half of the respondents. About a third also struggle with
tracking the impact of feed changes.

52
 For agencies, the main feed challenges align with the overall survey results. In-house
marketers, on the other hand, encounter a different landscape: tracking feed changes
takes the first spot (at 40%), closely followed by errors or missing data at 37%.
What are the biggest challenges you face in The single biggest challenge in managing product feeds is
Errors or missing product data, mentioned by almost half of
managing
This mayyour product feeds?
be attributed to agencies relying on limited data provided by e-commerce
companies. A third also find it challenging to Track the impact
of feed changes.
clients, whereas in-house marketers likely have easier access to product data sources.

48%

32%

23%

18%
16%
14% 14%
12% 12%

Errors or missing Tracking the impact Aligning feed Lack of knowledge Segmenting products Syncing catalog with Managing multiple Overwriting original Including/excluding
product data of feed changes optimization with by custom ad platforms on time feeds (channels, data feed products from
PPC campaign dimensions (by profit, locations, languages) campaigns
strategy performance, etc )

n=497

“In feed management, a popular credo among marketers is

‘let me solve the feed errors so I can move onto optimizing my
campaign.’ This approach, while addressing the immediate
pain point, may inadvertently create a blind spot in their PPC
strategy.
The real game-changer? Aligning feed optimization with your
campaign goals. Our over-a-decade experience with global
e-commerce brands reveals this alignment as the ultimate key
to leveraging feeds effectively. The statistics, notably the third
position, underscore this area.
Choosing the right feed tactics opens the door to more
control over your ads and significant performance increases.
Struggling with boosting your ROAS? Here’s a powerful play:
calculate the profit margin per product in your feed and
segment the campaign based on the level of profitability with
a custom label. I’ve seen it bring great results, like 96% ROAS
growth, more times than I can count. And that’s only the tip of
the iceberg...”
Jacques van der Wilt, General Manager Feed Marketing at
DataFeedWatch by Cart.com

53
8.8.3 Feed management wish list

The marketing industry recognizes the transformative impact of AI and is striving to

expand its usage to various areas of PPC management. Half of the respondents desire
AI-driven feed optimization and recommendations in their current feed tools.
This sentiment
What is particularly
features do you wish your strong
current among
feed PPC specialists with
Most (half of) PPC expertsless than
wish their a feed
current year
tool improved on AI-driven feed optimization and
of
marketing

experience, where
marketing tool had almost 70%on?
or improved highlight the need for this feature,
recommendation engine. A showcasing
Comprehensive analytics.
third would also like their

trust in AI’s ability to effectively automate, optimize data, and provide reliable outputs.

50%

38%

26%

17%
16% 16%
14%
13%

7% 6%

Al-driven feed Comprehensive Performance-based Feed Master feed More integrations Automated feed- Automated repricing More integrations Order sync for
optimization and analytics feed rules translation/currency with my PPC tool based search ads with marketplaces marketplaces
recommendations conversion stack and ad platforms
engine n=296
n=296

Comprehensive analytics has emerged as the second most in-demand feature,

shedding light on one of the critical challenges in feed management — the inability to
track the impact of feed changes.
Asked about capabilities
What tracking the specificdotracking
you wish capabilities
your marketers wish
Performance pre- to have
and post-feed changesin and
a feed
A/B tests are
the most wanted tracking capabilities for feed management
feed management tool had?
management tool, 34% of marketers desire pre- and tools. post-feed changes performance

and A/B tests. Meanwhile, 27% of respondents consider product-level performance

34%

27%

21%

15%

3%

Performance pre- and post-feed Product-level performance on each Im satisfied with the tracking Other None, Im using separate tools for
changes and A/B tests channel: clicks, sales, ROAS, etc capabilities of my current feed tool analytics

n=296

Unsurprisingly, only 21% of surveyed PPC marketers reported satisfaction with the
available tracking options. This indicates a need for dedicated analytical functionality
for feeds that current analytics and feed tools in the market fail to address —
presenting an opportunity for software providers.data on each channel (such as clicks,
sales, and ROAS) to be an important feature.

54
8.9 Solutions for analysis, monitoring and optimization

For this category, respondents could select up to three solutions, as it’s common to use
a combination of solutions for these activities, such as a combination of scripts, in-
platform recommendations, and a third-party tool.

“The most successful digital marketers will be those who

successfully merge machine capabilities with human oversight.
One without the other will fall short of the full potential. When
software helps with time-intensive, repetitive tasks, we can
focus on what we enjoy. Instead of constantly monitoring
campaign performance, we can make more meaningful
contributions to the brands we service.”

Frederick Vallaeys, co-founder & CEO at Optmyzr

Which solution(s) do you use for analysis, For analysis, monitoring optimization, the most widely used
tools are scripts (25%) and Optimization score &
monitoring and optimization? recommendations from Google & Microsoft (23%). 15% use
Optmyzr and 10% use TrueClicks.

33%

25%

23%

15%

10% 10%
8%

4% 4%

Scripts Optimization score & Optmyzr TrueClicks Adalysis Opteo AdEvolver Other None of the above
recommendations
(from Google &
Microsoft)

n=581

Full disclosure: Optmyzr, TrueClicks, and AdEvolver (by Ed Leake from God Tier Ads) are
partners of this survey, and therefore, the results may be slightly skewed in their favor.
However, 72% of respondents weren’t using any of these three solutions, so we believe we
reached enough people outside of their user base to make the data worthwhile.

Optmyzr is more popular in North America (29%) and less popular in Continental
Europe (9%).
TrueClicks is more popular in Continental Europe (16%).
PPC Samurai is more popular in South & Southeast Asia (11%).

55
 Solutions that were mentioned in the “Other” category were (in order of frequency)
Adzooma, Adsbot, PPC Samurai, and GOA Marketing.

8.10 Budget management solutions

Budgets remain a challenge in PPC. A balance is needed between spending

enough to drive growth at a manageable rate and preventing anomalies and ad
platform tendencies from exceeding what brands and clients allocate to advertising.
How Surprisingly,
do you track nearly four in
if you're ten respondents
staying either trust fullyThe
in line with in most
platform-side
popular ways toinputs or in line with the
track staying
search budget is to set monthly limits on ad platforms,
have no issues with exceeding budgets.
your (clients') paid search target budget? an internal/bespoke solution. 8% use a third-party solu
such as Adalysis, Optmyzr or TrueClicks).

None, we don't need to stay in

line with target budgets

10%
Other
We set (monthly) limits in
6% 28% the ad platform(s)
Campaign management software
(such as Search Ads 360)
5%

Solution based on 7%
Supermetrics or another ETL

Third-party solution 8%
(e.g. Adalysis, Optmyzr, Shape.io, TrueClicks)

10% 25%
Internal/ bespoke solution
Solution based on scripts

n=581

n=581

8.11 Multi-channel campaign management solutions

Despite multi-channel advertising posing enough of a challenge for 92% of

respondents to share their biggest hurdles, 77% of them do not use software to make
this process easier. Whether this indicates a lack of overall faith in available solutions
or a lower priority than claimed is uncertain. The price tag of these solutions probably
also plays a role.

56
 Search Ads 360.

Search Ads 360

12% Adobe Advertising

Smartly.io
2%
2%
Other
6%

77%
None

n=602

As expected, the higher the monthly spend level, the more common these solutions
n=602
become.
45% of respondents with a spend above $3M/mo use one of these solutions, and 53%
of them picked Search Ads 360.
Solutions that were mentioned in the “Other” category were (in order of frequency)
Marin Software, Skai (formerly Kenshoo), and Albert.ai.

8.12 Click fraud solutions

Over two-thirds of our respondents don’t use any click fraud solution. The top two
reasons (not shown below) for not using such a solution were:

Not believing the added value justifies the price (39%)

Trusting that the ad platforms take care of it (23%)

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 Essentials.

ClickCease / CHEQ Essentials

12% ClickGUARD

5% Lunio
(formerly PPC Protect)
3%

13% Other

68%
None

n=602

We saw the following significant outliers based on geography:

n=602
ClickCease / CHEQ Essentials is most popular in North America (25%).
Lunio is most popular in the UK & Ireland (13%).
TrafficGuard is most popular in South & Southeast Asia (11%).

9. PPC communities, events, and

resources
9.1 Most popular resources
When looking for answers to PPC-related questions or challenges, the vast majority
of PPC experts feel most comfortable casting a wider net for answers with a Google
Search query.
Following this, marketers show nearly equal preferences for video content and
personal interactions, whether through platforms like YouTube, PPC chat groups, or
personal connections.

58
When faced with a PPC-related query or Most (80%) experts simply use Google Search when faced with
a PPC-related query or challenge. Half as many use YouTube,
challenge, where do you typically go for PPC chat groups or personal connections and colleagues.
answers?

80%

42% 40%
37%
30%
25%
22%

10%
7% 7%

Google Search YouTube PPC chat groups Personal LinkedIn Media sites (e g Reddit In-person Twitter Other
(Slack, WhatsApp, connections and Search Engine communities
Discord, etc) colleagues Land) (events, meetups,
etc)

n=602

One in four respondents turn to media sites (like Search Engine Land) for answers to
their challenges. This percentage is higher with our North American respondents: 38%.
Twitter (X) is the least popular platform, but experienced PPC professionals tend to use
it more. 14% of experts with 10+ years of experience use Twitter (X), while only 2% of
those with 1-2 years of experience turn to X for answers.

9.2 Most popular communities

Which of the following PPC communities are
you part of/following?
Two thirds of PPC experts are part of or follow at least one
PPC community. The two most popular communities are r/PPC
on Reddit and PPC Mastery Discord.

31% 31%

28%

18%

14%
12%

9%
7%

3%

r/PPC on Reddit PPC Mastery Discord PPC Chat (Twitter) PPC Chat (Slack) Paid Search PPC Mastery Hub Foxwell Founders Other None
(free) Association (paid) Group

n=602

r/PPC on Reddit is more popular in North America (49%), while PPC Mastery Discord
is less popular in this region (13%). Resources that were mentioned in the “Other”
category were (in order of frequency) Ed Leake’s groups (Facebook, Forge), PPC Live
UK (Whatsapp), and /r/ppc on Slack (invite only).
It’s great to have such a wide variety of platforms that PPC specialists use to gather in
communities, from the most popular Reddit community to closed groups on Discord,
open discussions on X (Twitter), and groups on WhatsApp.

59
 All of these communities provide a collaborative space for PPC specialists to share
insights, tools, best practices, and industry updates. This is crucial for people who
want to stay ahead in an industry that is changing so quickly. Many people in the
community love to provide feedback on new strategies, tactics, or tools.
These PPC communities play a crucial role in creating a sense of belonging,
continuous learning, and collective growth within the industry.

9.3 (Search) marketing events

Next to online resources and communities, we also asked our audience about
attending events in 2023.

9.3.1 Event attendance

We asked our respondents two questions about event attendance to be able to split
out in-person vs. virtual events:

How many in-person (search) marketing events/conferences did you attend in 2023 (such
as SMX in Europe, BrightonSEO, Mozcon, Pubcon, Inbound, etc.)?
How many virtual (search) marketing events/conferences
How many in-person (search) marketing events/conferences did you attend in
did you attend in 2023 (such as
Virtual events are somewhat more popular. Half of PPC
2023 (such as SMX in Europe, BrightonSEO, Mozcon, Pubcon, Inbound, etc )?
experts attended at least one virtual (search) marketing event
SMX Advanced/Next, Ad World Conference, SparkTogether,
How many virtual (search) marketing events/conferences did you attend in 2023
etc.)?
or conference in 2023,
(such as SMX Advanced/Next, Ad World Conference, SparkTogether, etc )?
in-person event.
and a third have attended at least one

In-person Virtual
4+ events 4+ events
3 events

2 events 3% 4% 3 events 9%
10% 5%

2 events 16%
Average: Average:
0.7 events 1.1 events 50% None
1 event 20%

64% None

20%
1 event

n=1,135 n=1,135
n=1,135
n=1,135
Respondents in Continental Europe were more likely to attend at least one in-
person event (44%) in 2023, while respondents in North America were less likely
to do so (26%). This probably has much to do with more availability of in-person
search marketing conferences in Europe, such as SMX in Munich, London, Paris,
and Berlin.
Respondents with more than ten years of experience were more likely to attend
more than three virtual events last year (14%). The same goes for people working
at a company managing more than $3M/mo (20%).

60
u prefer in-person or virtual events? Those who attended both in-person and virtual ev
have typically either a preference for in-person ev
like both.

9.3.2 Event preference

I’m happy to attend both

39%
I prefer in-person events
48%

14%

I prefer virtual events

n=287

For respondents who attended at least one in-person and one virtual event, we asked
about their preferences, and we see a clear preference
n=287 for in-person events.
statement applies to the availability of Only a third of PPC experts are satisfied with th
events. The others mostly miss in-person events
h) marketing events in your region and both in-person and virtual (12%).
one? 9.3.3 Event availability

Other
There aren’t enough virtual
events (in my time zone)
6%
6%

There aren’t enough of

both types of events 12% I’m satisfied with the
39% choice I have in events

37%
There aren’t enough in-person
events in my region
n=1,135

If you add up all the “not enough” answers, it adds

n=1,135up to 55% of respondents saying
there should be more of at least one type of event in their region or time zone.

61
37% of respondents said there aren’t enough in-person events in their region, and
this doesn’t differ much across most regions, with the exception of Australia & New
Zealand and the Middle East (both 52%).
We expected North America to score higher than Europe for this question as well, as
they had fewer in-person (search) marketing events since COVID-19. Apparently, they
don’t miss these events more than their peers across the pond.
Just 10% of the respondents from Australia & New Zealand were satisfied with the
choice they have in events. This is understandable given their time zone difference and
distance to Europe and the United States.
The 6% of respondents answering “Other” were either not interested in or too busy for
any event or found the travel costs too high for in-person events.

10. The Top 50 Most Influential

PPC Experts
You’ll find our list of the Top 50 Most Influential PPC Experts of 2024 on PPCsurvey.com,
including a detailed breakdown of our methodology for getting to this ranking.
Also, be sure to check out our alphabetical “shortlist” of the Top 100 Most Influential
Experts.

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We hoped you enjoyed the report!
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PPCsurvey.com. No email, no data sharing, just a one-click pdf download.
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