PPC Live #21 Recap: Shifting Your Mindset (Problem-solving, Channel expansion, Account setups, AI)

On a hot summer’s day in July, the 21st PPC Live event took place where four experts delivered talks, encouraging us to shift our mindsets as practitioners.

We were urged to consider different approaches to problem-solving, channel selection, account setup, and tools (in this case, Claude). All of the talks combined left the audience with a clear message: nothing is constant, and adaptability matters.

In this article, I’ll give a recap of the talks delivered by:

• Scott Carruthers

• Harriet Fitzgerald

• Charlotte Osborne

• Veronika Höller

Future Proofing Your Role in PPC Through a Shift In Mindset - Scott Carruthers

During this talk, Scott argued that, as Google continues to automate things (e.g., using AI Max features), our value as PPC’ers becomes less about the ability to complete tasks like selecting landing pages & ad copy.

Our real role is to act as problem solvers. Scott described it as having the ability to “show up to your accounts as a problem solver rather than a task completor”.

But what’s the difference? The problem-solving approach is superior as it encourages deep curiosity and genuine investment in the outcome.

Scott gave the example of 3 different clients coming in and saying “we need more leads”. A problem-solving approach encourages you to dig deeper into the following:

• What the client is really asking for: Is it better quality leads? More leads overall? They’re not the same ask.

• Which resources the client has that we can lean on: Offline lead data? Additional budget? Willingness to invest in upper funnel channels without immediate return?

With this approach, you can create custom solutions for the client rather than a one-size-fits-all approach that may not be effective. He illustrated this by sharing three client scenarios, though two in particular stood out:

• Client A needed more leads, but the solution wasn’t to increase overall leads. It was to increase lead quality by assigning value scores to leads and prioritising higher value. The result was +23% in estimated value.

• Client B wanted the same (more leads) & was running PMax. The solution wasn’t to pump more money into the lower funnel, but to expand PMax & make it full-funnel, finding people earlier in the journey to move through the funnel. The result was +60% leads.

Had his clients gone to platform reps (e.g., Google) with the same problem & said “we need more leads”, it’s unlikely that they would have sat down with the client to understand the true nature of the issue and map different approaches to the problem.

They may have just suggested spending more to reach more people & find more leads. But this would have missed the fact that the issues were quality signals & a lack of upper funnel activity. This is the value that you as a practitioner offer that platform reps don’t.

Additionally, as practitioners we’re the translation layer between platform features & our clients. They don’t always have time to dig into every new update or platform change & that’s what we’re there for. We take their business goals, look at what’s possible via the platforms & help create a realistic plan.

Slides

Priming the Search: The Programmatic Path to Search Efficiency - Harriet Fitzgerald

After Scott’s talk reminding us to remain open-minded about our roles, Harriet followed up, encouraging us to be creative with our channel approach.

With the image below, she illustrated how small the pool of people in-market really is. With only 5% of people looking to purchase at any point in time, there is a point of diminishing returns where increased investment leads to a higher CPA as you run out of people to convert (the performance ceiling).

With 95% of people not currently looking for your solution, you need to warm the audience up, let them know it exists, & nudge them towards it. Harriet called this “priming” & explained how it could be done through high-quality programmatic media.

The idea is that when people are exposed to your brand through other touchpoints (outside of lower funnel search), they’re more likely to think of your brand when buying. For example, thinking of a specific sports brand when buying running shoes.

Some stats shared showed that consumers who are primed with programmatic video ads were 2-3x more likely to choose that brand when they went to the search bar, even if it wasn’t in the top 3 results.

So how is it really done? Harriet presented a 3-part framework (Target, Engage, Direct).

Target

Stage 1 is about finding high intent search terms, creating audiences, and activating high-attention programmatic ads using these. Once these audiences are exposed to your ads, you can convert them when they move down the funnel.

Engage

Stage 2 is about ensuring you’re not just reaching, but engaging and capturing the attention of the people you reach. Here, focus on frequency over reach, as there’s a positive correlation between frequency & awareness or intent.

Attention also matters, so high-quality, audio-on & visually appealing content is key.

Just a 1% increase in a brand’s searches can lead to a 0.35% increase in sales, so getting frequency and engagement right matters. Key formats for engagement include video & CTV (low clutter, high-impact).

Direct

Once you’ve built your audience & begun priming, it’s not enough to just use a generic CTA. It’s best to use clear CTAs like “Search [insert brand]” to make it explicitly clear what the person needs to do next.

Encouraging brand searches is also beneficial because branded queries have lower chances of triggering AI overviews (13% vs generic’s 33% rate) & a zero-click search.

Measurement

Harriet proposed 3 key ways of measuring success:

Attention

Incrementality (e.g., sales, reach, actions)

Search halo (improved search performance measured via branded search volume, branded CTR, and blended CPA)

Results

From some of the work Harriet did, she achieved the results below. It shows that shifting your mindset & looking at channels outside of lower funnel PPC can directly improve lower funnel activity.

Slides

Before Google Migrates Your DSAs: A PPC Practitioner's Checklist - Charlotte Osborne

While Scott urged us to shift our mindset and Harriet challenged us to shift our channels, Charlotte Osborne brought us to the mechanics, showing us why we need to shift our account setups.

With Google set to auto-migrate DSAs in February 2027, practitioners are faced with adopting AI Max.

Pointing to research from BrainLabs showing that full adoption of the feature yields 40% better results compared to partial adoption, Charlotte highlighted why adapting our setups properly matters (and called out key flags to watch before making the move).

Key Flags:

• Loss of copy control: DSAs used to let you write your own descriptions, but full AI Max has the ability to create descriptions for you.

• Match type expansion: A study showed 80% of expansion actually went into exact match rather than phrase or broad.

• Upper-funnel creep: As AI Max scales and runs out of bottom-funnel demand, it tends to push towards the upper funnel. Roles for AI Max and PMax must be clearly defined so they don't target the same queries.

• Budget waste via URL expansion: Final URL expansion is a big budget killer if you don't vet your pages and block non-commercial or irregularly updated ones from day one.

Below is a screenshot of the 9 key areas to vet before migrating to AI Max.

Human + Claude: A New AI Workflow for Account Optimisation - Veronika Höller

To round up, Veronika Höller addressed how we manage our time and workflows, urging us to shift our ways of working and consider incorporating AI.

With practitioners often lacking the time or capacity to constantly dive deep into account data, Veronika proposed using Claude as an assistant.

In this framework, Claude acts as the analyst (reading data, finding patterns, and proposing next steps), while we act as the pilots who approve changes, push buttons, and handle QA to ensure alignment with strategy, technical best practices, and internal guidelines.

She covered 3 ways to sync data with Claude:

• Copy-paste CSV: A slow, manual method where data quickly becomes stale and breaks on follow-up questions.

• Google Ads scripts: Uses JavaScript from the account to call Claude. Requires JS knowledge, but works great for repeat automation.

• MCP + AI: A live, Python-based connection directly to account data. Allows you to literally chat with Claude, asking natural language questions and receiving plain English responses. (Requires a one-time 15–45 minute setup: Developer tokens, OAuth 2.0 credentials, a Google Cloud project, and a Login Customer ID).

She also distinguished between what Claude can do vs what it currently cannot.

What It Can Do:

• Run weekly audits

• Mine search terms to catch wasted spend and identify negatives

• Generate ad copy variants

• Build budget models to propose spend shifts

• Benchmark account numbers against the category to spot weaknesses and growth opportunities

• Analyse core metrics like spend, CPA, and ROAS

What It Can't Do:

• Change bids, budgets, or settings

• Add negatives or upload creative assets

• Run live experiments

• Pause or enable campaigns

• Watch accounts 24/7

• Shift budgets between different platforms

• Completely eliminate hallucinations

Ultimately, shifting to an AI-assisted workflow allows practitioners to save significant time on heavy analysis while retaining total strategic and operational control.

Her own results showed 90 second audits & insights surfaced (vs 20 minutes when done manually), weekly reporting done in seconds (vs 3-4 hours), and 12 hours saved on manual bid wrangling.

Slides

To Wrap Up

PPC Live #21 made one thing clear: succeeding in modern search marketing requires us to be open-minded & curious.

Whether that means evolving from task completors into strategic problem solvers, looking beyond the bottom funnel to prime demand, bulletproofing our account setups for Google's automation, or leveraging AI to handle heavy analytical lifting, adaptability remains our greatest asset.

By actively shifting our mindsets, channels, setups, and workflows, we can keep up with industry changes and reduce the risk of being left behind.