Things I Learned At PPC Hero Conference In San Diego

The PPC Hero Conf is the world's largest and longest-running all-PPC (pay-per-click) conference, providing paid media professionals with actionable insights and networking opportunities to improve their campaigns. Held biannually in San Diego, US, the conference features expert speakers, interactive sessions on topics like paid search, paid social, and AI, and a chance to connect with other professionals in the paid advertising field. The conference often takes place at waterfront hotels in San Diego, offering an intimate and memorable environment rather than a sterile convention center.

AI, Audiences, and Incremental Growth: A Look at the Future of Paid Search

The recent PPC Hero Conf highlighted a clear trend: the future of paid search is deeply intertwined with audiences, the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI), and a relentless focus on measuring true business impact through incrementality. Gone are the days of siloed, keyword-focused campaigns. Today's most effective strategies recognize that paid search doesn't operate in a vacuum, but as a critical part of a multi-channel ecosystem.

The Rise of Audience-Centric Campaigns

Remarketing lists have long been a key tool, but the focus is now on using audience insights to create more sophisticated targeting and exclusion strategies. By leveraging audience data across all media channels—and ensuring consistency with unified tagging—marketers can build a powerful "audience flywheel". This approach involves using insights from one channel to inform and expand targeting on others, and then measuring how audiences on less-direct channels contribute to conversions on more direct ones. The goal is to retain flexibility with budgets while aligning consistent messaging to take advantage of performance trends.

AI as a Strategy

AI is no longer just a buzzword; it's a co-pilot for smarter paid search. While AI advertising is still in its early stages on some platforms like Microsoft Copilot, its influence is already profound. Marketers can use AI to customize and enhance Google Ads scripts, and automate the identification of high-converting search terms. Microsoft is also investing heavily in its advertising AI, with its Performance Max platform acquiring programmatic technology to expand its reach.

The conference also shed light on how AI is changing the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). AI-generated summaries, such as Google's AI Overviews, are pushing traditional listings down, and marketers must now optimize for this new reality. Building brand reputation through backlinks and brand mentions is now a critical factor for gaining visibility in AI-driven search, as AI models favor high-quality, user-generated content like Reddit and Wikipedia.

The Imperative of Accurate Measurement

The focus on vanity metrics like high Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) can be misleading if it doesn't translate to profit. With evolving privacy regulations, first-party data is becoming more crucial than ever for accurately identifying valuable leads and setting bids.

Ultimately, the most important takeaway is the shift towards incrementality testing, the "gold standard" for measuring marketing impact. This method uses controlled experiments to determine whether advertising truly drives incremental sales, rather than just cannibalizing sales that would have happened organically. It was noted that platforms tend to overestimate their own value, and that testing reveals paid search may not generate demand but instead captures it. This requires having a data scientist involved to accurately calculate marketing incrementality and understand what actually moves the needle.

Preparing for the Future

The conference highlighted the importance of diversifying beyond Google, with other platforms like Microsoft, Apple Ads, and Amazon all playing a role in a comprehensive strategy. As AI continues to evolve and privacy regulations tighten, the marketers who succeed will be those who embrace a holistic, audience-centric strategy, leveraging AI for efficiency, and rigorously measuring their true business impact.