Aaron Young describes an agency that used AI to restructure a Google Ads account and accidentally cut spend on the products generating 80% of revenue from 54% down to 12%, dropping monthly revenue from those products from $10,000 to $2,600. The real problem wasn't Google's algorithm but the agency's failure to catch the mistake. Marketers need to stay in control and use AI only for analysis, not strategy.
Being a Google Ads expert or being skilled at Google Ads used to mean that you knew how to get onto Google Ads and set up campaigns and optimize those campaigns. Whereas being skilled at Google Ads now means that you know when to tell the Google Ads platform that it is wrong. Let me explain what I mean. Last month we had a, a furious business owner approach us because they had an agency which promised them the absolute world and said that they use all this cutting-edge AI technology to get the best results for their business. They were using Claude prompts. It's not, you know, like, it's great technology, but they're not the only one using it. But here's the real problem that our industry needs to face right now, is that AI is making many Google Ads experts dumber. And the reason is, is because they're feeding the wrong data, the wrong conversion data, and they're making the wrong decisions. And that's why I came back and said before, is that Google Ads, or being an expert at Google Ads, used to mean that you knew how the platform worked, how to set up the campaigns, how to optimize them. Now it's more about being able to know when Google Ads is wrong or when Claude is wrong, whatever tool you're using, to give it the right example. And this is when it goes wrong, how bad it can get. This furious business owner reached out to us. They were down on their revenue by 80%. And when we looked at it, this was the reason why, is that they had 50 products which were generating that 80% of revenue in their business. This agency came in and completely changed all where the account was spending money, saying it's backed up by data. But what ended up happening, those 50 top products They ended up going on from 54% of the spend in the account to down below 12%. Their revenue went down from over $10,000 for those 50 products down to $2,600. And this is each month. Total revenue across the account went down and the conversions went down. And this was the kicker. All of those 50 products were eligible and in stock. Google didn't make the mistake. It's just that the new structure that this so-called Google Ads expert set in place stopped showing the ads. So the golden rule is when it comes to using AI with your Google Ads account, Make sure that you are the strategist. Use it for data, but Claude, even Google Ads are terrible strategists. You just use it for the data so you can make the best decisions for your business.
