AI PPC
Google's automation sets the bid. We control everything else.
Smart Bidding and Performance Max already own the auction. What they do not own is your targets, your brand terms, your budget, the ads being tested, your offer, your landing page or how results are read. WKND runs that layer across Google, Microsoft and Amazon, for advertisers spending $20K a month or more who want to know what the machine is doing with their money.
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platforms under one control layer: Google, Microsoft, Amazon
5 steps
in the PMax brand-protection sequence, run on every account
Weekly
search-terms review and negative push; automation is checked on a cadence, not on a complaint
Trusted by brands that live and die by creative performance.
Not a PPC shop that says "AI-powered" and keeps adjusting bids by hand. Not Google's automation left alone. An AI PPC agency works the layer between the two: the inputs the automation learns from and the guardrails that keep it honest. Clean conversion values, sane targets, brand protected, assets tested at volume, results read against blended reality. That layer decides whether Performance Max makes you money.
A PPC agency that "uses AI": tactics, manual overrides, click reports
The automation alone: fast, opaque, happy to spend on your own brand
An AI PPC agency (WKND): controls the inputs and guardrails; reports incremental return
This page is one part of our AI advertising agency.
The platform owns
We control
tCPA, tROAS or value-based, set from your unit economics, moved deliberately, never chased daily.
structure by intent, brand exclusion lists, audience signals that help the model learn faster.
brand isolated and capped, negatives maintained, spend judged on incremental return.
responsive search ads and Performance Max assets produced and tested at volume, because creative is the lever the machine cannot own.
the two inputs that move conversion rate more than any bid.
brand vs non-brand, platform-reported vs blended, the attribution window that fits your purchase cycle.
Performance Max will spend prospecting budget on people already searching your name, then report the sale as if it found them. Here is how we stop it, on every account.
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to every Performance Max campaign.
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for brand and near-brand terms, attached to every campaign.
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in its own capped search campaign so brand demand is measured on its own.
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and push new negatives before they compound.
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with brand removed, not on the blended number.
When the machine owns the bid, the ad is what you still control. We produce responsive search ad copy and Performance Max image, video and headline assets at volume, test them against a hypothesis, keep what earns its spend and retire what does not. The production system is our AI ad creative work; the testing discipline is our AI performance creative method.
Search, Shopping, Performance Max, YouTube. For the managed service itself, see Google Ads management.
full import parity with Google, then the differences that matter: audience network controls, LinkedIn profile targeting, lower CPCs on the same queries.
Sponsored Products and Brands with bid and placement modifiers managed to advertising cost of sale, for brands that sell there.
CLIENT INPUT: confirm Amazon Ads is actively managedThe automation works every auction. We work a fixed cadence around it.
pacing and anomaly checks: spend, conversion volume, conversion value, disapprovals. Nothing is touched unless a threshold trips.
search-terms insight review and negative push; asset performance read; brand campaign cap check; one structural change at most, so the model can learn.
new responsive search ad assets and Performance Max assets trafficked against a hypothesis; losers paused, winners extended.
target review against unit economics; brand versus non-brand and platform versus blended reconciliation; landing-page and offer notes to the client.
structure review: consolidate or split asset groups, retire campaigns the automation has outgrown, re-baseline the conversion values.
Who sets bid strategy
Traditional PPC agency
Manual bids or default targets
Doing it yourself with the automation
Google's defaults
AI PPC agency (WKND)
Targets from your unit economics
Performance Max controls
Traditional PPC agency
Rarely touched
Doing it yourself with the automation
Rarely touched
AI PPC agency (WKND)
Exclusions, negatives, structure, weekly review
Brand protection
Traditional PPC agency
Sometimes
Doing it yourself with the automation
No
AI PPC agency (WKND)
Every account, five steps
Ad testing volume
Traditional PPC agency
A few ads a quarter
Doing it yourself with the automation
Whatever you have time for
AI PPC agency (WKND)
Assets produced and tested at volume
Measurement standard
Traditional PPC agency
Platform-reported
Doing it yourself with the automation
Platform-reported
AI PPC agency (WKND)
Brand vs non-brand; platform vs blended
Cost model
Traditional PPC agency
Percentage of spend
Doing it yourself with the automation
Your time
AI PPC agency (WKND)
Stated model
| Traditional PPC agency | Doing it yourself with the automation | AI PPC agency (WKND) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who sets bid strategy | Manual bids or default targets | Google's defaults | Targets from your unit economics |
| Performance Max controls | Rarely touched | Rarely touched | Exclusions, negatives, structure, weekly review |
| Brand protection | Sometimes | No | Every account, five steps |
| Ad testing volume | A few ads a quarter | Whatever you have time for | Assets produced and tested at volume |
| Measurement standard | Platform-reported | Platform-reported | Brand vs non-brand; platform vs blended |
| Cost model | Percentage of spend | Your time | Stated modelCLIENT INPUT: stated pricing model |
Smart Bidding fails in four ways. Thin data: under roughly thirty conversions a month per campaign the model guesses. Wrong values: if every conversion is worth the same to the algorithm, it buys cheap ones. Chased targets: a target moved every week never lets the model settle. Blended brand: brand searches inside a prospecting campaign make the return look better than it is. The fixes are inputs and structure, not manual bids: consolidate for volume, pass real conversion values, move targets deliberately, isolate brand.
Whatever you tell the platform a conversion is worth is what it will buy more of. Lead-gen accounts that pass a flat value get volume of the cheapest leads. Ecommerce accounts that pass revenue without margin buy discount hunters. We set value rules from your economics: margin by category, lead quality tiers, new versus returning customer. That one change usually moves the account more than any bid strategy switch.
Reported return on Performance Max is inflated when brand demand is inside it. We report brand and non-brand separately, platform-reported and blended side by side, and judge prospecting on the incremental number. When brand is isolated and capped, you also learn what your brand demand is actually worth, which most accounts have never measured.
Budget changes above roughly twenty percent, target changes, and structural edits reset learning and cost a week of efficiency. Scaling is done in steps the model can absorb, one variable at a time, with a fixed read window before the next. The temptation to react daily is the most expensive habit in automated paid search.
When bids, placements and audiences are automated, the ad and the page decide conversion rate. We treat responsive search ad assets and Performance Max assets as creative to be tested at volume, and we read landing-page conversion by query theme. The production system behind that is on our AI ad creative and AI performance creative pages.
Brand spend inside Performance Max. Conversion values set to a flat number. Targets that have moved four times in a quarter. Two hundred search terms with no negative. Assets that have not changed since launch. Each is a line in the audit with a cost estimate against it and a fix in the first thirty days.
share of PMax spend on brand queries
search terms with no negative
days since a new asset was tested
the gap once brand is removed
A percentage of spend rewards the agency for spending more. WKND prices on a stated model tied to scope and minimum spend, so the incentive is the return, not the budget.
Ask for the number.
CLIENT INPUT: pricing model or range; minimum monthly spend assumed. Do not publish without real figuresNumbers are real client results; ask us for the full readout.
A PPC control audit reads your targets, Performance Max settings, brand exposure and asset testing, and tells you what to fix first.
CLIENT INPUT: booking URL (Calendly) for the primary buttonA paid-search lead who reads the account daily, a creative director who produces the assets being tested, and a measurement lead who owns the brand versus non-brand and blended reconciliation. Certifications matter less than the cadence; both are listed here.
The internet is filling up with AI slop. We don't ship it.
Every asset is human-directed, briefed by strategists, refined by creatives, approved before it runs.
On-brand, always, your voice and guidelines are the guardrails the AI works inside.
Accountable to performance, if it doesn't earn its spend, it doesn't stay live.
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what the automation owns today and what nobody is controlling
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conversion values set from your economics
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exclusions, negatives, isolated brand campaign
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consolidate for data, split only for intent
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new assets every two weeks against a hypothesis
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brand versus non-brand, blended versus reported, one variable at a time
An AI PPC agency manages paid search on platforms where the automation already owns the bid, the budget pacing and much of the placement. Its job is everything the machine does not control: bid strategy and targets, Performance Max settings and exclusions, brand and budget protection, the ads and assets being tested, the offer, the landing page and the measurement standard. WKND runs that layer across Google, Microsoft and Amazon.
Smart Bidding sets the bid per auction from signals no human can process in time, and it does that well when the inputs are clean: enough conversions, accurate conversion values, sensible targets, and campaigns structured so the model learns. It goes wrong when data is thin, values are wrong, or brand traffic is left inside Performance Max inflating the reported return. The agency's work is the inputs and the guardrails, not the bid.
It replaces manual bidding. It does not set your targets, protect your brand terms, choose or test your ads and assets, fix your conversion values, decide what a conversion is worth, or read platform-reported results against blended reality. Those are the levers that decide whether Performance Max makes you money, and they are what an AI PPC agency is for.
Five steps, every account. Add brand exclusion lists to every Performance Max campaign. Apply account-level negative keyword lists for brand and near-brand terms. Run brand in its own capped search campaign so brand demand is measured, not blended. Review the search-terms insight report weekly and push new negatives. Compare Performance Max return with brand removed against the blended number, so the campaign is judged on incremental sales.
Ongoing control of automated paid search: target and bid-strategy management, Performance Max asset groups and exclusions, budget protection and pacing, AI-assisted testing of responsive search ads and assets, search-term mining and automated negatives, and reporting that separates brand from non-brand and platform-reported from blended. WKND does this across Google, Microsoft and Amazon under one team.
Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Performance Max, YouTube), Microsoft Ads with full import parity, and Amazon Ads for brands that sell there. ⚠ CLIENT INPUT: confirm Microsoft and Amazon are actively managed before publish.
WKND prices PPC management on a stated model, not a percentage that rewards spending more. ⚠ CLIENT INPUT: pricing model or range, and the minimum monthly spend the model assumes.
Yes. In automated auctions the ads and assets are the biggest lever the advertiser still controls, so WKND produces and tests them as part of the engagement. The creative work is described on our AI ad creative and AI performance creative pages.
A PPC control audit reads your targets, Performance Max settings, brand exposure and asset testing, and tells you what to fix first.
CLIENT INPUT: booking URL (Calendly) for the primary button