PPC Management
For UK B2B marketers, the question is no longer whether to adopt AI for PPC, but how to implement it strategically whilst maintaining human oversight. Whitehat's PPC management team has analysed the latest platform changes and third-party tools to help you capture more conversions without sacrificing control.
AI-powered PPC forecasting now delivers 30–76% performance improvements over manual optimisation, with over 80% of Google advertisers using Smart Bidding strategies. Google's 2025 updates—including Smart Bidding Exploration, AI Max for Search, and enhanced Performance Max—represent the biggest changes to paid search in a decade.
What you'll learn:
Google Ads has undergone a fundamental transformation in 2024–2025. The platform now uses AI to automate bidding, targeting, creative generation, and performance forecasting across all campaign types. For B2B marketers managing campaigns through platforms like HubSpot, understanding these changes is essential for maintaining attribution clarity and pipeline predictability.
Announced at Google Marketing Live 2025, Smart Bidding Exploration allows advertisers to set a ROAS target tolerance (typically 10–30%), enabling Google's AI to bid on queries that might not meet standard ROAS thresholds but show high conversion potential. According to Google's internal data from March–April 2025, campaigns using Smart Bidding Exploration see an 18% increase in unique converting search query categories and a 19% increase in total conversions.
This is particularly valuable for UK B2B companies with long sales cycles. A professional services firm might normally bid only on high-intent terms like "HubSpot implementation partner London." With Smart Bidding Exploration, the AI can identify and test queries like "how to choose a CRM consultant"—capturing prospects earlier in their buying journey.
Rolling out globally from late May 2025, AI Max enhances existing Search campaigns with three core capabilities: Search Term Matching (connecting ads to user intent beyond explicit keywords), Text Customisation (auto-generating headlines and descriptions from landing pages), and Final URL Expansion (selecting the most relevant landing pages automatically).
Google reports that AI Max delivers 14% more conversions at similar CPA/ROAS for typical campaigns, with campaigns still using mostly exact or phrase match keywords seeing up to 27% conversion uplift. For advertisers who've resisted broad match, AI Max offers a middle ground: enhanced reach with more transparency than Performance Max.
Performance Max remains Google's default campaign type for new advertisers, using AI to automate bidding, targeting, and placement across all Google channels (YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, Maps). The 2024–2025 updates have addressed previous transparency criticisms with asset-level conversion reporting, channel performance reporting, and brand guidelines features.
Key Performance Max Updates for 2026:
Google's 2025 strategy replaces the "Power Pair" with the "Power Pack"—three campaign types working together: Demand Gen (creates awareness and interest), AI Max for Search (captures high-intent searches), and Performance Max (drives conversions across all channels). This framework aligns with how Whitehat structures PPC management campaigns for clients needing full-funnel visibility.
⚠️ Important: Enhanced CPC (ECPC) was deprecated on 31 March 2025 for Search and Display campaigns. Any strategy still referencing ECPC needs updating.
Google's native AI is powerful, but it deliberately limits certain capabilities that agencies and in-house teams need for cross-channel management, predictive budget pacing, and impact simulation. Third-party tools fill these gaps—and for UK B2B companies managing integrated campaigns across marketing services, they're often essential.
Skai (formerly Kenshoo) leads enterprise solutions with Budget Navigator™ for ML-powered predictive forecasting, Impact Navigator for simulating outcomes before implementation, and "what-if" forecasting engines. The platform is trusted by Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, and Nestlé for managing £1M+/month multi-channel campaigns.
Marin Software offers AI-based forecasting predicting clicks, conversions, revenue, cost, and profit using proprietary campaign-level models. Their 2024 updates included Marin Advisor—an AI teammate with chat interface for analysing performance. Case study results show 94% of campaigns hitting budget targets and 20% revenue lift within one month.
Optmyzr emerges as the most frequently recommended tool for agencies, offering budget forecasting with projected spend reports, AI Sidekick for natural language diagnostics, and custom automation rules. Whitehat has seen case studies including Colewood Digital achieving 15% revenue increase plus 2,900+ hours saved in 2024, and Mapplinks generating $1M+ revenue on $250K ad spend.
Adalysis (starting from £79/month) provides budget tracking with seasonality forecasting, spend projections, and built-in generative AI for ad groups and keywords. Users report saving 40+ hours of work per month—time that can be redirected to strategy and client communication.
| Google Native Limitation | Third-Party Solution |
|---|---|
| No predictive budget pacing | Optmyzr, Skai, Marin provide "you're pacing to overspend by £X" alerts |
| Single-platform visibility | Cross-channel unified dashboards (Google + Meta + LinkedIn + Microsoft) |
| Limited automation logic | Complex conditional rules (If CPA exceeds £50 AND it's after 3pm...) |
| Black box decision-making | Cause-based diagnostics explaining why changes happened |
| No "what-if" simulation | Skai Impact Navigator simulates outcomes before implementation |
The data from multiple sources confirms that AI-powered PPC consistently outperforms manual optimisation—though the degree of improvement varies significantly based on implementation quality, data volume, and human oversight.
KEH Camera (Performance Max)
76.3% increase in revenue, 44% increase in transactions, campaigns achieving 10–16x ROAS
HRC Fertility (Lead Generation)
8% increase in lead volume at £28 CPA—4x lower than previous Search campaigns
Columbus Agency (Telco Client)
40% CPA decrease within first month, 36% conversion rate increase within two months, 39% CTR improvement using Search Ads 360 Smart Bidding
B2B Corporate Gifts
44% increase in conversions with 47% CPA reduction using B2B-specific audience signals
Over 80% of Google advertisers now use some form of Smart Bidding (Google Bidding Hub/Market Vantage 2024–2025). The State of PPC Global Report 2024 (1,135 verified respondents) shows 63% expect budget increases for Performance Max campaigns. The industry has clearly moved past the "should we use AI?" question—the focus is now on strategic implementation.
Frederick Vallaeys, voted #1 most influential PPC expert, identifies effectiveness as "largely divided by those who use GenAI well vs. those who don't." Beyond Google's native AI, tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are transforming how marketers approach keyword research, script automation, and campaign analysis.
Google's Conversational Experience for Search Campaigns allows advertisers to enter a landing page URL whilst AI generates keywords, headlines, descriptions, and images. Small business advertisers using it are 63% more likely to publish campaigns with 'Good' or 'Excellent' Ad Strength.
Whitehat's approach: We integrate AI capabilities within our inbound marketing services, combining HubSpot's native automation with strategic human oversight. Our team uses generative AI to accelerate research and ideation whilst maintaining quality control and brand consistency for UK B2B clients.
The expert consensus from Frederick Vallaeys, Brad Geddes, and other practitioners is clear: AI enhances rather than replaces human strategy. Understanding where AI predictions fail is as important as knowing where they excel.
Historical data dependence represents the primary limitation. As Lunio notes: "Results are based on historical data. Things can happen in the future that are not accounted for"—including weather events, new competitors, market changes, and new account managers.
Frederick Vallaeys quantifies the accuracy challenge: "Even the best GenAI models only get things right around 80% of the time, and most models perform much worse than that. LLM outputs must be reviewed and double-checked for accuracy."
Despite 2025 transparency updates adding channel reporting, advertisers still cannot control budget allocation across channels versus visitor types or assess which Asset Groups perform best. This creates platform dependence—without understanding AI logic, advertisers essentially "start over" when implementing other campaigns.
Human intervention remains essential for:
Ben Wood (Hallam) cautions: "As more advertisers rely on the same AI systems, we risk seeing a wave of similar ads that prioritise budget over quality. Buyers will learn to tune out these ads." This homogenisation risk is particularly relevant for B2B companies needing to differentiate in competitive markets.
AgencyAnalytics recommends mixing three approaches:
Top-down forecasting
Start with revenue/ROAS goal, work backward to estimate required spend—best for outcome-based budgeting
Bottom-up forecasting
Build from CPC, CTR, and conversion rate for ground-up projections—best for tactical planning
Trend-based forecasting
Use historical patterns to project future performance—best for predictable markets
Brad Geddes' evaluation framework for AI recommendations:
Implement a 70/20/10 budgeting model: 70% core campaigns, 20% promising new tactics, 10% experimental approaches. This balances proven performance with strategic exploration—the same principle behind Smart Bidding Exploration, but applied at the portfolio level.
If you're reading PPC guides published before 2024, they likely need significant updates. Here are the major changes that have rendered older content obsolete:
Smart Bidding Exploration allows Google's AI to bid on search queries that might not meet your standard ROAS targets but show high conversion potential. You set a tolerance range (typically 10–30%), and the AI explores less obvious queries. Google's data shows an 18% increase in unique converting query categories and 19% more conversions for campaigns using this feature.
Google recommends a minimum of 30 conversions per month, with 50+ for Target ROAS strategies and 60+ for optimal Performance Max performance. For B2B companies with lower conversion volumes, consider using micro-conversions (form submissions, content downloads) as secondary conversion actions to give the AI more learning data.
For B2B lead generation, AI Max for Search typically offers better control and transparency than Performance Max. AI Max enhances your existing Search campaigns whilst maintaining keyword-level control and full negative keyword support. Performance Max works better when you need cross-channel reach and have strong creative assets. Many B2B advertisers use both as part of Google's recommended Power Pack framework.
Optmyzr and Adalysis both integrate well with HubSpot for cross-platform attribution. Optmyzr offers the most comprehensive automation rules and budget forecasting, whilst Adalysis provides excellent value at lower price points. For enterprise accounts managing £1M+/month, Skai offers the most sophisticated cross-channel forecasting and HubSpot integration capabilities.
Use Google's Campaign Experiments feature to run A/B tests comparing AI bidding against your current strategy. Start with 20–30% of traffic, run for at least 4 weeks, and measure primary conversions rather than secondary metrics. Brad Geddes recommends a 70/20/10 budget split: 70% proven campaigns, 20% promising tactics, 10% experimental approaches.
The AI-powered PPC landscape in 2024–2025 represents a fundamental transformation. Google's native AI capabilities have matured significantly, with Smart Bidding Exploration, AI Max for Search, and enhanced Performance Max controls addressing previous transparency criticisms whilst delivering documented performance improvements of 14–27%.
Third-party tools remain essential for agencies and in-house teams requiring cross-channel visibility, predictive budget pacing, and impact simulation capabilities that Google's native tools deliberately limit. For UK B2B companies integrating PPC with HubSpot CRM and marketing automation, these tools provide the attribution clarity that CFOs demand.
The evidence strongly supports AI adoption—case studies demonstrate 40–76% improvements in key metrics and 80%+ industry adoption of Smart Bidding. But the expert consensus emphasises that AI enhances rather than replaces human strategy—particularly for new campaigns, low-volume accounts, and regulated industries.
Amy Hebdon (Paid Search Magic) offers the definitive balance: "There are many ways to use generative AI to enhance your campaigns—and only two ways to get it wrong: Blindly rely on it for everything. Refuse to use it for anything."
Whitehat's PPC management team can help you implement AI-powered bidding strategies that connect to HubSpot for CFO-trusted attribution. We've been running ethical, data-driven campaigns since 2011.
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Whitehat is a London-based HubSpot Diamond Solutions Partner and full-service inbound marketing agency. We run the world's largest HubSpot User Group and have been delivering ethical SEO, PPC management, and marketing automation since 2011.
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