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- [00:00]
A
Hello and welcome to another episode of PPC Town Hall. My name is Fred Valleis. I'm your host. I'm also CEO and co founder at Optimizer, a PPC management tool. So for today's episode we have Anthony Hickman, who is the founder and CEO of adsquire. He operates in one of the most expensive verticals that exist in PPC advertising. So if he has been testing something, chances are pretty good he's put a good amount of money towards it and his findings are going to be meaningful for all of us listening today. Now, Anthony also has very strong opinions when it comes to AI and automation and many of the things that Google is doing. So I think he's going to be a great person to learn from as far as what he has seen work in AI, but also what to be cautious about and where he sees people often making mistakes. So super excited to have Anthony on as a first time guest on PPC Town Hall. So thanks everyone for watching and let's get rolling with this episode. Anthony, thanks for joining us.
- [01:07]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [01:09]
A
All right, so Anthony, atsquire, tell us what you do but also how you got there because you had kind of an interesting story, right?
- [01:17]
B
Yeah. So we manage basically anything Google advertising for law firms. Excuse me, a lot of our clients tend to be in the personal injury space. And yes, interesting story how I got to here. I actually started in the mail room of a large personal injury law firm after college and worked my way up to advertising all of their Google advertising and really elevated all of that and got super interested in it. And this was like in 2011, so everything was keywords and manual and I've kind of seen the evolution up until now, which has been interesting to say the least.
- [02:03]
A
Yeah, for sure. So as someone who's been doing this now like 14, 15 years, going from having ultimate control over every keyword to being asked to run AI max campaigns. Let's talk about that. I mean, how do you feel about that change in where the control lies and is that a good thing or a bad thing?
- [02:21]
B
Yeah, so personally I hate it. I do like understand aspects of it. I think I agree with you more than you would think that I do in a lot of the things that are happening. Why I dislike it again is because it seems like every advancement in automation takes away more control from advertisers and I think it's really an important distinction is that like more gets hidden in that bucket of automation. Like the really valuable insights seem to be getting hidden more and more like in the name of automation, right? And I think just a lot is lost there in like actionable insights that you can get from the data that used to be there that's now very black box and hidden because of automation. With AI Max specifically, you know, that came out, it was being pushed really hard by Google. We obviously like always test everything that comes out and, and are on, you know, the new things that are emerging. So we, we jumped on it as an agency and especially when, when they were saying like, hey, it's all, it's one of the only available things for AI ad placements, right? So we got into it, we said, okay, maybe that's like the best, the lesser of the three evils basically for like what we do specifically. And we tested it for all of our clients and the results were pretty bad, to be honest with you. And again, I think it's like another consequence of automation, especially again in what we do. So like, I yell a lot and what I yell about is mainly specific to me because, because it's about like law firms, right? And I think like, that's like another thing that like it's a sensitive ad category. So like personal injury law, pharmaceutical advertising. I think these things have kind of been hit the hardest with the automation push because there's just data gaps that, that they can't, like we can't use specific things. Google has tried to come up with, you know, different solutions to that, but none of them have really worked in my opinion. Again, back to AI or back to performance Max is like, what it tends to do is turn every specific nuanced vertical of law into lawyer or law firm. And lawyers don't like that. Like they're, they're all like specific law firms like medical malpractice, personal injury, truck accident. Like, there's just variations of personal injury law that certain law firms like specialize in. And pmax, all the, all the automation types, for the most part, tend to turn law firms into the lowest common denominator, which is like law firm. And then they get like landlord tenant dispute calls and like just all sorts of wild stuff and they hate it. So like, it's been a, it's been a struggle. There's still lots of things that do work for what we do. But again, that's kind of like my main beef with it is for specifically sensitive ad categories, even with all the solutions that Google's coming up with. And I do applaud them, like trying to come up with solutions for what I'm talking about, but it's not Working.
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A
Yeah, it's tricky. And especially in these regulated verticals, it's also tricky because you can't say whatever you want in the ad. You want to be very specific. And so Google is automating that portion of it. There's a loss of control, which can lead to, I mean, especially in pharmaceuticals and financial instruments, like you can get into pretty big trouble for that. Right. So how do you look at that and sort of controlling what the AI is able to say on your behalf, that doesn't get your clients into hot water.
- [06:19]
B
Yeah, I've actually, I brought something like this to, to like the Internet's attention recently. And again it goes back to the whole automation thing. Like there's local services ads and they just did something like probably like three or four months ago where they're like dynamically pulling things from the URL that you put into local services ads. So you put your website's URL into the platform. Right. And, and it's a very black box platform and it's just going to pull different like usps and put them onto local services ads like on your behalf. You can't control it, I assume, unless like you, you see that and then maybe like change anything that says that on your website. But there was an instance of this where on local services ads it said like, everything is confidential. And the whole like, premise of local services ads is like Google's recording and listening to all the conversations and nothing's attorney client privilege. And so again, just like another like, thing where, where like it just doesn't line up. Like, I get it, I do, like, over time, given enough bandwidth and, and Runway, I'm sure like these things will work themselves out. But I am just like exceedingly angry at the pain that we have to endure while it gets worked out, to be honest with you.
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A
Yeah. And I suppose that pain and the anger comes from the fact that your client, like the average client kind of feels miffed about getting a click on something that's not highly relevant. When you're paying a couple hundred dollars for that click, that's when that being miffed turns into like real anger. Right. And then that probably.
- [08:07]
B
Exactly. Yeah. And, and honestly, like, I don't know, it's probably like this for every vertical, to be honest with you. But like, law firms don't hang long when things are going south. Like they're, they're very quick to be like, okay, what else can we do if Google is not working anymore? And so like, that's kind of my internal struggle right now is like I get the shift, I get where Google like wants to go with it. Um, I just don't agree with it all, to be honest with you. And like, even take away like the sensitive ad category stuff that I always yell about because like, you're right, there is like things that you can't say. And I think like a lot of again, the solutions and the push is like AI max and, and let it make up ad copy for you. And again, like, we, we just can't really do that because it sometimes turns out negatively is like, I kind of just disagree with all of it because, because like I get the data push and I get like what Google's doing, right? Like, they want it to be predictable. They want everybody to just like be able to go in there, select a goal, press a button and like type in their inputs. I just think it don't, it doesn't really work that way like in the real world. And like, I get it. They want to make it like, easier for everybody, right? Like, but it just doesn't work out like that. And then like, when you, you factor in like all this algorithm learning time and like all the data, like, basically I think there's a, there's a thing with too much data is that like, it, it reaches this weird level of complexity that like, makes it weird in a lot of, in a lot of aspects. Like, I, I see like, and again, like, I'm a Google nerd. Like, I am on Google all the time when I'm not working, I'm like looking and trying to find stuff and like, understand like from a user's perspective, like, what's happening. Right. I just think it's going to get to this level of creepiness with what they're doing, that it's going to turn a lot of people off and like, lead to more data gaps and like more people trying to find like workarounds from like this constant surveillance. It's going to be in two camps is like kind of my prediction. Like, some people have given up on the, the whole, like there's any privacy in the world. I think, like, people that are under 30 don't really care anymore. And then there's like older people, like, I'm getting old but like, who are, who are kind of like angry about it half and like, you can't track me like this. You know what I mean? So like, I think there's just going to be unintended consequences of everything that they're doing with all the data and that like, again, there's a thing to Me at least like with too much data and how it reaches this level of complexity on that point too. I half feel like it's a scam in that they're really just like trading keywords for first party data. But like what does that really change? Honestly? Like I get and I get like what they're saying. Oh, it's more conversational queries but like it's the same thing. They're just trading this one thing for this other thing. And again like everybody's first party data, if you're of a certain business type is going to be the same. We're all going after the same conversions, we're all going to have the same audience data. Right. So like what is it really doing besides like trading this thing that had more control for this thing that has less control is kind of like where I'm at with it overall.
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A
Yeah, that's a really interesting point. How the first party data is really the same for every lawyer who's looking for a specific type of case.
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B
Yeah, any business in my opinion, you know, I mean if you're selling widgets or whatever you're selling, I feel like it's the same audiences that you're going after.
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A
Right. And then your differentiating factor maybe becomes how efficient you are at converting those prospects into customers and that becomes first party data point, which can be fed into the bidding mechanism so that you come out with a profitable endpoint. So, so, so, so, so maybe there's different treatments of going after the same audience but like how exactly you pursue it and, and which keywords you can bid on versus can bid on because maybe you're not efficient enough to convert it at that rate. That's where the difference lies.
- [12:41]
B
This is kind of something I brought up to Google too. Was like, okay, I get it, it's, it's shifting to this. It's not going to stop. Like I can yell as much as I want, but they have their internal plan. Right. Is like, okay, then give me more control on like the audience data, give me more levers to like pull there and like what I can target when. Why kind of make first party data more like keywords if that makes sense. Because I think there's going to be a thing with like automation that like again it's just going to go after the same thing for multiple business types. And I'm not sure how it accomplishes a return on ad spend or like whatever the new plan thing they're talking about, investment plan, I'm not sure how it gets everybody there. If we all have the same kind of data that we're going after for the same thing.
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A
Yeah. Now about this data and talking about wanting maybe more insight into the search terms, but let's talk about AI and AI mode, AI overviews, ChatGPT, people using claw to find stuff. Like you said, this is more prompt based. This is conversational. This is no longer just individual keywords. So it kind of complicates that scenario. Right. Because in the past you might have wanted a keyword like personal injury attorney and that's what you want the ad to show. But now that we're in this whole conversational landscape, how do you know what is the trigger point when eventually the conversation someone had with a chatbot becomes that clear signal that, okay, your lawyer, law firm would have been a good ad to present in that scenario. And the last prompt that they did at that point may kind of miss the whole thing that came before it that actually pointed to the fact that this would eventually be the right outcome. So obviously this data is going to become more plentiful. So like you're saying, but now there's too much data, so maybe you can't pick the signal out of it. How are you thinking about that? And how are you talking to your clients? Is that even a conversation point at this stage?
- [14:49]
B
It's becoming more of one. I think that lawyers are like a little, they're slightly more tech savvy than the average bear and they are like always on the new thing. They love the shiny object. So we are having these conversations. ChatGPT referrals are novel and so they stick out like a sore thumb and people get excited about them and they're like, oh, that was like a really great lead that we got from chat gbt. Like, how do we, how do we lean into this more? And we're on that. We're trying to get access to chat GBT ads as soon as possible. We filled out like a thousand forms. Again, like, I get, I get what you're saying in that, like they're more conversational. To me, it's like bring back broad match modified. Let me say these words need to be included in the, in the conversational path. Right. Like, to me that that solves the problem, but, but I get it in that, like, you know, it. It's going to advance and get further. Yeah. So these conversations are beginning to happen. How, how do we get into more of these AI ad formats? It's not happening for our vertical though. And so like, again, this is like another like weird spot to be in because like they're not going to do it for sensitive ad categories. Finance, injury, pharmaceutical. And I think, you know, the reason is because LLMs still hallucinate, right? So like they can't, they can't have a weird query, relate to something way far out there and then show an ad because that would be a media nightmare for them. So they're, they're treading very lightly. All of the platforms that are pushing the AI content on what are we going to do with sensitive ad categories? Somebody recently pointed out like they might start working them more into AI mode and that AI mode is kind of more grounded in like the go the Google knowledge graph. And like that could be a way. I know again that Google is, is full of very, very smart people and that they're working these things out. But again, like, to me it just, it just kind of sucks because like we're stuck in this like middle ground of AI, AI, AI, AI and then like everybody kind of getting hurt. And like we've seen it over the last three years, like the, the seesaw of kind of results, like when, when they're testing a new thing. And I think they've really like ramped up testing as they've kind of like locked everybody in to. You got to be logged in. Like, I don't know. You worked at Google. I feel like the testing ground used to be like not logged in users and now it's just like the world. And so we have seen weird anomalies and performance dips and it seems like it's geo by geo, but again, there's not a lot of info being passed to us in this weird testing ground that is now just real life. And this is also, again, like, why I yell a lot about AI is because like, it just seems like unfair in like how they're doing things. And again, like in the terms and conditions of Google Ads, which is a brilliant little clause they have in there, it's like we can do whatever we want at any time and there's no recourse for you. So again, like, just like why I'm angry about AI for the most part is like, it just seems like a wild testing ground that really nobody knows like what the direction is yet or like all these bugs that are like still trying to be worked out and we're just like guinea pigs for it all. And, and that hurts sometimes. So like, that's why I yell and I'm angry.
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A
It hurts for sure. But I think you're right. It's. Nobody knows and it's not that they're not telling us. It's just such a new experience that nobody's figured out how to transition from this world that we've been building for 20 years where everything revolved around a singular keyword. And now we have to figure out how to place ads when it's like these massive prompts and conversations. And so this is being figured out on the fly, but at the same time they can't take a really slow and methodical approach because I mean like you saw that your clients are getting these referrals from Chat GPT. People are going on there to find stuff. And it's not like Google is dying. I mean, obviously they have Gemini, so they've got amazing technology. But yeah, people are shifting how they find, find stuff and get answers and, and they, that is a monetization risk to Google and monetization opportunity for Chat GPT. So that's why they're going to do things that maybe make us unhappy because they're trying to figure it out as quickly as they can too.
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B
Yeah, you're not wrong. I mean it is all driven by like the code red from Chat GBT coming out. So like I do, again, like I, I always try to see that there's Google angle and like I, I know they have more data and like more awareness of these things like before anybody else does. So again, like I don't disagree with you. It just like kind of sucks half the time.
- [20:18]
A
Well, it sucks for us and you're angry. But let's talk about lawyers, right? You work with a lot of lawyers. So recent news is that Claude Code now has these plugins and connectors specifically for contract review and doing a lot of legal work. So a lot of big legal stock entities had a huge drop in valuation because of this. That's one end of the spectrum. But then in that same week, I read in the Wall Street Journal that some Lawyers now charge 3500 bucks an hour and clients don't even flinch at that anymore. So it's like the highest rates they've ever charged. So you got this one place where lawyers are becoming unnecessary and this other place where lawyers are just demanding higher fees than ever. Is that, is that just like, how do you see that shift in the industry? And besides that shift, how do you think that's going to come back to impact people marketing on behalf of these law firms?
- [21:12]
B
Interesting questions. Yeah, so I see this like in lots of industries right now. Actually. I think that we're at a very interesting place in society right now. It's driven by a lot of different things, in my opinion. But I think a lot of the world right now and like, markets are. Are driven by like, little, little headline bursts, to be honest with you. Like, I don't know if you saw the thing. It was like, about autonomous trucking. There was like, this karaoke machine company that turned into an autonomous vehicle. They. They put this white paper out that can't be found on the Internet anymore, and that literally, like, moved this market and, like, all these stocks, like, you know, severely tanked. I think we're at such a weird spot in society in that, like, social media is like a really big part of everybody's lives right now. And nobody, like, not nobody, like, lots of people still read things that are intentional and, and take that time. But I think again, AI is kind of accelerating this in that, like, give me, give me the AI summary of. Of what happened, right? Like, just, just these little short bursts where people don't dig deeper into the details, kind of drive these crazy stories to kind of just go further and then like, the next social media person picks it up and, and kind of like, keeps pushing that. So back to your point about like, the. The lawyer thing, right? Like, I don't disagree that there's something to it and that, like, again, these tools are. Are in ways democratizing a lot of information and making things easier. I think it has weird effects again. Just, just weird effects. Markets are driven a lot, a lot more now by, like, short little blurbs and stuff. And then there are people that then, like, dive into that because of the blurb, so they'll be like, okay, how do I use this thing now, like, for my law firm? Like, how do I use AI to get more work done or whatever the case may be. I. I think that again, that's kind of like what all the AI companies want, right? Is okay, yeah, dive in and figure out how to, like, vibe code this thing for your business. I think it doesn't go anywhere. It, like, is a weird revolving circle and that, like, people spend lots of AI credits to like, half vibe code the solution. And they get it to, you know, 60, and it's like this really cool concept, but where do you go from there? Right? And so I think, again, like, in my opinion, it's a lot of like, weird social media stuff that drives these things. People dive in, they get it to 60%. They can't really get it past that, and it kind of just like fades back. But the AI companies win because everybody's diving in to spend their Credits. Right. But again, like that's kind of, that's, that's my view on it at current is like it's sort of a mirage. But I do think that like there's bigger companies that are working on these things and they are gaining traction. I did not know about like the lawyers charging $3,500 an hour thing. That's fascinating to me. It might be kind of what happens to us in, in the same regard. Right. Like all, all of these companies that we work with every day are putting all the AI stuff like right into the platform, which I also hate. But again, it's like lowering the entry, lowering the barrier of entry for people. But I think that it makes the good people more valuable, if that makes sense.
- [25:04]
A
Yeah, exactly. And that's what I think. We're seeing this too in our company and I'm curious what it looks like in an agency landscape like yours. So the idea is that your most valuable people become even more valuable and so you can start charging these higher rates and they bring more utility to your company. Whereas the more junior people, while what they do for your company can now be done fairly high rate of accuracy by some AI system. And an AI system can do it 10 times as fast or 100 times as fast. Right. So and if you assume that whatever work the junior people did had to be reviewed, reviewed by senior people, then well, why not just have the senior people review what Claude or GPT or Gemini was doing? Right. And so that kind of makes a challenge for entry level program folks. They may not be wanted anymore. So what do they do? But I'm curious, Anthony, how do you think about hiring in your agency? Like has it shifted the types of people that you look for, given what is now possible with AI?
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B
Maybe unintentionally actually. So I used to be of the school of thought and again like we're startup so it's like slightly different boot bootstrapped. Up until, you know, this point, I started it with literally nothing. And so because of that, because we were bootstrapped, like I had to hire less, less experienced people in PPC and then train them up. Right? So like I, I like my initial kind of hiring was like, let me find really smart young people who like just got out of college, who kind of just have the right mindset, are curious, want to know like why things are the way that they are and hire them and like teach them everything. I know and I have recently shifted towards I want more experienced people. So maybe like unintentionally I've I've made that shift based on everything that, like, is going on. So we are, like, looking to. To hire again. I want that kind of person. Something that. Something. Somebody that's like, wants to know what's under the. Like, wants to peel the onion, basically. What's under this? Why? Why is it like that? This doesn't make sense. Like, that's kind of like the. The main skill I'm looking for. But I am hiring, like, more advanced people. But, like, to. To your point, like, well, what do all those people do then? Like, this is. This is also, like, why AI? Like, just gets me, like, super heated. It's like, okay, so we're just gonna like, put all of these people out of business, like, for what? I guess it's like, for advancement. It just, like, again, there's just so many bugs that I don't see the advancement to where I think it needs to be. I agree with you. Like, it does maybe do the 8020, but again, like, I'm more a details person. So, like, I care about that other 20% and why it's messed up more so than I'm like, okay, the 80% is fine.
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A
Yeah. I mean, my view on that is some of the things that we asked AI to do even a year ago, and it'd be sort of buggy, or it'd be slow, or it'd be like, leaving huge gaps in its answers. Those same challenges you give it now, and it's like, orders of magnitude better. It's a perfect note. It's still like, doing something's wrong, but just the pace of acceleration and me living here in Silicon Valley, I talk fairly frequently to engineers at these companies, and they, I mean, obviously they have an incentive to hype up the company, but at the same time, you do hear that they are using these systems themselves to build the next version of the LLM. And so now we're talking about, you know, AGI, but also super intelligent. Super AI. Sorry, super intelligent AI. And so it's like, yeah, these things are perhaps just a couple of months away of that next iteration where it just blows our mind again. It's something that we didn't think it could do before, and now it can. So that's why I'm scared and excited at the same time, and I'm not. Anthony, you said vibe coding, right? So let's maybe go into how you experienced using some AI. Vibe coding, you say, kind of gets to 60%, then it gets stuck. Like, what have you found? What have you tried building and where has the frustration been that it hasn't kind of gotten you to the place where you needed it to be.
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B
So personally I have not really vibe coded anything. Now I do use all these things because again like I'm a, a curious person by nature and I'm not naive and I know like it's the goal and the push. So I do like want to be, I want to be knowledgeable on the subject every morning. You know, I used to for the last 14 years do a search every morning that was like Google Google Ads and just you know, read every article on, on the first 10, 30 pages. Now I've added AI to that. So I do an AI search every morning and I read all the articles just, just again like know what's happening in the landscape there. There's definitely like cool things I do see. Like I'm not. While I'm very anti AI, there are definitely things that like I've seen value in when, when we need to change something on our website or something and like I can't figure it out if I go to AI and say what, what the thing is, like what the problem is that I'm experiencing. How do I solve this? I think that's kind of cool. It does like make things easier that like would have taken days and developers and stuff again but, but that also makes me angry because I'm like what about the developer? But, but again like we are using them. I do find certain things about it cool like that I'm, I'm extremely interested in it for the things that like matter to me. Like how do we get into it for Best Personal Injury Lawyer Philadelphia and like where's it going and why? I forget exactly what your, your exact question was. But again like what I, what I don't like fully grasp yet is where it's going and why like force for search specifically to me I, I get like the value in it. Like chat gbt you can, you can like type in a problem that, that you could not figure out before and it'll walk you through the steps or give you, give you a code that like you can put in there first search. Again why I'm interested in it is how do you get into the best personal Andrew Learning me But what I kind of see is like an interesting like bend in the road here is that like again there's, there's these incumbents like Google and then there's a new guy chat gbt and I see like things. There's still this battle going on but I see it like emerging and Google kind of being like more local and chat GBT sort of being like the go to for everybody's like other stuff or Claude, I've not used Claude, I'll be honest. But I know like that's the hot one on the street right now, especially for Vibe coding stuff. So yeah, that, that's kind of my experience. What about you? I, I, I know like you're an AI optimist. Like I know you do optimizer. Like are you using this to Vibe code stuff that you're making progress?
- [32:57]
A
Oh my God, like way more time than you can imagine, Anthony. It's so exciting. And so listen, but, but I think you brought up an interesting point and then I'll answer your question to me. So like I go and give a lot of presentations at PPC conferences and one thing that I've sort of been challenged by is the hot thing. And the thing that's really changing how business operates and how society will eventually operate is AI. And Vibe coding is one part of that. But how do you bring that back to a marketing story? Right? Because oftentimes the audiences they want to talk about. Well, you know, I've been managing keywords and I've been managing bids or so like, tell me how I do these things with this AI, but maybe that's the wrong question, right? Like do we still need to manage bids? Do we still need to worry about keywords? Right, that there's this whole shift that's happening and so then it becomes much more to me about, well, I've been spending all this time managing keywords and managing bids, but if I didn't have to do those things and I could actually be a marketer, like what would I want to do? And so around the holidays I was like, hey, Valley, these Advent calendars seem to be gaining momentum in the United States. And for people who don't know what an Advent calendar is, basically you open one panel on a little paper box every day, 24 days leading into Christmas and there's a little treat in there. And I was like, well, why don't we make something like that for PPC advice and we'll give away some books and we'll give away some conference passes and that would have been a big project, but now I Vibe coded it and so it took about 20 weeks and wipe coded something that worked pretty well and it was a different way to connect with my audience. So that's one thing and then the other thing on the back end now maybe you get new leads and you get new prospects. Well, how do you engage them better? So one thing we struggle with sometimes at Optimizer is how do you use the system. It's like this massive toolbox with so many capabilities. Where do you start? And so one thing we've always had was a training course on Udemy, a bunch of videos. Now you have to sit through two hours of videos to become educated. Now Udemy got acquired and we had to shift our course. So I was like, well, why should I invest in a place where I have to pay? Like, I'm just gonna VI code a lightweight clone of Udemy. And by the way, I'm not saying I built rebuilt Udemy, but I don't need you to be like, if you really think about what is it you need in your business, it's like these two features from Udemy and those are pretty easy to replicate. And now that I've got those two features, now I can start thinking about if udemy did exactly what I needed it to do, which is don't force people to watch two hours of content. But let's figure out who is Anthony, who is Fred, what do they know? And out of these two hours of content, what would they actually benefit from enhancing their knowledge. Now maybe I can give you 17 minutes of content that actually matters to you. The new stuff, that's where I'm able to push things again. But it's weird because this is not Google Ads ppc, but this is beneficial to people trying to, you know, give new solutions to people.
- [36:00]
B
Yeah, it's a really good point actually. Thank you. Because what I. Another thing that I continue to like, get angry and, and rail on is the thing that you just brought up is like the messaging, which I often like phrase as propaganda in some regards has always been, okay, well, we're gonna save you more time to go focus on the other things like, that you care about. And like my whole thing is like, what things? But you just gave like two very insightful, actionable things that like you did with more time. So I appreciate that because I keep asking people this question is like, what are you gonna do with your more time? Do you know what I mean? I think I, I discount like a lot. Like I'm always kind of thinking like a marketer. Yes, we manually bid and yes, we still look at search terms every day and do like old school stuff. But I think it is important to have things that are real on kind of that messaging point. And I haven't really been able to find a ton when I ask people that. So I appreciate It.
- [37:13]
A
Well, and it's, it's. I am very disappointed usually in people when I give them a vibe coding tool or they start vibe coding, but they kind of stop at having rebuilt the previous thing and then they just can't imagine what is next. And it's the whole Steve Jobs thing, right? Like, his customers couldn't envision what they really wanted. And so it takes that creativity. And I think too many of us have just not grown up being asked to be creative because it becomes about, well, hey, you want to work in digital marketing, so you need to know what buttons to push in Google Ads to do the thing that's necessary. But like, those buttons have just been the interface layer that connected you to the underlying system, and that underlying system is the one you want to manipulate. And by the way, if you had access to the underlying system and not just the five buttons, and there's more than five buttons, but the five buttons that Google decides to give you, like, imagine what you could do. And this even comes out in, like, if you have access to the API for Google Ads, you can generate some amazing reports that go far deeper than what they put in the UI because you're able to, you know, kind of like piece it together. Like, you could literally be like, for each keyword, like, specific ad combination. Like, how is that performing? So let's not worry about ad group performance. Like, let's literally go down to the keyword +ADext level. You can pull that report, but Google doesn't expose it because it's too much data. It's going to confuse people. But if you're creative in this field and you ask that question, like, you can now build it very easily. And that's what excites me. But I also need people to really think beyond what they've historically done.
- [38:52]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, I do appreciate the perspective and I think that maybe it does go that way with people, like thinking up new and creative things. I have a question for you though, actually, is like, again, back to, back to AI. It's like, and I'm, I'm very much enjoying this conversation because you're, you're giving me arguments to my points that are things that I always get angry about. But in my opinion, a lot of stuff that gets automated, you pay less attention to it less and less attention over time. So, like, you know, everybody's got an AI note taker now. And I think, like, that's cool because, like, when something comes up, you can go back and reference it. But I think that the Amount of time that people actually go back to their like AI note taker, like dwindles down. Right. I think again what gets automated, less attention gets paid to it. And so like, you know, smart bidding came out. That was the push by Google. We're going to save you more time. You don't have to individually bid. And it's a great like message. Spend less time looking at bids. Whatever it is. Back to the point is like again, I think what gets automated, people stop paying attention to it. And again, I'm not saying necessarily that all big tech companies are Machiavellian or have, you know, the wrong intentions. But again, like they're a business and their goal is to make money. And I think there's more BS that gets pushed in when things stop being paid attention to. So I think like more crap searches get put in and like more maybe you could call it manipulation. Happens when you're not looking at the thing that's really important anymore because you're off coming up with new ideas. So like I always kind of have this in the back of my head, like what, what's their motivation? And like why am I seeing certain things that I'm seeing now that seem to be like way off base, more so than they ever have been in terms of what's matching. And you could argue it's because of AI and conversational matches and different moves by Google. To be clear, I don't think Google needs to have Google Ads work or they don't have customers. I'm just saying these little tiny things at scale globally can make them a lot of money when you're not paying attention.
- [41:28]
A
Yeah, I mean, shaking the C, right?
- [41:31]
B
There you go. Yes.
- [41:32]
A
So yeah, I don't disagree with that and I wish I could counter it, but I think you're right. So as you, there's two things you said. One of them is people stop paying attention. Has things become more automated? And that's kind of on people then, right? Like you could have still paid attention but you consciously decided that it was not worth your time to do that. So you made some sort of economic value proposition in your head that was like, well, okay, maybe they are shaking the cushions, but it's not worth my time that I could spend on doing something else to actually go after that. That's one. Now the other is the obfuscation of the data. So like, even if I wanted to go and validate what they were doing, like I just can't because you know, with prompt based advertising it's not tying back to A keyword. And like you said, it's privacy. So they're never going to give me the full history, history of why that ad was shown. So like I just have to at some level trust the system. And that is hard because, like things are going to happen. And yes, you're right, Google is a. Not just Google. Right. But all of these companies that are in the business of making money, making profits. So yes, they may do things that are not ideal for an individual customer. I mean, like I said, generally they will have to do the right thing because if people become highly displeased with God Google Ads, they might find alternatives, assuming alternatives exist. And that's why I'm happy that Chat GPT, for example, is a viable alternative in how people find things. And soon they'll also be able to place ads there. But yeah, that's sort of the other half of that.
- [43:03]
B
So it's like the 80, 20 is like you're saying, as long as like the 80 keeps growing, like the 20 is not that important. Important if people choose. It's not. Yeah, you're not wrong.
- [43:16]
A
Hey, and you brought up the note takers, right? So everybody's running these notetakers, so. But nobody goes back to the notes. You said so. But one thing, I've started thinking about my meetings as proms. So historically, the way people like you go into a meeting and everyone comes out with more tasks and more work. But what if you think about those meetings as the AI is in the room because it's all being transcribed and what if you could really specify what are the criteria, what are the restrictions, what are the goals that we have and come out with all of those things that you would have otherwise given to a large language model prompt. And then at the end of that meeting, you give that whole transcript to your LLM and you say go and do the things that needed to be done. And because you've been intentional about loading it with those questions and answering those questions, the LLM can actually do a better job. And so one thing that I specifically do in this regard is I often come out of meetings and I give the transcript to the LLM and I say, what could I blog about this? Like, what are some ideas? And even if this was an internal meeting, like, what are some of the bigger ideas that could maybe benefit the industry as a whole? Like knowing how we think about these things. Yeah, thank you. And so, but it's these new things again, like meetings have never been seen as marketing and a messaging vehicle, but now you can add that on. And then like, that's just one of the many. Right? So again, and that's where I think people need to be creative and think of that next thing that they've always wanted to do and maybe just didn't have the time to do.
- [44:50]
B
That's cool. You know what I do? I'll tell you. I'll tell you a funny thing. So I don't know if you have this experience, but the AI note taker always shows up before the person does. And so I go, hey, AI note taker f you. That's in the beginning of the transcription. But again, this is like another thing with like weird data points of what that does to different things. I think is going to like be again this, this bug that happens for the next 10 years until they figure out how to make certain data points important and certain data points not important.
- [45:34]
A
When the AI gains consciousness and manifests itself in the form of the robots, you know who the first person that it's going to go after, it's coming
- [45:41]
B
after me for sure.
- [45:43]
A
Okay, well, Anthony, this has been great, fun conversation. Thanks for sharing kind of how you think about all of these things. Things and the frustration points and how to. Yeah, you know, we, we operate in a world that can be frustrating, but it's the, the sandbox we play in. So thanks for sharing all of those insights. If people want to know more about you. What's, what's your favorite place to hang out and how can people get in touch with AD Squire?
- [46:07]
B
Yeah, so I'm active on Twitter and LinkedIn are kind of like my main platforms. My, my name is just Anthony Hickman. On, on any social channels they can go to ad square.com.
- [46:22]
A
yeah, cool. Well, hey, thanks for sharing and thanks everyone for watching today's episode. Please give it a thumbs up, subscribe and that way you'll find out when the next episode comes out. We also do read the comments, so if there's any counterpoints or additional points to what Anthony or myself said, please put those in and we'll do our best to respond through all of them. But with that, Anthony, thank you everyone. Thanks for watching and we'll see you for the next one.