On episode 328 of PPC Live The Podcast I speak to Susan Yen, PPC team lead at Search Lab, discussing everything from Performance Max pitfalls to the growing (and sometimes risky) role of AI in marketing.
Susan’s biggest PPC f-up: Performance Max gone wrong
Susan’s most memorable mistake came when she dove headfirst into Performance Max (PMax) campaigns too soon. At first, results looked incredible — traffic spiked, conversions multiplied, and reports looked great. But soon, the client noticed the leads were poor quality or fake.
After investigating, Susan discovered that traffic was coming from low-quality placements, conversion tracking was misconfigured, and Google was counting meaningless interactions like page views as conversions.
Her biggest takeaway: “If you’re not already driving quality conversions, don’t run PMax.” She now checks conversion settings monthly and approaches automation with much more caution.
Transparency: The key to strong client relationships
When things go wrong, Susan’s rule is clear — be transparent. She tells clients upfront that testing involves trial and error. “If your agency isn’t testing,” she says, “they’re not pushing your business forward.” Setting expectations early builds trust, even when results aren’t perfect.
Turning mistakes into team learning
As a manager, Susan treats mistakes as lessons, not failures. Her team holds short “Five Minutes of PPC” sessions to share recent errors and what they learned from them. “Mistakes will happen,” she says. “What you can’t do is hide them.”
Key takeaways for PPC professionals
Susan’s best advice for marketers:
- Take your time with account setup — structure is everything.
- Check conversions regularly to ensure accuracy.
- Be patient with automation and understand what it’s doing.
- Always be testing — even when results aren’t perfect.
- Be honest and transparent about experimentation.
As Anu sums it up: “Add a new acronym to your PPC vocabulary — ABT: Always Be Testing.”
The industry’s big mistake: over-reliance on AI
Susan warns against marketers becoming too dependent on AI and automation. While these tools are powerful, overuse leads to generic ad copy, poor targeting, and campaigns that all look the same. “AI should assist us, not replace us,” she says.
Anu agrees, adding that true experts know how to use AI intelligently. “If you can’t explain the reasoning behind the AI’s output,” she says, “you’ve done a bad prompt.” Marketers still need to understand the fundamentals behind every recommendation or automated result.
Staying human in an automated world
Susan closes with simple but powerful advice: “Take your time, push boundaries, keep testing, but don’t let automation think for you.” Anu wraps up the episode by reminding listeners that while AI can make marketers faster, only human strategy and critical thinking make them smarter.
Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.