Why creative, not bidding, is limiting PPC performance

For a long time, PPC performance conversations inside agencies have centered on bidding – manual versus automated, Target CPA versus Maximize Conversions, incrementality debates, budget pacing and efficiency thresholds.

But in 2026, that focus is increasingly misplaced. Across Google Ads, Meta Ads, and other major platforms, bidding has largely been solved by automation. 

What’s now holding performance back in most accounts isn’t how bids are set, but the quality, volume, and diversity of creative being fed into those systems. Recent platform updates, particularly Meta’s Andromeda system, make this shift impossible to ignore.

Bidding has been commoditized by automation

Most advertisers today are using broadly similar bidding frameworks.

Google Smart Bidding uses real-time signals across device, location, behavior, and intent that humans can’t practically manage at scale. Meta’s delivery system works in much the same way, optimizing toward predicted outcomes rather than static audience definitions.

In practice, this means most advertisers are now competing with broadly the same optimization engines.

Google has been clear that Smart Bidding evaluates millions of contextual signals per auction to optimize toward conversion outcomes. Meta has likewise stated that its ad system prioritizes predicted action rates and ad quality over manual bid manipulation.

The implication is simple. If most advertisers are using the same optimization engines, bidding is no longer a sustainable competitive advantage. It’s table stakes.

What differentiates performance now is what you give those algorithms to work with – and the most influential input is creative.

Andromeda makes creative a delivery gate

Meta’s Andromeda update is the clearest evidence yet that creative is no longer just a performance lever. It’s now a delivery prerequisite. This matters because it changes what gets shown, not just what performs best once shown.

Meta published a technical deep dive explaining Andromeda, its next-generation ads retrieval and ranking system, which fundamentally changes how ads are selected.

Instead of evaluating every eligible ad equally, Meta now filters and ranks ads earlier in the process using AI models trained heavily on creative signals, improving ad quality by more than 8% while increasing retrieval efficiency.

What this means in practice is critical for marketers. Ads that don’t generate strong engagement signals may never meaningfully enter the auction, regardless of targeting, budget, or bid strategy.

If your creative doesn’t perform, the platform doesn’t just charge you more. It limits your reach altogether.

Dig deeper: Inside Meta’s AI-driven advertising system: How Andromeda and GEM work together

Meta has repeatedly stated that creative quality is one of the strongest drivers of auction outcomes.

In its own advertiser guidance, Meta highlights creative as a core factor in delivery efficiency and cost control. Independent analysis has reached the same conclusion.

A widely cited Meta partnered study showed that campaigns using a higher volume of creative variants saw a 34% reduction in cost per acquisition, despite lower impression volume.

The reason is straightforward. More creative gives the system more signals. More signals improve matching. Better matching improves outcomes.

Andromeda accelerates this effect by learning faster and filtering harder. This is why many advertisers are experiencing plateaus even with stable bidding and budgets. Their creative inputs are not keeping pace with the system’s learning requirements.

Google Ads is quietly making the same shift

While Google has not branded its changes as dramatically as Meta, the direction is the same. Performance Max, Demand Gen, Responsive Search Ads, and YouTube Shorts all rely heavily on creative assets to unlock inventory.

Google has explicitly stated that asset quality and diversity influence campaign performance. Accounts with limited creative assets consistently underperform those with strong asset coverage, even when bidding strategies and budgets are otherwise identical.

Google has reinforced this by introducing creative-focused tools such as Asset Studio and Performance Max experiments that allow advertisers to test creative variants directly. As with Meta, the algorithm can only optimize what it is given.

Strong creative expands reach and efficiency. Weak creative constrains both.

Dig deeper: A quiet Google Ads setting could change your creative

The plateau problem agencies keep hitting

Many agencies are seeing the same pattern across accounts. Performance improves after structural fixes or bidding changes. Then it flattens.

Scaling spend leads to diminishing returns. The instinct is often to revisit bids or efficiency targets. But in most cases, the real constraint is creative fatigue.

Audiences have seen the same hooks, visuals, and messages too many times. Engagement drops. Estimated action rates fall. Delivery becomes more expensive.

This isn’t a platform issue. It’s a creative cadence issue. Creative testing is the missing optimization lever in mature accounts.

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The agency bottleneck: Creative production

Most agencies are structurally set up to optimize bids, budgets, and structure faster than they can produce new creative.

Creative takes time. It requires strategy, copy, design, video, approvals, and iteration. Many retainers still treat creative as a one-off or an add-on rather than a core performance input. The result is predictable. Accounts are technically sound but creatively starved.

If your account has had the same core ads running for three months or more, performance is almost certainly being limited by creative volume, not optimization skill.

High-performing accounts today look messy on the surface with dozens of ads, multiple hooks, frequent refreshes, and constant testing. That isn’t inefficiency. That’s how modern PPC works.

Creative testing is a process, not a campaign

One of the biggest mistakes agencies make is treating creative testing as episodic. Launch new ads. Wait four weeks. Review results. Declare winners and losers. That approach is too slow for how fast platforms learn and audiences fatigue.

High-performing teams treat creative like a product roadmap. There’s always something new in development. Always something learning. Always something being retired.

Effective creative testing focuses on one variable at a time: hook, opening line, visual style, offer framing, social proof, or call to action.

It’s not about finding “the best ad.” It’s about building a library of messages the algorithm can deploy to the right people at the right time.

Dig deeper: Your ads are dying: How to spot and stop creative fatigue before it tanks performance

What agencies should do differently

Once you accept that creative is the constraint, the operational implications are unavoidable. If creative is the main constraint, agency processes need to change.

Creative should be planned alongside media, not after it. Retainers should include ongoing creative production, not just optimization time. Testing frameworks should be explicit and documented.

At a minimum, agencies should be asking:

• How often are we refreshing creative by platform?
• Are we testing new hooks or just new designs?
• Do we have enough volume for the algorithm to learn?
• Are we feeding performance insights back into creative strategy?

The best agencies now operate closer to content studios than optimization factories. That’s where the value is.

Creative is the performance lever

Bidding, tracking, and structure still matter. But in 2026, those are table stakes.

If your PPC performance is stuck, the answer is rarely another bidding tweak. It’s almost always better creative. More of it. Faster iteration. Smarter testing.

The platforms have told us this. The data supports it. The accounts prove it.

Creative is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s the performance lever. The agencies that recognize that will be the ones that continue to grow.

Dig deeper: Cross-platform, not copy-paste: Smarter Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest ad creative