AI Ads and Beyond Podcast: AI Isn’t Your Edge in PPC — Your Offer Is

I was recently a guest on AI Ads and Beyond, hosted by Lisa Raehsler. The podcast is about how AI is changing paid advertising strategy and performance. 

We talked about why AI doesn’t give small businesses the edge most people think it does, how to use it without outsourcing your judgement, and what running paid media well actually looks like when the platforms are doing more of the work. Here’s the full conversation.

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How Jeremy Got Into Paid Advertising

Lisa Raehsler: Before we dive into this exciting topic, can you tell me a little bit about how you got into PPC?

Jeremy Yang: I’ll give you the short version. I was in my late 20s, had a midlife crisis where I didn’t want to do the business I was doing at the time — I was a technician, on the road a lot. I went back to uni full time to study, just to get a degree. The only thing I was good at was marketing. Came out as a mature age student, couldn’t really get a job, did a few unpaid internships and bounced around until one of my bosses said the way I did marketing was very impatient. He said, you’re so impatient — the only thing that’s going to work instantly is paid advertising. So I ended up getting into that game. And loved it ever since because it’s still probably the quickest thing to get anyone results.

The Biggest Misunderstanding: AI Levels the Playing Field

Lisa Raehsler: What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about AI and PPC for small businesses?

Jeremy Yang: When we’re talking about PPC, we’re including Meta Ads and Google Ads. One of the misunderstandings is that small businesses think the automation is going to help them or make them do things faster. What I think the misunderstanding is — it actually levels the playing field for all small businesses. So if you were doing something that was quite time consuming before, now everyone’s just caught up. And if the bigger guys have more data, they can amplify everything they’re doing with AI. So there’s actually no advantage for a small business. Most of the time I would say there’s no advantage for a small business. I think the only places they kind of feel a little bit quicker — or are executing a bit better — is on things like graphics, videos, scripting, ad copy, applying to things quicker. But when AI is injected into all of this, it’s the table stakes. People are optimistic about it, but what they don’t understand is that it actually increases competition for whatever they do.

Lisa Raehsler: Right, because they have access to the same resources.

Jeremy Yang: That’s right. Because the resources are so cheap and now whatever system they had going on, now everybody has that. So if they had a VA system going on, if they had some type of production thing going on — now everybody has that. And the bigger guys have an even better system in place now and can do things even quicker than you.

How Small Businesses Win: Sharpening the Offer

Lisa Raehsler: What do you think they can do to win in that area?

Jeremy Yang: To me, small businesses’ biggest problem they always had is the offer. It’s hard to get cut through for them. So I think now they have to think even deeper and get sharper with the offers that they have. Because advertising is always being cut through. Now with more noise and higher quality advertising, the differentiator is the offer — whatever other people can’t replicate.

Lisa Raehsler: Can you give me an example of that?

Jeremy Yang: Let’s just say you’re a local business in a very generic space. AI is going to help you get sharper on your avatar. So now you’re able to use AI to create an avatar — which took a long time to do, which took a whole team to do before. Now you can create this avatar where you can ask questions. Ask about what the hidden fears are, what they are not telling you. You can even test the offers on them to see how they will respond, how you could make it sharper. Another thing AI is very good at now is doing a competitive analysis. That’s a step I think small businesses will have to take to really work out where the open lane is.

Lisa Raehsler: Competitive analysis is one of those areas where a lot of companies will fall short. I think it would be a distinct advantage for small businesses if they’re on top of that — they can really push that forward and build a model to monitor their competitors. From their business strategy to their ad strategy, they can really rise to the surface in that area.

Using AI for Strategy — With Discernment

Jeremy Yang: In terms of strategy, people will try to just AI the strategy. And that’s probably not a very good idea because they don’t have the discernment to know what’s going to work or not. AI just kind of spits out a whole array of things and then they’re stuck in the same position, not knowing the direction.

Lisa Raehsler: I think if they’re putting in the right data and prompting the correct way, or building their custom chatbots with the right information, they will get strong direction from the beginning on strategies. Giving it the model, what their goals are, all the information about their business, who their competitors are. So it can use not only its trained knowledge base, but also the knowledge from that particular business. The custom models I create for clients — I feed all of that into it. So I have sort of like my own side strategy buddy. I could say, hey, I’m working on this client right now and we’re looking at mixing up their CTAs — what do you think based on all of the information you have?

Jeremy Yang: Yes, that’s exactly how I’m using it as well.

Lisa Raehsler: It can work faster and it can research competitors and market trends almost instantly so that you’re more informed on those strategies. In the past, it would take hours and hours to get updates on the industry. It really speeds up the process of the strategy, but it does come down to the human to review that and say, does that really make sense when I’m doing a reality check?

Jeremy Yang: Yeah, absolutely. And when I’m working with tiny businesses, they don’t really have the resources to even do that. So the medium and bigger guys will now have an even bigger advantage, because they’re amplifying the leverage.

Getting Started with Automation in PPC

Lisa Raehsler: How do small businesses get started — what are the first few things they can put into play with automation?

Jeremy Yang: I can only speak on my field of paid advertising. I think the really good ones are bulk analysis — having that in place. If you can find a way to get notified of certain red flags in your account, that’s really helpful. Another one is around systematically creating pages and ads, testing different ad copy. That’s a massive one, because it used to take so long to get anything done in that area.

Lisa Raehsler: Paid ads is one of those areas where the content is so small and short that it takes so long to write it.

Jeremy Yang: Yeah. And the burnout rate is getting quicker and quicker — how quickly things are getting burnt out, like the creatives or the ads. The platforms are always starving for fresh things. Especially Meta — it’s crazy bad now. If you’re spending like a hundred dollars a day, you’ve got to swap out things almost every two, three days. Having the stash behind you, having the resources to do all of that — that’s important.

AI Analysis of Ad Performance — Where the Tech Isn’t There Yet

Lisa Raehsler: If the small business has results on the Meta ads, are they able to take that information and feed it into AI to get better recommendations and better versions?

Jeremy Yang: I think that the technology — unless they’re paying for some really expensive tools — is not there yet to analyze videos and graphics correctly. I’ll tell you a workaround: it’s going to come down to the naming convention of your ads and the campaigns and ad sets. With that, on a spreadsheet or piped in through the API, any model can analyze it because it’s just a language model. But reading what the graphic was, or you were wearing a bright dress that day, do more of those ads — that’s the dream, but it’s not there. I’m testing so many models. It’s not there. And honestly, for a small business that’s so time-strapped, that kind of analysis wouldn’t even help that much.

Lisa Raehsler: Do you think small businesses should hold on and wait until there are better technologies?

Jeremy Yang: I think they definitely should wait for the technology to converge a little bit. Right now the technology is too divergent, and whatever they’re going to use and implement is going to change very quickly. They’re going to have to learn a new system again and again. So I think they have to find the stuff that’s going to sustain the business — not about the technology — but the stuff that really matters: sharpening their offer, sharpening their ways of doing business, looking at the broader strokes and not focus on the actual tool.

Should Small Businesses Trust AI Platform Recommendations?

Lisa Raehsler: What’s your point of view on trusting the AI built into the platforms — Google Ads and Meta Ads — especially for small businesses who have a lot to lose?

Jeremy Yang: When it comes to AI platform recommendations, definitely look at it with a skeptical eye. Especially for small businesses — their ad spend is like their lifeblood. $3,000 a month in ad spend is huge for them. The platforms’ recommendations don’t really think about that human level — that $100 is a lot of money for them. So they’ll recommend anything. They’ll recommend increase the budget, test something. I tell clients: if you spend $1,000 out of a $2,000 budget and it hasn’t worked, it’s not going to miraculously do some machine learning. It never will. So definitely don’t trust that type of stuff. It’s even riskier for businesses where there’s a legal implication — around courses, around government — because when you trust the AI to write some of that stuff, it’ll just not sound like a brand. It will make clickbait. It will insert information from other businesses that doesn’t apply to you.

Jeremy Yang: What it can do really well now is images and videos. Platforms are building it in — Google is building in video creation software, image creation AI, text overlay on top of images. It used to take forever. Now it’s all folded into one. And another thing both Meta and Google are adding is the ability to prompt in natural language to build an analytics table or get stats on certain things. Building a pivot table in Google used to take forever. Now you can just write it — give me a comparison of Product A last year to this year — and a table comes out. That’s a massive time saver.

Lisa Raehsler: I have seen some very bad ad suggestions come out of Google — they’ll suggest different calls to action including ‘Buy Now’ when the client doesn’t sell anything. Sometimes people don’t even read the suggestions and there’s a lot of rapid clicking to accept.

Meta’s Natural Language Targeting Feature

Jeremy Yang: In Meta, what they’ve added recently is natural language targeting — talking about who you want to target. I think that’s a good addition because for my seven years in the game, people have always been fascinated over the targeting options, which hasn’t been a needle mover for a very long time. Maybe 2019, but not anymore. Now people — even small businesses — don’t have to worry about that mystified side anymore. They can just type it in and Facebook will know who you’re trying to target.

Lisa Raehsler: So if you could explain for the people listening — are you typing in something like, ‘I’m looking for families who enjoy outdoor activities’?

Jeremy Yang: Yeah, exactly stuff like that. Not all accounts have it yet. Some accounts have it, and you’re allowed to put it in and then it’ll tell you what the targeting is. It’ll give you suggestions where you can tick the box. And to me, that’s still a combination of what your videos are doing — I always recommend my clients to call out to start: Hey, if you’re going through this, or if you’re doing that, listen up. I think that still matters. And ad copy still matters — you have to be really clear. Now the targeting is also helping instead of having to be a mystery. It’s moved on to that natural language way and I think that’s a smart move.

Lisa Raehsler: That’s great especially for small businesses who may not have that detailed background in how to select lists and identify the right ones. So you were talking about creating ads — is that Google Asset Studio?

Jeremy Yang: Yes — can’t remember exactly what it’s called right now, but all of that is in there. The VO and all that stuff. And that saved a lot of time. Even the remarketing audiences — it used to take forever to create. Now it’s all automated, already set up for you. But that doesn’t change the fact that if you don’t have something that’s selling well, you can have all the audiences in the world — it’s not going to make any difference.

What in PPC Should Stay Human-Led

Lisa Raehsler: What do you think in PPC should stay human-led?

Jeremy Yang: Meta is suggesting to remove the background automatically. For e-commerce clients, there’s automation around products — you put an image of the product and tell it where you want to make it go. In my eye, because I’m not the owner of the product or the client’s business, the product looks fine after AI’s modification. But I’ve had three or four occasions where the client said, that doesn’t look like my product anymore, that’s changed a little bit — the sunglasses arc’s gone up too high. You’ll never know that. So you have to be really careful because it doesn’t look like the end product the client gave you anymore. That’s actually very dangerous — to allow those small modifications.

Jeremy Yang: In terms of where we should be human-led: with AI development, it’s actually crowded out a lot of the busy work. For me personally, I’ve had to do more across the entire spectrum of ads — the strategy, creating the assets, running the ads, the post analysis, integrating to the CRM, working out lead scores, landing page optimization, conversion rate optimization. I don’t think it’s about human-led so much as the human has to do more now just to keep up, just to stay competitive.

Lisa Raehsler: So why are those tasks not able to be automated?

Jeremy Yang: I think they can be automated. But we used to spend a lot more time on the actual media buying side of things. Because that got easier with the help of AI — how do you stay competitive now? How do you justify the monthly invoicing? So if you’re a good human in PPC, I think you have to go wider. Those hours have to be spent somewhere else. That’s how you differentiate yourself. Make more use of your knowledge around the creatives, around scripting, around discernment — what will work, what doesn’t work. And the conversation around lead quality. I don’t think the human factor is going to go away. But if you have a human in there, it’s got to go wider.

Lisa Raehsler: I think it will enable us to dig deeper into some things that always tended to get cut off because we didn’t have time.

The Future for VAs, Interns, and Entry-Level Roles

Jeremy Yang: Do you think it makes it harder for VAs and interns to come into the game now? Because what are they going to do? The simpler tasks that they used to do is automated away now.

Lisa Raehsler: Right. As of right now, the automations and the suggestions all need to be checked, edited, and require guidance from humans. Setting the conversion values, the automatic bidding and the budgets — if it’s not working, there isn’t a button that says ‘please make this work.’ We have to go in there and tweak it with our knowledge of the client, the industry, and how the platform works. That’s still very hands on and very tactical. And I think that is a perfect space to start out when you’re new to the industry — so you can understand how things work in order to improve how they move forward.

Jeremy Yang: Yeah, I definitely agree. I’m just saying for somebody who’s coming into the industry now — where are the opportunities? I wouldn’t have a role for them. I don’t know who has a role for them anymore because whatever value they used to bring is being AI’d away. What is the intern’s job now? They can’t sit there and learn for free anymore. So where do they go? How do they even get into the game?

Lisa Raehsler: I think it’s more of them monitoring the machines, monitoring the automation, and doing some of that analysis. A machine pops out: there was XYZ percentage of change month over month in these campaigns. But it can’t tell you why. It doesn’t see a lot of things. And there’s still a lot of creative energy and gut instinct that goes into advertising.

Jeremy Yang: Massive, yeah. 100%.

30-Day Action Plan for Small Businesses Running Ads

Lisa Raehsler: So what should small businesses do right now in the next 30 days — if you were going to give them advice on upping their game or just surviving — what’s your top advice?

Jeremy Yang: If they’re already running ads — next 30 days — I would say definitely to survive and just to see yourself properly:

Number one: Audit your conversions. The ad platforms are providing conversion data — make sure it matches reality. If you have Google Ads and Meta Ads running, they all inflate the numbers to claim that they’re doing more than they are. Be very surprised when you look at your real point-of-sale data. If it doesn’t match, fix that up — because you’re giving the platform bad data to optimize around.

Number two: Check lead quality. Compare it to your referrals and your organic leads. My advice is really around just getting to know a bit more about where your money is going and if it’s worthwhile. In terms of ad costs — they have increased a lot over the years. CPC has increased a lot across all industries. There are almost no exploits anymore.

Number three: Consider increasing your budget. When people are floating around that low budget mark, I think they’re getting the worst of both worlds. They hang around the middle of the page — second or third position — and they’re getting the worst kind of clients. I think they should bite the bullet and either pause for a few months and save up, or just increase the budgets now. Because once you go over that threshold, that’s where all the money is. See what performance looks like above that threshold.

Lisa Raehsler: Right. And I would add: check the close rate — the lead to close rate. And consider increasing the budget so they can get over that threshold to get more data in, so that the machine learning can actually work better for them, which it does.

Jeremy Yang: Yes, definitely. Once they go over the threshold of spend, things definitely change. The clients doing $10,000 to $15,000 a month — it’s a lot easier to get them results than the one doing $3,000. The fee is the same because it’s almost the same amount of work. But when you’re bidding and always going for the best keyword, always hanging around the top — life’s better like that.

Key Takeaways

• AI levels the playing field for small businesses — but bigger companies with more data can amplify their AI advantage faster. The differentiator isn’t the technology, it’s the sharpness of your offer and the uniqueness of your value proposition.
• Use AI to build customer avatars and run competitive analysis, but be skeptical of AI-generated strategy outputs. Without the discernment to evaluate them, you’ll end up with a list of options and no direction.
• Trust platform AI for creative asset creation (images, video, text overlays) and natural language analytics — but treat platform recommendations on budgets and copy with a skeptical eye. Always cross-check against your real point-of-sale data.
• For Meta Ads, ad creative fatigue is accelerating. Even at $100/day, you may need to swap out creatives every 2–3 days. Building a systematic content production pipeline is now a baseline requirement, not an advantage.
• Small businesses running ads in the next 30 days should: (1) audit conversion data against real sales, (2) check lead quality against organic/referral leads, and (3) consider pushing spend past the performance threshold — underbudgeted campaigns get the worst positions and worst-fit clients.
• The human in PPC must now go wider across the full stack — from strategy to creative direction, lead scoring, landing page optimization, and CRM integration. AI has automated the busy work, which means practitioners must do more to justify their value.

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This conversation is from AI Ads and Beyond with Lisa Raehsler — a podcast about how artificial intelligence is changing paid advertising strategy and performance. Available on Audible, and YouTube.