As 2026 quickly approaches, we’re looking back at some of the best advice from the experts we spoke with throughout 2025, and how those insights can still shape stronger campaigns in the year ahead.
PPC moves fast, and if 2025 has proven anything, it’s that what worked last year won’t necessarily work today. Between ongoing Google Ads changes, increased automation, rising costs, and higher expectations for performance, paid search professionals have had to adapt quickly and rethink how they approach optimization.
That’s why we’ve rounded up the top advice from the brilliant PPC pros who have shared their insight with us this year. These are the tips, strategies, and lessons they’re applying in real accounts right now—from smarter bidding and campaign structure to creative testing, Performance Max, and beyond. The quotes below reflect what’s actually driving results in 2025, offering practical takeaways you can use whether you’re deep in Google Ads every day or shaping paid search strategy at a higher level.
Adapt to the AI Era
As AI continues to shape how people search, Maddie Lightening, Paid Media Lead at Hallam, says PPCers need to evolve alongside these changes to keep campaigns performing. “We’re right on the brink of a complete different way of users searching,” explained Maddie. “Working in Google Ads quite a lot, we have traditionally seen people searching keyword themes, so one or two words going straight to their ad, straight through to the landing page.
“Whereas now you’re getting, with the rise of AI, so many more informational searches, the searches are a lot longer and really they just want an answer, they don’t always want a solution. So it’s really interesting from an ads perspective to understand how you need to target that different and how you need to change your content to actually help the user solve their problem rather than just try and go for that hard sell straight away.
“So it’s not always about these exact and phrase match keywords that we’re used to. Everyone loves to hate on broad match targeting, but I think now there’s really a place for it because people are used to searching on ChatGPT. So to stay competitive you really need to pivot how you target those ads to begin with.”
Arm Your Team with AI
AI is playing a bigger role than ever in PPC optimization, but Nick Handley, Director of Paid Media Performance at Impression Digital, says it should be used more behind the scenes as well as front and centre. “There’s a lot of AI advancement at the moment in the industry, but I think testing tools and actually arming people with their own copilot is probably one of the biggest things that you can do,” he advises. “I think a lot of the, AI advancements we are seeing shouldn’t be on the front end, but behind the scenes.
“So get your team to start using AI to generate reports, to download data, and to get people using things like NAN or make.com to start automating tasks using AI. That’d be my biggest tip to anybody right now, to automate the things that are proving hard and, not providing client value.”
Stand Out in the Shopping Feeds
During the retail peak season, the feeds are flooded with different ads and product offerings, making it particularly difficult to be noticed. Chris Nightingale, Founder and Director of Can-Do Digital, shares how to optimise and stand out in an over-saturated industry. “In a retail peak like Black Friday for example, standing out is still really difficult,” he admits. “So when, when I’m probably looking at feeds with the clients that I work with, it’s all about how can you make yourself stand out on that carousel. But equally because of the likes of PMAX, how can we stand out when there’s image assets across the other inventory like display, YouTube, Gmail.
“The other element of shopping in the feeds is the titles. We all know how important those are and I think optimising those, testing, putting the brand first, the colour first, I’ve seen work really well.
You can be creative with it even though shopping feeds, are predominantly boring because they’re just a big Excel spreadsheet. There’s quite a lot of creativity that you can actually do to stick out.”
Stop Working in a Silo
According to Simran Harichand, Paid Media Lead at Hallam, PPC pros may have been able to operate independently in the past, but succeeding today means working hand-in-hand with teams across the company. “I think for people to stay competitive and to still work as hard, they’re going to have to stop working in a silo and work alongside SEO, Organic PR, because that is the route to success now,” she explained.
“So many more ads are shown contextually and not keyword based anymore. So you are having to figure out exactly what people are thinking or searching and they might actually be looking at organic and PR related results before they even get to PPC. We need to accept that we no longer have a top space on the SERP – it’s time to break the silos and work together as a total strategy.”
Don’t Forget the Fundamentals
AI is without a doubt the biggest disruptor in the PPC industry for 2025, forcing professionals to adapt quickly. But as Matt Beswick, Paid Marketing Manager at Quality Bearings Online, points out, it’s important not to lose sight of the fundamentals—like commercial awareness—which are all too often overlooked.
“I think while AI is becoming more and more important, those foundational skills are still just as important as ever, people need to remember that the person still drives the machine,” he warns. “If you’ve not got those foundational skills, you’re still going to struggle whether you use AI or not. And I think the most important one that I see in accounts is a lack of commercial awareness.
“People don’t understand all the things that you need to do to make money, after the ad has been clicked. You can lean on AI for certain things, but it’s not going to replace your own commercial awareness and knowing exactly what that business needs to succeed.”
Reassess Your PMAX Assets
PMAX has been the new hot thing in PPC this year—but are campaigns being used correctly? Too often, PPCers set it and forget it, leaving AI to handle everything—assets included. Charley Brennand, Founder of Paid Media event Performance MCR, stresses the importance of revisiting and optimizing your PMAX assets.
“My bit of advice for a really successful Performance Max campaign is, your content should be looking to educate and/or entertain”, she explained. “There is nothing worse than when you’re googling something and all of the shopping results are just exactly the same. And that’s what we’re getting hit with, is everybody’s following the same structure. So it is more easy than ever to stand out because all you’ve got to do is have slightly better copy or slightly better assets that you’re plugging in.
“Ultimately all of this just leans back into very basic marketing fundamentals. Are you delivering a proposition that is interesting enough? Go back, assess your assets, and be brutal. Are they boring? Are they answering any pain points? Are they solving any problems? Because if they’re not, they’re not really doing anything for you.”
Make Your Ads Human-Centred
If you work in the B2B space, it can be all too easy to get lost and forget that at the end of the day, you’re selling to humans. Wensy Antoli, Creative Strategy Lead at LinkedIn says you need to make sure your ads resonate with them. “It’s all about telling human centred stories that are authentic, that the audience can relate to,” Wensy explained. “That helps to cut through all the B2B sea of sameness.
“Paid media pros need to stop making ads that look like ads. You need to tell more B2B stories via video. Whether that’s your brand story, whether that’s a story of your audience and how you can help them, and that content will perform better across actual performance metrics without a doubt.”
Budget Strategically
During retail peak periods, it’s tempting to ramp up your budget to chase the extra traffic. But Jérémy Courty, Head of Paid Search at Genie Goals, warns that big budget swings during these peaks can sometimes do more harm than good. “We would never make a big change in budget, or reduce/increase the target rates a huge amount when using PMAX, because it’s just going to make the tool go into a frenzy,” he warns. “You’re broadening up the restrictions and it’s going to try to look after new queries and new inventory that it’s never learned from before.
“We can’t make massive changes to the algorithm. So to mitigate that, especially when we’ve got flash sale, we use bid adjustments, which is highly powerful. We use that to really push when we know conversion is going to increase and equally we use that to pull things down when we know conversion is going to drop right after Black Friday for instance or Cyber Monday.”
Advice to Take Over Into 2026
This year, we’ve had the privilege of gathering brilliant insights from some of the top experts in the PPC industry. Advice that’s not only shaped campaigns in 2025 but can also set you up for success as we head into 2026. From smarter budgeting and campaign structure to making the most of AI-powered tools, there’s plenty here to take forward and start the new year strong.
And the good news? The learning doesn’t stop here. Stick with us in 2026 as we continue sharing expert guidance and industry insights to help your campaigns perform at their best. Tools like Adzooma make it even easier to put that advice into action, helping you spot opportunities at a glance and optimize campaigns with just a click. With the right strategy and the right tools, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of smarter, more effective PPC.
Want to make 2026 you’re highest-performing year yet? Sign up to Adzooma and start your year off right – optimise and manage all of your campaigns in one platform. Sign up free today!
