Ad platforms and their AI

Every campaign starts on an ad platform, and the platforms themselves now ship most of the AI that advertisers use. Google, Microsoft, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Amazon and Pinterest each run their own auction, sell their own placements and offer their own automated campaign types.

The direction is the same on all of them. Advertisers set a goal, a budget and a pool of creative, and the platform decides who sees which ad, where and at what bid. Google calls its version Performance Max, Meta uses the Advantage+ name, and the others have similar options. Fewer settings are left in your hands, and the platform reports less detail about where money went.

That trade can work well for an account with clean conversion data and enough volume for the system to learn from. It works badly when conversion tracking counts the wrong things, such as page views or duplicate form fills, because the system will optimize toward whatever you report. The first job on any platform is to make sure the conversion you report is the one you care about.

Each platform suits different intent. Search ads on Google and Microsoft reach people who are actively looking for something. Social platforms reach people based on interests and behavior, so creative carries more of the weight. LinkedIn targets by job and company, which suits business-to-business offers with higher prices. Amazon and other retail media reach shoppers on the store where they buy.