Automation Is Rewriting the Performance Marketing Playbook

Marketers shift staff priorities as new Google and Meta tools make their keyword and targeting skills less relevant

For more than a decade, performance marketers distinguished themselves with their skill in stringing together the perfect set of keywords for Google or picking the right attributes for a likely-to-purchase audience on Facebook.

But as both platforms lean more heavily into automation, marketers say these skills are becoming less relevant, in favor of chops in creativity or data science. As a result, more marketers are hiring new kinds of talent or refocusing staff priorities.

“It felt like we had a soccer team and [now] it’s a basketball court,” said Taylor Offer, co-founder of direct-to-consumer brand Feat Clothing, who said he switched agencies after new tools from Meta and Google made performance marketing skills less relevant, and other abilities, like creative, more important.

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This story first appeared in the February 2023 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.