Pushing back on AI campaigns with humans in the loop, with Lyndsey Maddox
Episode 229
We need to talk about what’s been happening with the use of AI on Google and Meta’s ad platforms.
A few years ago, we were surgeons. We had the scalpel. We chose the exact keywords, the specific bid modifiers, the precise placements. Now? Google and Meta are basically telling us, “Hey, don’t worry your pretty little human head about it. Just give us your credit card, a few grainy images, and a vague ‘goal,’ and we’ll take it from here.”
Performance Max (PMax) and Advantage+ are the ultimate “Trust Me, Bro” of the marketing world. They’ve turned “manual control” into a dirty word. They want us to believe that the algorithm knows our customer better than we do—even though that same algorithm once tried to sell me a pair of shoes I bought three weeks ago.
The platforms are no longer just tools; they’re aggressive backseat drivers.
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Google is constantly “recommending” that you switch to Broad Match (conveniently spending your budget faster).
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Meta is hiding the “Manual” button behind three layers of “Are you sure? This is less efficient!” warnings.
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The “Auto-apply” Trap: If you don’t uncheck a box buried in a sub-menu, the platform will literally change your strategy while you’re sleeping.
They aren’t optimizing for our ROI; they’re optimizing for their inventory. It’s getting a little ridiculous. It feels like we’re being slowly evicted from our own accounts.
AI is a great engine, but it’s a terrible pilot. It has no “common sense.” Media buyers aren’t here to fight the machine; but they are there to keep the machine from driving a brand off a cliff.
After gaining her B.A. from Butler University and working in B2B, she had her first brush with digital channels like SEO and paid search and saw how they could drive business better than traditional methods. That came as a pleasant surprise, given how her sales role relied totally on making cold calls. Bringing that sales-focused grit to DTC, and honing her digital expertise over the last 14 years, she now serves as its CEO. When she’s away from agency business, she is likely to be spending time with her husband & two sons, often at Wrigley Field catching a ball game.
Let’s go to Chicago, to meet Lyndsey Maddox
Timestamp Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:05 Lyndsey on whether experts still matter
04:51 PMax Leads and Nuance
09:55 Honest Forecasting with Clients
15:41 Humans in the Loop
24:22 Agency Size and Fit
30:00 Connecting with Lyndsey
Shownotes
Lyndsey’s agency, Digital Third Coast