M09-02 · AI + Digital Marketing & Agent Orchestration

Performance Marketing & Paid Media

AI + Digital Marketing & Agent Orchestration →

Google Performance Max and Meta Advantage+ already make most campaign decisions autonomously — bidding, targeting, creative rotation, budget allocation. The job isn't managing campaigns click by click anymore. It's configuring the AI correctly, reading the signals it surfaces, knowing when it's optimizing toward the wrong objective, and overriding it before it wastes budget. This course teaches the configuration, evaluation, and strategic override skills that separate AI-native marketers from button-pushers being automated out.

30 Hours

8 Learning objectives

Evaluate Bloom's ceiling (?)

5 Competencies

What You'll Be Able To Do

Learning Objectives

Objectives

Depth

Configure a Google Performance Max campaign from scratch: asset groups, audience signals, conversion goals, budget settings, and URL expansion rules Apply
Configure a Meta Advantage+ campaign with proper audience signals, creative asset hierarchy, placement optimization, and conversion API integration Apply
Analyze campaign performance data across platforms to identify which signals indicate genuine optimization vs. algorithmic noise or attribution inflation Analyze
Evaluate budget allocation decisions across channels using incremental ROAS, marginal CPA, and diminishing returns analysis — not just platform-reported metrics Evaluate
Identify when AI-driven campaign optimization is working against your actual business objective: vanity conversions, audience overlap cannibalization, and creative fatigue the algorithm doesn't detect Evaluate
Explain how programmatic display and real-time bidding (RTB) work: DSPs, SSPs, bid mechanics, brand safety controls, and viewability standards Understand
Build cross-channel attribution reports that reconcile Google, Meta, and direct analytics data to determine true campaign contribution Create
Design a testing framework for paid media: structured creative tests, audience experiments, landing page variants, and statistical significance thresholds for decision-making Create

Levels: Remember · Understand · Apply · Analyze · Evaluate · Create — highest demands most original thinking.

Core Competencies

What You'll Master

AI-Native Campaign Configuration

Setting up Performance Max and Advantage+ campaigns with the right inputs so the algorithm optimizes toward your actual business goal, not a vanity metric.

Performance Analysis & Diagnosis

Reading campaign data critically — distinguishing real optimization signals from attribution inflation, algorithmic noise, and platform self-reporting bias.

Budget Optimization

Cross-channel budget allocation using incremental ROAS, marginal CPA analysis, and diminishing returns modeling instead of platform-reported aggregates.

Programmatic Fundamentals

Understanding DSPs, SSPs, RTB mechanics, brand safety, and viewability — the infrastructure layer beneath display advertising.

Testing & Experimentation

Structured creative testing, audience experiments, and landing page optimization with statistical rigor — not just "try it and see."

Portfolio Artifact

What You'll Build

Live Campaign Performance Report — Launch and optimize a real Performance Max or Meta Advantage+ campaign (can use small budget or sandbox). Deliver a performance analysis that includes: campaign configuration rationale, weekly optimization decisions with reasoning, cross-channel attribution reconciliation, budget allocation analysis with incremental ROAS calculations, creative performance breakdown, and a strategic recommendation for the next 30 days of spend.

Tools You'll Use

Industry Tools, Not Toy Projects

Google Ads / Performance Max

Google's AI-driven campaign type that automates bidding, targeting, and creative across Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Maps.

Meta Ads Manager / Advantage+

Meta's AI-powered campaign suite for Facebook and Instagram — audience expansion, creative optimization, and conversion API integration.

Google Analytics 4

Event-based analytics platform for tracking conversions, building audiences, and reconciling platform-reported data against ground truth.

DV360

Google's demand-side platform for programmatic display, video, and connected TV — real-time bidding at scale.

SEMrush / SpyFu

Competitive intelligence tools for analyzing competitor ad spend, keyword strategies, and creative approaches across platforms.