Andy Black
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Thought I'd create a thread to document my learnings, what I've tried, and the results. Feel free to follow-along and drop your stories too.
I'm reasonably geeky with a background in data but have no interest in becoming a data or AI scientist or understanding HOW all this stuff works any more than I need to use it.
Like most of us, I had a play with ChatGPT when it came out and was as gobsmacked as everyone else. Cue getting it to write stories of my sons rescuing a dog and foiling bank robbers and us all watching in amazement as the stories unfolded before our eyes.
"That's nice", I said.
Then I got bored with the ChatGPT buzz and went back to work.
Sure, when a new client gives me zipcodes they serve I ask ChatGPT to give me a table showing all the zipcodes and the names of each location so I can put those names into the ads. I use that table as my input into my own Google Sheets to create Google Ads campaigns. That saved me a lot of time copy/pasting from Wikepedia and mucking about in Google Sheets.
Till two weeks ago when I spent a couple of evenings getting ChatGPT to write some Google Ads Scripts for me. I can script, but not in Javascript. The fact that I could guide it with a series of prompts and it created code in front of my eyes was astonishing. Those scripts are in production and automated daily to download client data into Google Sheets which then automagically updates the dashboards I've setup for each client.
Wait, what?!? This is freaking a-m-a-z-i-n-g!
It's got me looking at what else ChatGPT can do.
I pointed it at a client landing page we're building and asked it to list the services and search terms from the page, and to do the same for 3 competitor sites, and present it in a simple table showing which site provided the service and which didn't.
It took under 5 minutes to create this (I'll list the simple series of prompts below):
Now, when onboarding a new client, or doing quick research before a call with a prospect, I point ChatGPT at their site and ask it to list in a table all the pages, the H1 tag, what the page is about, and what likely search terms would be. I then ask it for competitors and ask it to do the same and present in a table. That's pretty compelling information to show someone, and to help me jumpstart any campaigns I create.
Yesterday I dumped out search terms from a campaign and asked ChatGPT to list all the search terms that do NOT contain a streetname or house number so I can add them as negative keywords to the campaign (we're running ads for 400+ properties over €1m in Dublin and don't want to show for fop-of-funnel searches such as "houses for sale dublin"). ChatGPT processed 600+ search terms in under a minute and I loaded 300+ negative keywords into the campaign.
I've also posted content from my LinkedIn profile and told it some more information about what I do and phrases that resonate with business owners when I talk to them. ChatGPT was ok at chatting back to me and giving suggestions. Google Gemini actually surprised me with its feedback and how it chatted back. I told it I build and run long-tail paid search campaigns to find out with a limited budget what people are searching for etc, and it replied with "That's interesting. Most people don't use Google Ads that way. In that case I suggest you do <lots of suggestions>."
It's like having a coder in my team who takes my English language instructions and knocks up code super fast, a VA who'll go and check loads of websites and collate information for me the CEO, and having an amazing sounding board for my ideas and brainwaves.
I'm now looking at creating custom GPTs to take on personas and follow guardrails to help me with various tasks in my business that I've wanted to get done but didn't have the will to train someone up to do.
We got a puppy 3 months ago and I'm up pretty early every morning letting her out to do her business. The last couple of weeks I've then sat with a cup of tea in hand watching any number of YouTube videos trying to get up to speed on AI, what it can do for me and my business, and all while trying to avoid the hype.
I'll brain-dump as I go...
.
.
.
PS: Here's the series of simple ChatGPT prompts that created that table. I'm using the paid version and ChatGPT-4o if that makes a difference.
My first prompt was:
"Please review all pages on this site and summarise what they do and what search terms on Google they would want to appear for: <URL>"
Then I asked it for each of the other 3 sites:
"What about this site: <URL>"
(Repeat for each site.)
I then asked this:
"I'd like you to list all the services each business provides, and list the search terms you think people use to find those services. Please list in a table with columns like this: Service | Search Terms | Businesses That Do This (out of the list)"
And then this:
"Actually, could there be 4 columns, one for each business, and enter a Y or leave blank depending on whether they offer that service."
(Notice how polite I am talking to our future bosses.)
I'm reasonably geeky with a background in data but have no interest in becoming a data or AI scientist or understanding HOW all this stuff works any more than I need to use it.
Like most of us, I had a play with ChatGPT when it came out and was as gobsmacked as everyone else. Cue getting it to write stories of my sons rescuing a dog and foiling bank robbers and us all watching in amazement as the stories unfolded before our eyes.
"That's nice", I said.
Then I got bored with the ChatGPT buzz and went back to work.
Sure, when a new client gives me zipcodes they serve I ask ChatGPT to give me a table showing all the zipcodes and the names of each location so I can put those names into the ads. I use that table as my input into my own Google Sheets to create Google Ads campaigns. That saved me a lot of time copy/pasting from Wikepedia and mucking about in Google Sheets.
Till two weeks ago when I spent a couple of evenings getting ChatGPT to write some Google Ads Scripts for me. I can script, but not in Javascript. The fact that I could guide it with a series of prompts and it created code in front of my eyes was astonishing. Those scripts are in production and automated daily to download client data into Google Sheets which then automagically updates the dashboards I've setup for each client.
Wait, what?!? This is freaking a-m-a-z-i-n-g!
It's got me looking at what else ChatGPT can do.
I pointed it at a client landing page we're building and asked it to list the services and search terms from the page, and to do the same for 3 competitor sites, and present it in a simple table showing which site provided the service and which didn't.
It took under 5 minutes to create this (I'll list the simple series of prompts below):
Now, when onboarding a new client, or doing quick research before a call with a prospect, I point ChatGPT at their site and ask it to list in a table all the pages, the H1 tag, what the page is about, and what likely search terms would be. I then ask it for competitors and ask it to do the same and present in a table. That's pretty compelling information to show someone, and to help me jumpstart any campaigns I create.
Yesterday I dumped out search terms from a campaign and asked ChatGPT to list all the search terms that do NOT contain a streetname or house number so I can add them as negative keywords to the campaign (we're running ads for 400+ properties over €1m in Dublin and don't want to show for fop-of-funnel searches such as "houses for sale dublin"). ChatGPT processed 600+ search terms in under a minute and I loaded 300+ negative keywords into the campaign.
I've also posted content from my LinkedIn profile and told it some more information about what I do and phrases that resonate with business owners when I talk to them. ChatGPT was ok at chatting back to me and giving suggestions. Google Gemini actually surprised me with its feedback and how it chatted back. I told it I build and run long-tail paid search campaigns to find out with a limited budget what people are searching for etc, and it replied with "That's interesting. Most people don't use Google Ads that way. In that case I suggest you do <lots of suggestions>."
It's like having a coder in my team who takes my English language instructions and knocks up code super fast, a VA who'll go and check loads of websites and collate information for me the CEO, and having an amazing sounding board for my ideas and brainwaves.
I'm now looking at creating custom GPTs to take on personas and follow guardrails to help me with various tasks in my business that I've wanted to get done but didn't have the will to train someone up to do.
We got a puppy 3 months ago and I'm up pretty early every morning letting her out to do her business. The last couple of weeks I've then sat with a cup of tea in hand watching any number of YouTube videos trying to get up to speed on AI, what it can do for me and my business, and all while trying to avoid the hype.
I'll brain-dump as I go...
.
.
.
PS: Here's the series of simple ChatGPT prompts that created that table. I'm using the paid version and ChatGPT-4o if that makes a difference.
My first prompt was:
"Please review all pages on this site and summarise what they do and what search terms on Google they would want to appear for: <URL>"
Then I asked it for each of the other 3 sites:
"What about this site: <URL>"
(Repeat for each site.)
I then asked this:
"I'd like you to list all the services each business provides, and list the search terms you think people use to find those services. Please list in a table with columns like this: Service | Search Terms | Businesses That Do This (out of the list)"
And then this:
"Actually, could there be 4 columns, one for each business, and enter a Y or leave blank depending on whether they offer that service."
(Notice how polite I am talking to our future bosses.)
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