What would businesses do without pay-per-click or PPC marketing? The brand visibility PPC ads provide has made them one of the major services offered by even an organic SEO company. Top ranking performance in the organic search results is important, for sure, and will ultimately help your website and blog posts gain visibility, traffic and, eventually, conversions if your web pages are optimized for them. But if you need quick results, you need paid ads. According to research, people clicking on ads are 50% more likely to buy than visitors to organic search results. You really want to cache in on that popularity with PPC services.
New Trends for PPC Marketing for 2022 and the Years Ahead
PPC marketing has been around for a long time, but new trends keep emerging. So, what can we expect this year?
Unconventional Ad Formats
One of these is experimenting with new or unconventional ad formats. It is predicted that small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) could access new ad types for quite cost-effective rates. These could be video ads, connected TV and podcasts. The big advantage of using different kinds of ad formats is that businesses can target various kinds of audiences who are also in different levels of the marketing funnel. Different formats can also speed up conversion rates and attract potential audiences more than you could with conventional PPC ad formats.
Automated PPC Ads
Automated PPC ads are the next way forward. Google has been encouraging advertisers to carry out automated management of their ad campaigns since 2019 and has introduced various automated bidding strategies. This is set to become a strong trend in 2022 and the years to come. While we could see the trend this year itself, WebFX reckons we will see a growth of first-party as well as third-party automation systems in 2023, apart from just the big ad platforms out there. This would give marketers greater choice in the automation processes for their ads. The scope of automated ads is immense. With machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), PPC automation can track as well as optimize keyword bids, and also test ads.
Google’s Move to Responsive Search Ads
Google has always favored a user-friendly and interactive experience, be it in the regular search results or the paid ads. It has been frowning on Expanded Text Ads (ETAs), and from June 30, 2022, advertisers won’t be able to create ETAs or edit existing ones. Google will only be enabling Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) inside its ads network. RSAs automatically test various combinations with four descriptions and 15 headlines per ad, identifying the best performers. With Google’s user interface, RSAs have been the preferred ad type since February 2021. Existing ETAs will continue to run through and provide data to marketers.
The TikTok Bandwagon
Let’s not forget TikTok. Everyone is having fun with TikTok, and people feeling creative are finding plenty of opportunities to let their talents show forth. That has made it the social media platform that’s growing the fastest. With video ads, marketers can capture the attention of their audiences and keep them engaged. It now boasts more than 800 million active users globally, and that’s growing. TikTok has also partnered with Shopify recently to enable marketers to advertise on the latter more easily. It’s a world of opportunities at TikTok.
Video, Video and More Video
The importance of video just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Videos attract people and grab their attention a lot more than text or any other medium. Studies by WebFX claim that 90% of audiences are already influenced by videos to make purchasing decisions. There are more stats that could convince you to turn to videos as your primary PPC medium:
- Brand association grows by 139% after users watch a video.
- Users spend 88% more time on pages having videos while videos help improve conversion rates by 86%.
- 83% of marketers believe that video delivers good ROI.
- When you add videos to your landing pages, conversions improve by 80%.
- 80% of people switch between video and online search while researching products.
Editable Bumper Ads with Bumper Machine
The machine learning technology we mentioned earlier helps here too. Google offers the Bumper Machine that will create editable bumper ads with your YouTube content. We all know how important YouTube is for engaging audiences. That’s where it serves a marketing purpose too, because 90% of YouTube viewers claim to have discovered new products or brands on YouTube.
So, it’s important to create content on YouTube, from which you can get video PPC ads done with Bumper Machine.
Voice Search
Targeting voice search queries with your PPC ads is another important trend that could give you great results. Voice search is rising in popularity and sales generated via voice search alone could hit $40 billion in 2023, according to WebFX research. Brands that optimize voice search as part of their marketing strategy could increase their revenue from digital commerce by 30%. Over 50% of people who own voice-enabled speakers wish to receive promotions, sales from big brands, and deal updates. This tells you that you need to optimize your PPC ads for voice search:
- Voice search and mobile devices go hand-in-hand. Optimizing for voice search equates to optimizing for the mobile. Your website needs to be mobile-friendly so that it impresses people doing a voice search on their mobile, wanting to then visit your website. If they don’t find your website user-friendly on their mobile phones, they won’t end up converting. A bad mobile experience would probably keep them from engaging further with your business.
- Long-tail keywords need to be integrated for local searches. Local searches are really important for brick-and-mortar stores and businesses. Phrases such as “near me” added to the main search phrase have particularly increased by over 500% in local searches.
- 65% of all the voice search queries are conversational. So, you must also optimize your PPC ads for conversational search phrases that usually involve question words, such as “Where can I get free blood pressure checkup?”, “When to visit the dentist?” or “Who does the best haircut in town?”.
The ultimate trend for PPC marketing in 2022 and the years ahead is simply this – going beyond just raising awareness for your brand to build strong relationships. It is about familiarizing your audience with the brand and also making them feel good about it. Experienced digital marketing services in New York can offer innovative ads for the future.
PPC services will therefore focus on providing your audiences with the best experience they could have and helping your customers to keep benefiting from your services. Engagement is important as well, and paid search would also focus on promoting discussion among your target audience.
