Pay-per-click marketing continues down the same road even this 2023. Even so, there are some unexpected twists and turns every year as new PPC trends crop up and innovate ways to grow a business.
So, to help you do that, we put together a list of important PPC trends to watch. With that said, it is safe to say there will be more future PPC innovations down the line.
Table of Contents
What is PPC?
It is a digital advertising model in which the marketer pays a certain fee whenever a web user clicks on one of their ads. Consider cost-per-click (CPC) marketing as an upfront investment that can yield the desired results.
But keep in mind, PPC ads come in all shapes and sizes and different combinations of content formats. Consequently, new paid media trends continue to aid the high volume of PPC marketers and improve the overall process.
What are the three Rs of PPC?
What exactly should you always consider when creating your marketing strategy for PPC campaigns? The three Rs of PPC can serve as a guide:
- Reach — How will your ads reach the intended destination?
- Relevance — How to craft ads that connect with the right audience?
- Response — What are the goals, metrics, and return on investment (ROI) of the ads?
What is an example of PPC?
It is mainly offered on big online platforms such as search engines and social networking websites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to name a few. In fact, the examples mentioned have their own CPC system.
What is the most used PPC system today?
Today, the most popular PPC advertising system is still the Google Ads platform. It is still widely used among businesses and marketers worldwide, even as ad systems on other web platforms improve.
In fact, 80% of businesses worldwide use Google Ads for their PPC campaigns. This makes sense, considering they deliver an 8:1 ROI. Wherein 63% of web users have clicked on a Google ad, and 65% of those people actually made a purchase in the last year alone.
14 New PPC Trends of 2023
Consequently, stiff competition from other marketers and businesses is expected. So, to help you improve your campaign, here are the big PPC trends that you should keep an eye on.
Voice Search
Personal assistants like Siri and Alexa have increasingly become more widely used since the feature was first launched. Consequently, paid voice search is one of the PPC trends that are still on the rise or even has become a mainstream practice.
However, it is still best to keep a pulse on the latest PPC news since technological innovations and advertising might change this anytime soon.
Visual Search
In just a few short years, search engines have grown from text-based queries to visual-based searches. An example is Google Lens, in which a web user simply takes a picture or uploads an image to prompt their query.
For marketers, this underlines the need to pay close attention to the visual content of their website. Specifically, creating an organised catalogue of products and services complete with the proper alt text and other relevant metadata.
PPC Automation
Pay-per-click automation is an efficient and effective way to improve any marketing performance. Consequently, to better serve businesses and marketers, companies like Google invest a lot of their resources to further innovate their PPC systems.
However, even with the convenience provided by automation, it is not encouraged to be hands-free either. It is best to strike a balance to make the algorithms work to the business’ benefit while freeing up time.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (A.I.) has consistently proven that it can greatly aid in a lot of business processes. For PPC, it can provide better insights for better click-through rates (CTRs). These keywords can yield more traffic and get an accurate analysis of the likelihood of converting a web visitor into a paying customer.
Smart Bidding
Smart bidding is one of the time-saving ecommerce PPC trends. It is essentially an automated bidding system controlled by machine learning algorithms. Just like A.I., it can aid in optimising conversions.
Now, smart bidding is evolving to become an even more powerful tool for businesses. This essentially makes manual bidding a thing of the past, which frees up marketers to have a laser-like focus on CPC analytics and marketing strategies.
Social Media
This is one of the PPC trends for small businesses to get started on immediately. A business is essentially missing out if they do not since more than billions of active users worldwide are on social media platforms. With that said, while Google and Facebook are still the core of most CPC campaigns, it is worth expanding into a multi-platform PPC campaign to reach more people.
Audience Targeting
Marketing campaigns need to be exposed to their intended audience to be considered a success—more so for CPC. With that said, one of the PPC trends for this year is the actual focus from keywords to the audience. Specifically, the latest updates for Google Ads enable businesses to combine keyword and demographic targeting.
Collaborative Filtering
Collaborative filtering is one of the interesting PPC trends of this year. Essentially, it is a system that groups web users based on demographics, interests, and more. For a user, this is expressed by seeing new content based on a recent search. For a marketer, this can aid in audience targeting and also increase ad exposure.
SEO & PPC Integration
Search engine optimization and PPC are intrinsically connected. It makes sense to integrate both PPC and SEO campaigns to get better results. A way to do this is by using long-tail keywords to do two things: Boost a website’s SERP ranking and apply it to a CPC strategy.
Smart Segmentation And Google AdMob
This is one of the PPC trends for small businesses and startups involved in the mobile gaming industry. It is a combination that enables gaming companies to still generate income even with non-paying players.
Smart segmentation uses machine learning algorithms to group app users and Google AdMob matches high-quality in-game ads based on these segments.
Responsive Search Ads
As of last year, expanded text ads (ETAs) will no longer be available. However, existing ETAs are still able to perform and send reports, and can be paused anytime.
In place of this, marketers are turning to responsive search ads. It has a feature to enable ads to show more text. Furthermore, Google automatically tests different combinations of headlines and descriptions to determine the combos that can yield better results.
First-Party Data
In recent years, the focus on data privacy and protection has become more heightened. It is one of the PPC trends that has sparked animated discussion worldwide. For companies, it is time to invest in collecting data directly from customers.
Benchmarks
The success of a marketing campaign cannot be simply quantified by the number of immediate sales. Number-based benchmarks will not fit for campaigns that are more geared toward increasing brand awareness and creating a brand community. However, over time, campaigns like these can potentially yield more conversions and repeat purchases.
Click Fraud Detection
Click fraud is a type of ad fraud in which a business or web operator imitates legitimate web users to click on an ad to generate a charge per click. This is an ongoing issue that many marketers and brands are still wary of.
Recent innovations have enabled companies to develop ad fraud calculators. With that said, it is encouraged marketers to diligently monitor logs and budget, and use click-tracking software to help avoid this.
PPC Tools To Try Out
There are so many important PPC trends to watch out for this year. So to make things easier, here are a couple of PPC tools you can use to help you out.
If you need reliable keyword research tools:
- Ahrefs Keyword Generator Tool
- Answer The Public
- Keyword Tool.Io
For PPC tools used for analysis and management:
- Anonymous Ad Preview Tool
- Microsoft Advertising Editor
- Hubspot’s PPC Management Template
Here are a couple more PPC tools that are provided by Google:
- Google Keyword Planner
- Good Trends
- Google Search Console
Why should you outsource your PPC?
Just relying on tools alone might not be enough. Sometimes you need more help, like a third-party team.
If you are not outsourcing yet, here are PPC benefits that you might want to consider:
- Outsourcing your PPC can help you save time and money.
- You get a better experience since you are working with PPC specialists.
- Your outsourced team already have the tools and the resources to execute your PPC campaigns
- There is no learning curve needed since your outsourced PPC specialist is a seasoned professional.
- Consequently, you can get fast and reliable results.
Important PPC Trends To Watch Out For This Year
There are a lot of new PPC trends and not-so-new but still reliable trends to integrate into your marketing campaign. With that said, there are a few PPC news that can potentially impact the way you plan and execute your campaigns altogether.
For instance, the slowing global economy. It is hopeful that, collectively, businesses around the world are steadily recovering. However, there are still factors that are impeding this process, such as mass layoffs, economic recessions, and even the possibility of another mass spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Consequently, this economic slowdown will affect marketing campaigns. Specifically, marketing budgets are tightening and there is a heightened focus on streamlining processes to increase efficiency.
Another thing to consider is the ongoing issues such as data privacy. New privacy laws and amendments are stringent and severe to ensure the people’s basic right to privacy. While some countries have yet to implement these, the best course of action for businesses and marketers is to switch to first-party data collection.
With that said, this year’s PPC trends highlight innovations in marketing, such as automated PPC tools and artificial intelligence. Automation and autonomous systems will become more powerful and smarter over the years. As a result, marketers can have better insight and effectively manage future PPC campaigns.
Want to learn more about PPC Marketing? Get in touch with us today and consult with our specialists!
