2021 PPC Trends Marketers Must Not Avoid
Digital Marketing, Paid Marketing
A Brief Introduction To PPC
Digital Marketing is not only dynamic but encompasses a variety of tactics within it. Pay-Per-Click Advertising, more popularly recognized as PPC, is one of them.
PPC advertisements let users click on them and browse products that are for sale on any website. These digital advertisements are hosted on a publishing site that charges money to the advertiser for each click that directs the customer to their website.
Modern-day marketers consider PPC a mandatory inclusion in their digital marketing strategies. Despite the fact that there is no dearth of cost-effective options in marketing, a significant share of businesses readily engage their marketing budget in PPC advertisements. As soon as PPC advertisements are made active, they can start generating traffic and leads very quickly.
PPC ads are so popular amongst marketers as a study says that approximately 64 percent of customers click on Google Advertisements while browsing shopping sites. However, PPC Strategies are relatively tricky to devise. If marketers can carefully strategize their PPC campaigns, the results are instantaneous.
Given the fact that PPC is highly sought after and gives great results, it is imperative for marketers to stay up to date with PCC related trends each year. Hence, our digital strategists have compiled a list of 2021 PPC trends marketers must not avoid.
This list focuses on the major developments and shifts in the PPC vertical of digital marketing. Let us take a look at how these are going to affect marketing:
Latest PPC Trends Worth The Lookout
Increased intervention of technology:
Every PPC marketer this year is going to strategize the inclusion of technologies such as Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning in their PPC initiatives.
Though this is not something new, the scale of intervention will significantly increase. The main job of PPC marketers would be to optimize the results of PPC advertisements by integrating these technologies.
These technologies are going to help marketers save time spent in tweaking the bids. Yes, this is true! With the integration of Machine Learning technology with Google’s Smart Bidding feature, the rate of conversions can be optimized every time an auction takes place.
Making use of machine learning algorithms, marketers can righteously predict how the influence of bids on conversion rates. The best part is that this technology generates some insights based on which marketers can also adjust the auctions manually. Automated biddings also allow the opportunity to set targets as per the varying objectives of businesses.
Optimization of search bids is possible depending upon the attribution models and data related insights. Targets for device overlap can also be set for desktops, mobiles, and tablets. The Smart Bidding Features also integrates reporting tools through which marketers can analyze the performance of auctions and make adjustments if necessary.
Integration of diverse channels:
It goes without saying that every marketing strategy should be devised after keeping in mind the target audiences across diverse channels. Devising cross-channel plans to optimize PPC campaign performance will be necessary.
This year diversification will play a big role in strategies as the lines between different channels are quickly fading. The surge of relatively newer advertisements platforms such as Amazon will create a stir in the world of digital endorsements. While coming up with digital strategies, marketers should treat all the platforms as one entity. Doing so shall allow in covering all objectives for procuring the desired bottom-line results.
Overlooking the integration of channels can spell instant doom for businesses as far as conversions are concerned. We can consider the example of Google Smart Shopping to determine the importance of channel integration, developing remarketing strategies, and so much more.
Taking a cue from conventional marketing methods, marketers should ascertain how a business can grow holistically. They should then ascertain how their PPC strategies are going to fit the picture with regards to growth as well as conversion.
We have witnessed adoptions of features over social ad channels as well as platforms. However, now is the time that Paid Search and Paid Social features will require integration besides channels.
Improved Targeting of Consumers:
Throughout a consumer’s journey, brands, as well as marketers, must make it a point to reach out to their customers strategically. The time at which they interact with the customers will also have to be taken into account besides the strategy.
Marketers shall be required to come up with a judicious mix of consumable media, content, and product offerings. Content should be made intent-rich. The focus should shift from hoarding consumers with blogs, social posts, articles, videos, etc. Instead, they should be made to realize how and why a brand’s offerings can be useful for them.
Paying to reach on the top of a search engine result page will no longer be useful. If your content does not align with the intent of the consumers, you can be very conveniently disposed off. All the focus should be on educating customers and growing in a mutually beneficial way.
Google will continue giving priority to audiences. It will keep inducting audience signals on the go and continue to focus on occasional targeting of events as well.
Some of the most amazing examples that we are witnessing are the Microsoft Audience Network where the shopping campaigns have been fully automated. Audience targeting will continue to remain the most important focus of PPC campaigns along with the evolution of keywords.
Increased use of Videos Ads:
The fact that videos convey the message better than written content, cannot be contested. In fact, people consume more video-based content than blogs or articles.
While looking for reviews of gadgets, products, and services, viewers are more likely to refer to videos instead of any other form of content. Hence, it can be easily assumed that videos are the most pragmatic way to create awareness about brands and their offerings.
Also, video marketing strategy is going to skyrocket in the coming few years. In fact, studies also suggest that millennials are likely to refer to videos twice the number of times instead of reading. Brand can use YouTube advertisements to strategically endorse their products and services in front of an extremely targeted audience.
Hence, videos will be a very important PPC trend for the year 2021.
Aiming at platforms other than Google and Facebook:
Platforms other than Google and Facebook are rising in popularity. Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, etc. are already a hit with millennials, and a considerable share of people belonging to other age-groups are quickly catching up. They have also had a major impact on the growth of revenue for businesses.
Hence their inclusion in all marketing strategies cannot be overlooked. It is only likely that brands will shift their marketing initiatives to these platforms.
However, just blindly hoarding these platforms shall not do. Marketers should carefully ascertain which platform is their target audience most likely to use and spend time. Once they figure this out, they should launch a small budget campaign to test how they are performing. Based on the insight gathered through them, they can keep on tweaking their strategies.
Drawing focus to our point number two in this blog, budgets would be spread across diverse channels and media. The nature of the budget distribution will be fluid depending on the outcomes of the platforms.
E-commerce brands should shift their attention towards Instagram checkouts that allow users to purchase products that are featured by brands without having to exit the platform. Instagram currently allows users to access this feature only on organic posts. However, it is likely to be integrated with advertisements within the near future. Such strategies should be mapped ahead of time and marketers should implement them as soon as they see opportunities of implementation that would yield results.
Highly consumer-centric Landing Pages:
Customer success and relationship management are the most crucial aspects of the digital world that are fuelled by subscriptions that dwell on inbound marketing strategies for knowledge disseminations amongst consumers.
Search queries are not likely to see any dramatic increase unless a ground-breaking transformation takes place. In view thereof, it is pragmatic to optimize the landing pages to reap the expected outcomes from PPC campaigns.
Jeff Allen, President at Hanpan Marketing says “ The SERPs will continue to rise until we reach a saturation point, a point that the next click is no longer profitable.”
Google Ads have become dynamic as people have started to progress beyond a handful platforms for carrying out research about products and services. Hence, marketers should consider including landing pages that are consumer-centric. They should be made specific to the queries and the needs of the consumers. Creating consumer-centric landing pages will allow easier conversion of the customers as they will get the exact information that they came looking for on the platform.
It is not a hidden fact that Google Ads take relevance into serious consideration. Hence the higher the relevance of a landing page, the lesser price will have to be paid by the advertiser for each click.
Shifting focus beyond brand recognition:
Marketers will step up their initiatives several notches when it comes to brand marketing. Besides just creating awareness, they will also attempt to influence the customer’s perspective about their brands. This implies that the customer’s experience and response towards a particular brand will be controlled.
It will be imperative for a brand to carve an identity and instead create a rapport with their audience. Hence, brand marketing is also likely to make a big return this year.
Building reliability and authority will continue to be important for brands. Also, it will be wise to avoid endorsing any sort of extremist content on their platforms. The constant monitoring of automated ads will become increasingly important to avoid any goof ups.
Conclusion
So, from high utilization of intelligent technologies, to shifting focus to diverse channels while devising strategies, and focusing on targeted audiences, PPC trends are geared for some major and a few not so major changes this year. The above mentioned shifts are likely taking place as we are writing these blogs.
Like any other digital marketing vertical, marketers should keep themselves updated with the PPC trends for gaining successful outcomes. PPC ads are very useful when it comes to comprehending the intent of consumers. This is one of the other reasons why marketers should verse themselves of the PPC trends from time – to – time.
So, these were a few insights from our specialists about the changing trends of PPC this year. Do let us know how they are going to change the digital economy this year. Also, share this content with peers and colleagues if you find these insights useful.
