Tag Archive for: google ads

The Importance Of Remarketing Audiences In Google Ads

, ,
retargeting Google Ads

Remarketing has consistently proven to be an effective way of driving conversions and closing potential customers. In fact, according to ABTasty.com, retargetting ads typically have 10x higher click through rate than your average Display ads, and the visitors that come to your website via those ads are 70% more likely to convert.

What is remarketing?

Remarketing in Google Ads is made up of a variety of Search and Display ads across the Google Ads Network. The main difference is the targeting of the ads. Your ads are being seen by people who may have already visited your website, engaged with your ads or taken some other valuable action. Therefore, they are more inclined to respond favorably to your ads.

If your business is eCommerce, or if you are trying to generate leads through your site, remarketing is a useful and efficient strategy to help you convert those hard-earned visitors.

remarketing audiences google ads

Why remarketing is important?

As an increasing amount of digital marketers have turned to remarketing, Google has subsequently improved and fine tuned its offering and remarketing capabilities. These changes have meant remarketing generating a large click share. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) and customer lists now play a huge part in paid search strategies and have proven very effective also.

These types of engaged audiences are high-value, given that their past interactions with the brand, increase the likelihood of a conversion at a later date. Audiences are not necessarily a one-size-fits-all, and some conversions may happen regardless of whether or not there is a paid search ad served to specific customers.

What do you need to do?

As with all things digital, it is crucial that you test. Results will vary by advertiser, but testing should be done in order to measure the incremental value of these audiences for your business.

This testing can be done by adding in variables such as ad copy, landing pages, bid modifiers, or even shutting ads off completely to specific audiences to gauge the traffic and conversion losses. This can, however, be a risky strategy, so we would only encourage you to do this, if you are in a comfortable position in relation to your targets, Return On Investment and any other KPIs you may have set for your business.

Also, measure audience performance against the brand’s KPIs to see if they align, or are significantly higher or lower.

Pay attention to your funnel

Don’t forget, the point at which the visitor has dropped off tells you whether they are cool, warm or hot in terms of lead rating. This means that you may want to vary your ads depending on your visitor’s actions. For example, if a customer has simply viewed a product (in this case, a red jumper) on your site, you might retarget them with a Display ad that shows the same jumper and perhaps other similar products. However, if somebody has Added To Cart and then left the site, you may retarget them with a message along the lines of “look what you’ve left behind”, or create a sense of urgency by putting a time limit on the price.

It is important to segment your remarketing audience for this reason. Personalising the customer touch points where possible will help your remarketing efforts and ultimately, will lead to a higher conversion rate.

In conclusion, remarketing audiences should play a huge part in your PPC strategy. Remember, you have done the hard part by getting them to your site in the first place, so remarketing to those visitors and closing those sales is an efficient way to drive your revenue. List creation, targeting and personalisation based on what stage of the funnel your visitor has reached, are all incredibly effective ways to improve your overall Return On Investment, so don’t delay. Start incorporating remarketing into your PPC strategy as soon as possible.

If you would like to talk to us on how to effectively set up or even improve your remarketing efforts, contact our PPC experts here at WebResults today.

What Have We Learned in Digital Marketing In 2020 & What Will Be Important In 2021?

,
Digital Marketing 2021

After a year of complete upheaval both in the business world and our personal lives, changes in consumer behaviors, businesses and their associated digital marketing strategies will have a lasting impact. Not only has the messaging changed but also product and services and how they are delivered.

So what is important in Digital Marketing for 2021?

2021 will see even more migration to digital platforms, including e-commerce, chatbots, email, apps, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, omnichannel marketing and augmented and virtual reality. Any technologies which create a more seamless customer experience are of prime focus.

Omnichannel marketing is key, as people are engaging with your brand, now with screens from home for both consumers and working professionals. Marketing Communications and how this information is accessed has dramatically increased the importance of digital channels as part of the customer journey. E.g. Purchase rate of omnichannel campaigns is 287% higher than single-channel campaigns. Reactivation campaigns recovered 2.13% of otherwise churned customers, which not only recovers them in the moment, but potentially for the future as well. (Omnisend 2020).

 

Artificial Intelligence, SEO & Social

Artificial intelligence (AI) is really changing how people interact with online content which will continue to impact social media marketing and SEO performance. Algorithms will rely even more on interaction, engagement and video. Content is ranked based on algorithms inspecting content quality, and user interest so location history, browsing history, app usage, calendars, search history, and home and work locations are all relevant. AI has never been as influential in Digital Marketing as it is now, so it will pay dividends to understand the capabilities of these tools in 2021.


Mobile Responsiveness

Make sure that the mobile page content quality is as good as the desktop page, and this is for everything you do on the web. Build your sites for mobile, and worry about the desktop version as a second priority. Most traffic will come to your site through mobile devices, so make sure those visitors have a great user experience on the site.

Video


Online video continues to be a really important format for all digital activity. With over 1 billion users on YouTube and video projected to surpass all other content forms in terms of consumption, you need to include video as a key part of your Digital Strategy.
Optimise your video channel name and description using a user-friendly overview of what your channel is about.

Virtual events have seen significant growth and are here to stay as an impactful way of connecting with your key target personas and delivering your marketing message. Traditional events like trade shows and conferences will struggle and adapt.

 

Use your analytics to understand how your digital marketing strategy is performing

 

 


Which challenges are driving high quality traffic? Which specific activities are delivering conversions? Which content formats are getting more engagement? Which content is increasing shares of your website pages? From an SEO perspective on your website, what URLs are being crawled? What websites are referring quality traffic? How long are your pages taking to load? Are all pages being indexed? Are users engaging and staying on your pages or bouncing? Consider all these types of information in order to monitor you’re your performance.

The focus continues to be around building quality content that will engage your target personas naturally, based on their issues, motivations and where they are in the purchase process. In 2021, the same applies with more sophisticated formats, tracking and ways of drawing relevant insights.

From our years of experience working with clients on Digital Marketing activities, we have helped businesses overcome challenges of all types. Obviously the digital activities you focus on will depend on your key business objectives. A focused strategy with a robust, but creative messaging will help you build the right profile with the right personas.

Our focus is on making your Digital Marketing drive the right conversions for your business and driving ROI.

If you would like to improve your Digital performance, backed with a results driven content strategy, consider our Digital Mentor Programme. We have worked with many businesses over several years to implement an effective long term Digital Marketing Strategy to drive the results they want

Download our Digital Marketing Strategy ebook and get access to our proven 5 step process that delivers results every time

Digital Strategy Article Template

Digital Marketing 2021

After a year of complete upheaval both in the business world and our personal lives, changes in consumer behaviors, businesses and their associated digital marketing strategies will have a lasting impact. Not only has the messaging changed but also product and services and how they are delivered.

So what is important in Digital Marketing for 2021?

2021 will see even more migration to digital platforms, including e-commerce, chatbots, email, apps, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, omnichannel marketing and augmented and virtual reality. Any technologies which create a more seamless customer experience are of prime focus.

Omnichannel marketing is key, as people are engaging with your brand, now with screens from home for both consumers and working professionals. Marketing Communications and how this information is accessed has dramatically increased the importance of digital channels as part of the customer journey. E.g. Purchase rate of omnichannel campaigns is 287% higher than single-channel campaigns. Reactivation campaigns recovered 2.13% of otherwise churned customers, which not only recovers them in the moment, but potentially for the future as well. (Omnisend 2020).

 

Artificial Intelligence, SEO & Social

Artificial intelligence (AI) is really changing how people interact with online content which will continue to impact social media marketing and SEO performance. Algorithms will rely even more on interaction, engagement and video. Content is ranked based on algorithms inspecting content quality, and user interest so location history, browsing history, app usage, calendars, search history, and home and work locations are all relevant. AI has never been as influential in Digital Marketing as it is now, so it will pay dividends to understand the capabilities of these tools in 2021.


Mobile Responsiveness

Make sure that the mobile page content quality is as good as the desktop page, and this is for everything you do on the web. Build your sites for mobile, and worry about the desktop version as a second priority. Most traffic will come to your site through mobile devices, so make sure those visitors have a great user experience on the site.

Video


Online video continues to be a really important format for all digital activity. With over 1 billion users on YouTube and video projected to surpass all other content forms in terms of consumption, you need to include video as a key part of your Digital Strategy.
Optimise your video channel name and description using a user-friendly overview of what your channel is about.

Virtual events have seen significant growth and are here to stay as an impactful way of connecting with your key target personas and delivering your marketing message. Traditional events like trade shows and conferences will struggle and adapt.

 

Use your analytics to understand how your digital marketing strategy is performing

 

 


Which challenges are driving high quality traffic? Which specific activities are delivering conversions? Which content formats are getting more engagement? Which content is increasing shares of your website pages? From an SEO perspective on your website, what URLs are being crawled? What websites are referring quality traffic? How long are your pages taking to load? Are all pages being indexed? Are users engaging and staying on your pages or bouncing? Consider all these types of information in order to monitor you’re your performance.

The focus continues to be around building quality content that will engage your target personas naturally, based on their issues, motivations and where they are in the purchase process. In 2021, the same applies with more sophisticated formats, tracking and ways of drawing relevant insights.

From our years of experience working with clients on Digital Marketing activities, we have helped businesses overcome challenges of all types. Obviously the digital activities you focus on will depend on your key business objectives. A focused strategy with a robust, but creative messaging will help you build the right profile with the right personas.

Our focus is on making your Digital Marketing drive the right conversions for your business and driving ROI.

If you would like to improve your Digital performance, backed with a results driven content strategy, consider our Digital Mentor Programme. We have worked with many businesses over several years to implement an effective long term Digital Marketing Strategy to drive the results they want

Download our Digital Marketing Strategy ebook and get access to our proven 5 step process that delivers results every time

Improve Your Google Ads Visitor Quality

,
improve visitor quality google ads

Google Ads, if set up correctly and aligned with your business objectives, can have a huge impact in terms of driving revenue for your business.

The key to success with Google Ads is to ensure you are getting the right kind of visitor/potential customer onto your website. To achieve this involves  research, careful planning and knowledge of Google Ads functionality and your target demographic. The foundation of a successful Google Ads is setting up the right structure in terms of Campaigns and AdGroups. The biggest mistake you can make is launching into setting up campaigns without thoroughly considering your objectives, your audience and your strategy.

The following six key points will help you improve the quality of clicks and visitors you’re getting via your Google Ads.

Identify the relevant search terms for your business and use suitable match types

Think of search terms that are most relevant to your business and industry. Consider how your potential customers are searching for your product.

Keywords and match types are key to ensuring you are bringing the right audience to your website and spending your budget efficiently. The natural impulse is to use keywords that bring in the highest number of clicks. However, with Google Ads, it’s about quality and not quantity.

Then test each keyword by asking yourself if it could be related to an unrelated business. If it could, then try and quality it more so that its only bringing in relevant clicks for your business.

If you are selling running shoes online, rather than just targeting ‘running shoes’, you may target exact keyword phrases terms like ‘buy running shoes online’. Or for a local business, it may be worth creating a separate campaign for “Near Me” searchers e.g. If you offer locksmith services you might benefit from using terms like; ‘locksmiths near me’, ‘locksmiths nearby’, ‘closest locksmiths’ and ‘local locksmiths’. 

Advertisers are not always clear on the impact of keyword match types. Google Ads allows you to designate each keyword/key phrase as broad match, broad match with modifier, phrase match, and exact match. Broad match will always bring in the highest number of clicks because it gives license to Google to interpret your keywords in many different search queries. Exact match is the opposite. It ensures that Google only shows an ad if an exact key phrase is queried.

Maximising your Google Ads campaigns relies on striking the right balance between match types, relying mostly on phrase and exact matches with a sprinkling of broad modified match terms. Be clear on the possible outcome of using each of the different match types and the impact they have in relation to displaying your ads. See examples of match types below:

Set out the structure of your campaigns

When setting up your campaigns and ad groups initially, take the time to break out your ad groups in detail. There are numerous different strategies you can use.

When you choose a strategy, understand the “why” behind it and monitor it closely, particularly during the initial “learning” stages.

One such strategy example you can use is SKAGS (Single Keyword AdGroups). With SKAGS, each search term you are targeting goes into its own ad group with different match types, e.g. modified broad match, exact match and phrase match (you wouldn’t generally use ‘broad match’ here).

SKAGS allow you to deliver relevant ads to those who are searching for your product or service, through the search terms you are targeting, resulting in lower cost per click and higher click through rates and thus improved visitor quality, all of which impact your advertising costs and results.

Constantly manage your negative keywords

Negative Keywords Visitor Quality

Each time you go into your Google Ads account, check out the search queries that generate clicks. If the clicks are not relevant, it means you are getting the wrong type of visitor to your website, and paying for the privilege of it. It’s important to:

  1. Identify why these irrelevant clicks came in. Do you need to modify your keyword match types to avoid further irrelevant clicks? Or do the additional impressions you get outweigh the negative clicks. E.g. will changing the match type of the term that allows these negatives in, block other clicks that are relevant?
  2. Add the term as a negative in all match types that are relevant. Yes, you say this is an obvious step. However, many businesses are not aware of the importance of adding the relevant match types as negatives. Match types don’t behave exactly the same as negatives, as they do as part of the search campaigns.

Each match type has a purpose, so be sure to use the match types that achieve what is relevant for your ad group or campaign, or both.

Broad Match Negatives: If you add a negative term as a broad match, it will block out where someone uses both of the terms together. However, negative broad match will not block out ads where someone searches for only one of the terms on its own. e.g. adding ‘Google Ads Agency’ as a negative will prevent searches for “Google Ads” and “Agency” used in the same search term, but it will not prevent clicks for searches where only one word is used with a different work e.g. ‘DIY Google Ads’ or ‘Property Agency’.

Phrase Match Negatives: Exclude your ad for searches that include the exact keyword phrase. If a search includes additional words, the ad won’t show as long as the keywords are included in the search in the same order. If someone searches for only one of the terms in your selected phrase, your ad will still appear. For example, if your negative is “AdWords Agency” and a user searches for DIY AdWords, your ad will still appear. This also means that if additional words are used in the search query, such as ‘AdWords Services Agency’, your ad will still appear as ‘AdWords’ and ‘Agency’ are not next to each other in the search query.

Exact Match Negatives: This adds the exact terms, without extra words. Your ad may still show for searches that include the keyword phrase with additional words. When using exact match negatives, it will only block that exact term. So adding [Google Ads Agency] as a negative does not block ‘Google Ads Agency Ireland’ or ‘Google Ads Agencies’. Close variants (any misspelling, singular or plural form, acronym, stemmings, abbreviations of the keyword) do not apply for negative keywords.

Maximise use of Bid Adjustments to customise to your audiences

Google Ads bid adjustments use manually set percentage changes, in order to increase or decrease the weight of your maximum cost per click bid amounts. The result is more control over when, where and to whom your ads are shown to. and better targeting of segments based on their likelihood of converting. With Bid Adjustment, you get greater flexibility, within the same campaign. Previously, in order to achieve this, you would have to set up individual ad groups for each segment. For example, if you know that people who live in Dublin are more likely to convert than those living in Cork, you can set negative bid adjustments for the Cork in relevant campaigns. This means that Cork will get impressions/clicks at a certain (lower in this case) bid level, thus prioritising impressions/clicks for Dublin and improving your overall visitor quality.

Use All Ad Extensions Available

google ads extensions

Ad extensions are a very powerful way of delivering a personalised ad to each user. These customised ads often deliver higher click-through rates, improve quality score and simply make your ad more prominent on search results. Use every Ad Extension available and relevant to your campaign.

It’s important to customise at ad group level, where it makes sense to do so. Rather than setting up a few top level extensions, make them specific to your ad groups and you will find they will perform far better. From text message extensions, which allow Google searchers to send you a text, to structured snippets to app downloads, there are now a great range of options to use to promote the important aspects of your business to highly targeted potential customers, and offer them a range of ways to get in touch with you, depending on what suits them (and you) best. 

Utilise Your Remarketing

Remarketing is a PPC strategy that targets people who have already visited your website and/or bought from your website. By it’s very nature, it is guaranteed to bring good quality visitors to your website through Google Ads.

In Google Ads, there are four types of remarketing. Standard Remarketing shows your static image ads to people who’ve previously visited your website via the display network. Dynamic Remarketing shows dynamic image ads for specific products and services that a visitor has previously looked at. For example, if you’re looking at a stainless steel crockpot on Amazon, Jeff Bezos can use dynamic remarketing to create an ad using the exact same model on a display ad on your favourite blog. To use dynamic remarketing you must also have a Google Merchant Centre account. Remarketing lists for Search Ads (RLSA) re-targets people who’ve visited your site and the subsequently search for a relevant term. You might target people who have already visited your website, for search terms that are more generic or broad, as you know they are relevant targets.

An outline of your typical re-marketing campaign.

Video Remarketing re-targets people who have watched your YouTube videos. You can also use YouTube ads to remarket to people who visited your site.

While businesses managing their own campaigns are familiar with the areas discussed, often Ads management isn’t an ongoing priority, resulting in campaigns not being structured to meet business objectives and poor quality visitors, thus leading to a poor Return On Investment. Functionality is often applied without understanding how best to use it for the campaigns in question.

As Google Ads becomes more automated, agencies will show their true value by ensuring business objectives are being addressed through campaign set up, structure and ongoing management and through strong communication with businesses on their markets and business objectives. If you are currently managing your own campaigns and would like a Google Ads audie to see how you are doing, please get in touch with us at WebResults.

Google Introduces Country-Specific Fees

, , , , ,
Google Country Specific Fees

Last week, Google announced that it is introducing extra charges, also known as country-specific fees, for advertisers in the UK, Turkey and Austria. These charges are effective from the 1st of November 2020.

But why? And what does this mean for advertisers in these countries? We’ve delved into it for you, so read on and learn what these fees could mean for your business or your clients.

How much are the country-specific fees?

Google has said it will introduce the following:

• Ads served in Turkey: a 5% Regulatory Operating Cost added to your invoice or statement
• Ads served in Austria: a 5% Austria Digital Services Tax Fee added to your invoice or statement
• Ads served in the United Kingdom: a 2% UK Digital Services Tax Fee added to your invoice or statement

Why are these being introduced?

In Turkey, the Government have introduced tighter controls around data processing, permission and international data transfers since 2016, similar to the EU’s GDPR ruling. However, since 2016, these regulations have become increasingly difficult to comply with, and as a result, Google has announced it will be opening a Turkish office.

In the UK and Austria, the introduction of the Digital Services Tax means that advertisers will be charged an extra 2% and 5% respectively on their invoices.

The UK’s DST has been in the works for a couple of years and was announced in March. The tax is aimed at collecting revenues from digital companies with at least £500 million in global revenue and £25 million in U.K. revenue, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook. Unfortunately, it is the advertisers who will feel the pinch.

How will the Google country-specific fees affect advertisers?

These additional costs will not affect the CPC advertisers pay or anything related to any bids in the Google Ads auction. The extra charge will be listed on each invoice.

For example, if you are a UK advertiser who spent £1,000 on clicks for the month, your DST fee from Google would be 2% of that, which is £20. That would make your final invoice (exclusive of VAT) £1,020.

What is the best way to handle this moving forward?

Factoring this into your advertising budget will be crucial, so make sure you make the adjustment in time for the November launch. As this is a percentage charge, it is wise to make the estimate based on the upper range of your monthly account spend.

To create or edit a budget, you will need an Admin, Standard, or billing-only access to the paying manager account and the manager account needs to be linked to the payments profile.

Again, all charges will be listed on your monthly invoice, so make sure to check in on your billing documents to ensure the spend is within your allocated budget.

If you are a company based in or partly-based in the above countries and have questions relating to Google’s country-specific fees, feel free to contact us here at WebResults via email or contact form to discuss this further.

Google Distributes Google Ads Credits During COVID-19 Crisis

, , ,
Google Ad Extensions

Google has pledged to support its SME advertising community worldwide by distributing $340m of Google Ads credits in the coming weeks.

The credits will be given to those who set up their Google Ads account on or before the 1st of January 2019. The search giant said:

“Small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of our communities. They represent about 90 percent of all businesses and more than half of employment worldwide, according to the World Bank. COVID-19 has posed a particular challenge to these businesses, who may be facing closures and declining revenue even as they find ways to support and protect their employees. Through ad credits, we hope to alleviate some of the cost to stay in touch with their customers.”  Read more here.

Ad accounts who are eligible for Google Ads credits will receive a notification within their dashboard, and the credits will remain valid for the rest of 2020.

If you have an Google Ad account that has been sitting there gathering dust, or you feel you could be getting more out of your current ads, or you want to maximise your free Google Ads credits, contact WebResults today. A no-obligation chat with us costs nothing, and we will review your existing account for free too.

Simply call us or contact us via our contact form and we will be happy to help.

Drive Your Online Business Sales Revenue Remotely

, , ,
Working From Home Drive Sales

Working remotely as a result of Covid-19? Use focused digital marketing activities to drive sales and combat slumping revenue.

You may find yourself working remotely and feel restricted in terms of how to combat slumping revenue and sales and whether your job or livelihood will remain intact. 

One huge positive is the fact we are living in a world where we can work, communicate and sell online.

Consider the following ways to boost your businesses profile, sales and conversions (such as contact form completions, brochure requests, call back requests) through digital activities.

Working From Home Drive Sales

Build Your Brand Awareness

Before focusing on driving your sales, establish your business as a trusted seller/service provider in its space.

This does not just mean investing in paid ads on Google and social media. It requires you to ensure that your website is adhering to SEO best practices. It means you need to create relevant compelling content and distribute it frequently, whether that’s videos, blog posts, images, podcasts or whatever formats your customers like to consume media. It means spending time daily “social listening” to understand your potential customers’ issues, motivations & behaviours and jumping in on that conversation in an authentic way.

Having the best website in the world with the best UX is rendered null and void if nobody knows who you are. There are a range of digital tools & activities to help build brand awareness online. Invest the time and you will reap the rewards.

Email Marketing

Email has consistently proven itself to be the highest returning channel of digital marketing. A 2019 study by the DMA found that for every $1 spent on email marketing (eg. lead generation, email automation platform subscription etc.), there was an average return of $42.

On top of the massive potential for return, email marketing allows you to exert the most control. You are responsible for generating the high quality leads (in a GDPR-compliant way). This means you can build relationships with those leads. You communicate directly with your customers and can inform them of sales, discounts or some behind-the-scenes stories. You are not at the mercy of algorithms and you will always own that email list.

If you connect your email marketing automation platform (eg. Mailchimp) with your CRM and/or eCommerce platform, this means you can segment your list and send customers highly relevant content/discounts based on their purchase behaviour. This is vital to keeping your email list engaged and will lead to a lower Cost Per Acquisition too.

Email Marketing Drive Sales

Search Ads

Search ads capture your customers at a different stage in the buying process. The first of which is the “awareness” stage, the importance of which we have already discussed.

Next up is the “consideration” stage, and this is where search ads really shine. If a customer has taken to Google to search for a specific product or service, this means they have moved on to the consideration stage. Search ads will allow you to firstly appear at or near the top of the search results page. Secondly, search ads allow you to drive highly relevant traffic to highly relevant landing pages. Finally, if your website is fast, your landing pages relevant and your UX in good order, this will dramatically increase your chances of a website visitor converting there and then.

As search ads are usually charged on a Cost Per Click model, with clear adcopy, you will only pay for traffic that is interested in your product or service.

Google Shopping

If your business sells physical products online, Google Shopping will drive intent based shoppers.

Google Shopping ads now drive 76.4% of retail search ad spend, generating 85.3% of all clicks on Adwords or Google Shopping campaign ads. Long story short, you need Google Shopping if you’re an eCommerce business.

The integration of Google Shopping and your website/eComm platform is often what puts businesses off venturing into this territory, but many of these platforms provide out-of-the-box integrations. You can also hire an agency or developer to take care of this for you and to ensure that your data feed is optimised. However you decide to approach it, Google Shopping is well worth implementing.

Try a range of channels

When it comes to online shopping, it typically takes 3-5 “touchpoints” for a visitor to convert. Therefore, it is important to identify who your customers are, where they spend their time online and direct your time, money and efforts there.

Analytics and insights are crucial to be able to gauge where you are getting the most return, so you should be digging into these at least twice a week. Look at what pages have the lowest bounce rate/highest time on page, and where your traffic is coming from. Check the demographic info and also the interest category and in-market reports, all of which are available on Google Analytics and most analytics packages. Knowledge is your competitive advantage, so gather as much of it as you can and use it to build a profile of your customers.

Remember, technology can and will help you prevail in this time of uncertainty, particularly when it comes to marketing and sales. Capitalise on the resources available, and you will continue to prosper. 

If you need a helping hand along the way, contact Webresults and let us help you bring your business to the next level. Call us or fill in our contact form today.

PPC trends – 4 things to expect in 2020

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

As you are probably aware, Google love to keep us on our toes! It is important to keep on top of these changes in order to make sure you are getting maximum from Google. Here are 4 trends that we believe will become more prominent in 2020.

 

  1. Much more Automation in Google Ads

Having computers do the work for you sounds great, doesn’t it? While this may be true to some degree, PPC advertisers need to be careful about how far they go with this. This will be the year that we need to meet AI head on and use it to drive ourselves forward. If not, your business could fall behind and end up playing catch-up.

 

Google Ads has been encouraging advertisers to let them take the reigns on their campaigns. This is helpful to a certain degree. What you have to remember is that Google want as many clicks as possible, because at the end of the day, it’s how they make their money. So, what we advise is to not give them complete control. Create your own Google Ads custom rules to optimise bids, budgets, marketing lists, etc. and that way, you can use automation to ensure you get the best value for money.

 

  1. Optimisation score now includes Display campaigns

Starting in December of last year, Google Ads have expanded their optimisation score to include Display campaigns, as well as Search and Shopping campaigns. It works in the exact same way as previously with scores ranging from 0% to 100%. An optimisation score of 100% means your campaign is running to its full potential.

This change ties into the increased volume automation in Google Ads and, as said before, it can be incredibly helpful for advertisers but only when used correctly. Don’t get sucked into thinking everything Google recommends is for your benefit. Remember, Google wants to make money too.

  1. Improved Audience Targeting/Segmentation

Audience targeting or segmenting refers to the ability to choose who exactly sees your ads depending on their location, age, sex, buying habits, clicking habits and a whole range of other factors. With the help of ever-improving AI, Google Ads is making this a lot more efficient and therefore, they have made it a lot easier for PPC advertisers to target exactly who they want.

In 2020, Google Ads will continue to grow their machine learning which will help us create highly personalised ad campaigns and improve your target market strategies.

 

  1. Rising CPCs (Cost-Per-Click)

One negative trend that we expect to see for 2020 is an increase in CPC.  Google has 5.6 billion searches per day, and this number is only growing. Thus, using Google Ads as your main marketing tool is essential. SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are becoming more competitive and organic searches becoming harder to find. This means that big corporations will simply increase their spending on keywords and therefore, drive up the average CPC for everyone else.

 

Google’s forever changing trends can be a bit daunting to get your head around. If you find yourself stuck, confused or overwhelemd, maybe it’s time to think about outsourcing to an agency. If you choose the right one, we guarantee you will see an increase in productivity and ultimately an increase in ROI.

If you are interested in talking to WebResults about your Google Ads account, call or email us today for a free account review and find out what we can do for you.