2018 brought some major changes to the world of PPC (pay-per-click) marketing, including the rebranding of AdWords to Google Ads. Aside from these changes, there were also follow up trends that got ignited for 2019, from the focus on automation, artificial intelligence, and audience targeting to the launch of various tools, campaigns, and enhancements by various search engines.
To help point your digital marketing for next year in the right direction, the following is a rundown of the top 10 PPC trends 2019 to keep an eye on.
Audiences & Their Context.
Customer experience is expected to overtake product and price as the main differentiator of brands by 2020. In 2019, a shift from keywords to audiences and their context is expected. Google Ads now has near infinite layers for campaign targeting, which brings an opportunity to build more personalized, relevant, and hyper-targeted ads that bring a higher ROI.
So, if you’re still not making use of audience insights for your PPC ads, you risk being left behind by everybody else, more so your competitors.
AI & Marketing Automation.
AI is revolutionizing the tech industry, and has already been instrumental in the development of a great number of business departments. PPC advertising has already begun implementing AI to bring better results for both the advertiser and the search user. With AI, PPC campaigns are made much easier for the advertiser, especially due to the larger scope for automation.
In 2019, automation will be more rampant in the world of PPC trends, along with the adoption of AI powered tools to enhance audience targeting, with the aim of adding intelligence, subtlety, and strategy to the campaigns.
Amazon Ads.
Now that Amazon’s net worth has officially crossed the $1 trillion mark, it’s quite evident that the platform is on a winning streak. The platform is also a force to reckon with when it comes to advertising, even with PPC marketing. Keep in mind that the e-commerce giant has already captured the attention of Facebook, Google, and Bing when it comes to ads placement.
Cross-Channel Advertising
Since it’s increasingly becoming more necessary to advertise on multiple platforms, cross-device and cross channel attribution will only become more prominent in 2019. Fortunately, coming up with well-designed, coordinated, multi-channel campaigns is now easier than ever, and more businesses are expected to pick this up.
Don’t forget that adjusting your models based on performance is key, and be aware of difficulty in reporting. The lines between social, search, and e-commerce are slowly becoming blurred, and it’s vital to understand the journey of the customer to enhance campaign attribution and performance.
Video Marketing.
Video content has become a crucial inclusion to digital marketing, and is increasingly being featured in the search engine results. Plus, video is becoming the most popular type of content on mobile, and more advertisers are getting on board. Google vertical video ads updates is also expected soon.
Ad formats in social media platforms, such as Instagram will continue to grow, and it’s vital for marketers to learn the how, when, and where their audience is consuming video.
Remarketing.
Retargeting visitors who have already visited your website will be a key focus in 2019. Why? Well, it’s one of the most effective ways for delivering high click-through and conversion rates. Advertising platforms will also provide more remarketing features with greater flexibility and targeting options.
Visual Search.
With modern devices and technologies, users can now search for something online using their camera. Platforms such as Pinterest Lens and Google Lens are good examples. Such services will definitely change search dynamics, which will also affect PPC as well. Experts predict that visual search will dominate search in the coming years, which will influence the current digital marketing methods, including PPC.
Brand Building.
While more emphasis is put on achieving a high ROI with PPC advertising, brands are expected to shift their focus on brand building in order to remain relevant. As such, more marketers will focus on promoting loyalty among their audiences, and even push ads from display to YouTube in an effort to keep their low performing keywords running.
The long term effect of creating brand loyalty and integrity is immensely valuable, and will eventually result into increased product demand, which will keep businesses achieving their goals, even as new strategies and platforms come into play.
More Personalization.
This is perhaps unsurprising, considering that PPC has been evolving constantly since its inception. Each year brings new and unique features with the aim of making your marketing campaigns better. One of the most important features to expect in 2019 is enhance personalization of targeting. For example, you’ll be able to target smartphone users who use Gmail as their primary email address.
Superb PPC Ads
The expectations for PPC trends 2019 are high when it comes to the creativity, format, and nature of ads. Since most firms will be seeking to maximize their profits and brand loyalty through PPC, the ads will most likely be incredible. It will be fun to see what kind of headlines marketers adopt for their ads.
