PPC is a rapidly evolving platform. It is a critical part of your digital marketing strategy, but it’s also more complicated than ever. To stay ahead of the curve, you need to keep tabs on the latest trends in paid search and be prepared for what’s coming next. To help you do that, we’ve compiled a list of 10 PPC trends for 2023:
B2B PPC will Rebound
One of the first PPC trends we will discuss is the comeback of B2B PPC. In the past few years, B2B PPC has been a tricky channel to navigate. With an increased focus on quality scores and CPCs that are seemingly out of reach, many advertisers have avoided this space altogether. However, this is changing with the emergence of new ad formats like Call-Only ads and Smart Displays (which combine mobile and desktop). B2B PPC will rebound in 2023 because it is still profitable, so if you are willing to invest time and effort into optimizing your campaigns, you can succeed in this channel.
The main reason B2B PPC remains profitable is that there are many ways to optimize your account while increasing conversions and ROI. For example:
- You can use Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) to target specific clients based on their interests and intent. This allows you to create highly targeted ads that lead directly to sales rather than just clickthroughs or form completions.
- CPA bidding can help you increase ROI by lowering CPA costs due to better targeting of new customers who may not know about your product/service yet but who have expressed interest in buying similar products/services previously through search queries such as “product X vs. brand Y” or “competitor A vs. competitor B.”
PPC Ads to Increase Customer Lifetime Value
PPC ads are set to increase customer lifetime value (CLV). CLV is a metric used to measure the average revenue generated from a single customer throughout their entire relationship with a business. In other words, how much money do they spend?
You can use your PPC campaign to increase your CLV by increasing brand loyalty and improving the quality of leads generated through search engine marketing.
Video Ads Will Dominate AdWords and Facebook
PPC trends indicate the increased use of video ads, which will continue to increase as more businesses turn to this form of media. Video ads are more engaging, more likely to be clicked, and more likely to lead to a sale or conversion than other forms of advertising.
With the rise in popularity of voice search on smartphones and home devices, voice commands will become an increasingly common way for consumers to interact with their devices. Adopting these technologies will also drive increased audio content usage, such as podcasts, music videos, and live-streamed sporting events, which users can access via mobile phones and connected devices without watching videos on larger screens.
Cross-Device Attribution
PPC trends stride toward cross-device attribution, a method of attributing conversions to different devices. This is important because it can help marketers understand how much of their marketing budget is wasted on people who have already converted or are not likely to convert.
For example, let’s say you’re running a PPC campaign for your e-commerce store and want to know how many sales came from each keyword. If you’re measuring only desktop conversions, this will give you an inaccurate picture of which keywords were most effective because the same person could have searched on both their smartphone and desktop computers before making a purchase. The issue here isn’t necessarily that these types of searches are bad—it’s just that they don’t tell you much about the quality or value of each keyword in terms of revenue generated.
Increased Integration of Social and Search Channels
You’ve probably noticed that social media channels have become integral to marketing. Social platforms are more important than ever, as they help you drive awareness, traffic, and conversions while increasing brand awareness.
To successfully integrate social media with your pay-per-click strategy, use a platform like HubSpot’s Social Inbox that allows you to manage all of your social channels in one place. This will allow you to coordinate your efforts across various websites and apps like Facebook Messenger or Instagram Stories so that everything works together on a similar message simultaneously.
If you’re looking for more ideas on improving engagement and conversions through PPC ads on social media channels such as Facebook or Twitter, check out our full list of strategies here.
Paid Search to Become More Visual
Image ads are the next big thing in paid search. With image-based searches increasing by 40% from 2018 to 2023, it’s no surprise that visual search technology is growing fast.
These days, you can use an image extension in your ad copy or as a site link to show users a specific product or service in action. The most common types of image extensions include:
- Image ads—An advert with an image (or several) that appears within the SERP above and below paid listings.
- Product listing ads—A product-focused ad with images of products and prices; it shows up on mobile devices and can be clicked to the site where they’re sold.
- Shopping ads—An advert type that typically includes one product image (which may link directly back to the advertiser’s website) along with its price and SKU information; this kind of ad often appears at the bottom of search results pages when someone types something into their browser like “pairs of shoes.”
Longer-Form Content Becomes Dominant in Search Results
In the next few years, longer-form content will dominate search results pages.
Longer-form content is more likely to rank well in search results because Google’s machine-learning algorithms better understand longer pieces of text and identify them as more relevant than shorter ones. In addition, Google shares that users prefer these types of articles to short-form news stories or blog posts because they’re more insightful and informative; therefore, businesses should aim for this level of quality when creating their PPC campaigns.
Longer form content is also more likely to be shared on social media: people are more likely to post something with substance over something that gives them some quick entertainment (like a funny meme). This means that businesses need a longer copy. It allows them to address people’s needs better than shorter ads by providing examples from real-life situations rather than just stating general information about their product or service without context around how it can help someone.
In-Market Audiences Reach New Heights
In-market audiences are people who have recently searched for a product or service you offer. They’re available on Google Ads, Facebook, and Bing and can help you reach people ready to buy. In-market audiences are based on the search queries that your customers enter into the search engines. This means they’re incredibly accurate—so much so that they can increase ad clickthrough rates by up to 50%.
You’ll find in-market audiences in two places: Audiences and Search Partners under Reach > In Market. The former is a source for highly targeted remarketing lists (RLAs). At the same time, the latter provides access to RLAs that have been optimized for external sites like YouTube videos or Facebook pages.
Shared Budget and Campaign Management for Google Ads Shopping Campaigns
Google Ads Shopping Campaigns are a great way to manage your paid search campaigns. Using Google Ads Editor, you can create Shopping Campaigns and associate them with specific ad groups. When setting up your campaign, choose the type of product that you’ll be selling. Once you’ve created your shopping campaign, you can use it for multiple ad groups within an account or share budgets and campaigns across multiple accounts.
Increased Optimization at the Keyword Level vs. the Ad Group Level
The more you optimize your keywords, the better your ad groups will perform. That is why increased optimization at the keyword level is one of the important PPC trends for 2023.
Ad groups are great for organizing your campaigns, but when it comes to PPC, they often need to be narrower. When you have hundreds of individual keywords in a single ad group, it takes time to see which ones are performing well and which need to meet their goals. This makes it difficult to make adjustments or improvements at the ad group level because there may be so many variables involved that no one keyword is causing a problem.
It’s also common for advertisers to optimize their landing pages based on the keyword that brought them there rather than looking at whether other keywords in their account could benefit from changes or updates on their site. This leads us back into a situation where we’re optimizing our landing pages based on how someone found us from Google instead of what they came looking for once they arrived at our site.
Conclusion
The PPC trends we’ve outlined will significantly impact how you approach your marketing strategy. As you work to implement these changes, you’ll need to be flexible and adaptable. Remember that PPC is a long-term investment. And it’s important not to stress out about the ebbs and flows of daily performance!
