2018 PPC Trends to Look Out For
Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing continues to grow every year. As we move forward into the new year, here are some 2018 PPC trends we expect to see.
Mobile Campaigns
Mobile has been growing for the past few years now, with mobile searches overtaking desktop searches. We can expect to see a continued rise in both mobile campaigns and mobile-only campaigns. Not only are text searches increasing on mobile, but because of the availability of intelligent personal assistants on mobile devices, voice searches are increasing on mobile devices as well. It has definitely been spoken of for the past few years but 2018 PPC trends indicate the mobile isn’t going anywhere, if anything it will continue to expand.
Voice Search
With voice-controlled smart products on the rise, voice search is becoming increasingly popular. What makes voice search different from traditional text searches? First off, voice searches are longer. Instead of the average 3-5 keywords searched, voice searches usually consist of entire sentences containing 10 or more words. These sentences usually begin with who, what, where, why, and how.These terms give insight on the searcher’s intent, which allows Google to give more personalized and relevant search results. Voice search leads to another huge trend in PPC, Artificial Intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning are on the rise, and it’s affecting PPC. AI gives us recommendations on how to engage consumers in a more personal, relevant, and timely way. It also helps with account automation. Using AI will allow us to automate more and more of our management tasks. With the strong recommendations and automation abilities AI provides, our reliance on machine learning to optimize ads will increase.
Audience Targeting
With more personalized information due to machine learning, audience targeting becomes increasingly important. Google currently limits search audience targeting to gender, age, income, and parental targeting. Once Google expands on audience targeting, we will be able to take advantage of highly segmented audiences to create more personalized ads.
AdWords Beta
Google rolled out a new AdWords interface, AdWords Beta, in 2017. Currently, the old AdWords interface is still available. We expect to see the old interface transition out within the next few months. One extension that is retiring this year is the review extensions. Starting in February 2018, review extensions won’t be an available option when creating ads. Although we are saying bye to review extensions, we hope Google will introduce new ad extensions on Beta in 2018.
Google is also launching a Chrome ad blocker in February. This ad blocker will stop intrusive and spam-like advertisements. Ad managers will need to ensure all their ads meet Google’s standard. Otherwise the Chrome ad blocker will block all their ads, including the ones that do meet the standards.
Amazon
Amazon is slowly entering the PPC playing field. With Amazon Vendor Central and Seller Central, managers can run ads on Amazon, putting their product in front of all of Amazon’s traffic. Amazon accounts for over 40% of online retail sales, and we expect that percentage to grow higher in 2018. Instead of just focusing on Google and Bing PPC, ad managers may soon add Amazon to that list.
As 2018 continues, we also expect to see more keywords available, an increase in competition, and PPC budget expansions. Make sure to take advantage of Pay Per Click Advertising and keep an eye out for new 2018 PPC trends! Being on top of the newest digital ads trends can help you create better ads and reach more people.
