Pay-per-click PPC strategies has become a powerful tool for businesses seeking Internet exposure and increased profits. By paying for clicks, advertisers can increase traffic to their site and convert clicks into profitable shares. PPC ads come in various formats and appear on search engines, social media platforms, websites, etc. As we look at the impact of PPC in 2023, trends such as AI automation, video advertising and omnichannel advertising are emerging. To succeed in the PPC space, marketers must use effective techniques such as audience targeting, responsive forms, templates, automation, alternative listings, branding, and campaign optimization. This strategy can improve the performance of your PPC campaigns, maximize ROI, and gain a competitive edge in the digital advertising space.
What is pay per Click (PPC)?
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, a digital advertising model in which advertisers pay a commission each time their ad is clicked. You pay for visits to your website (or landing page or app). When PPC works correctly, the commissions are small because the clicks are worth more than you pay. For example, if you pay $3 for a click, but that click leads to $300 in sales, you’ve made a significant profit.
PPC ads come in many shapes and sizes and can contain text, images, video or a combination. They can appear in searches, websites, social media, and more platforms. Search engine advertising (paid search engine marketing) is one of the most popular forms of PPC. This allows advertisers to bid to have their ads placed on the sponsored link when someone searches for their service offering.
Top Trends of PPC in 2023?
PPC was about to get a lot of exciting things. Let’s take a look at the top trends of 2013.
1. Automate campaigns with AI-powered Tools
PPC automation is the number one trend in PPC 1 January 2023. Google continues to double down on its automated bidding PPC strategies, strongly encouraging marketers to rely on automation and artificial intelligence to manage campaigns.
2. Use of video ads
Due to TikTok’s massive growth, businesses can expect to see more ads in 2023. And that’s a good thing: 92% of marketers say video ads can deliver incredible ROI. Additionally, 91% said they want more brand content in 2023.
3. Multichannel advertising
In recent years, marketers have moved away from these third-party cookies and started collecting and capitalizing on first-party data. Not only does first-party data future-proof your advertising PPC strategies, but combined with automation, you can deliver the best proof to every customer every time, whether you’re socially conscious or not.
Top 10 PPC Strategies for Marketing
If you want your PPC strategies to be effective, you have no choice but to measure it. In some cases, this development means thinking about things very differently than before. If your program isn’t already developed, here are ten PPC strategies to try (in no particular order).
1. Demographics & Affinity
Marketing campaigns get better results when you clearly define your target audience. By combining the power of Google Ads and Google Analytics, you can target users more likely to take the action you want, giving your campaigns a better chance of success. I think of demographics and affiliation as passive classifications of who I am.
2. In Market
Demographics and niche audiences are more about who they are, while marketing genres are more about what they do. In this case, the audience exhibits certain online behaviours consistent with those “actively in the market” to purchase a product or service.
3. Life Events
Anyone who has run a direct response campaign (even in the digital age) knows that reaching potential customers at a critical life event is critical to success. If you ever get a mortgage (or even just move), you may notice an increase in the number of offers you’re getting. There’s a good reason for that: the data shows it works. Google Ads now allows you to run specific “lifetime event” bids on a limited basis.
4. Running One Responsive Search Ads
I know. Tested and not printed. I get it; well, try again, but this time for some keywords and audiences that may not be your primary focus. If your campaign looks large, you have a core audience and many variations of keywords that make up the majority of your conversions and revenue.
The key word in machine learning is “learning”. To “learn” what works, the “machine” must also learn what doesn’t work. It takes time and a few days to read thoroughly. You should always include a good title (minimum 3, maximum 15) and description (minimum 2, maximum 4). If these are poor, no machine learning can help your campaign.
5. Establish a Target Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
This is marketing rule 101, and unfortunately, even some of the biggest companies in the world don’t do it (or at least don’t do it right). Automation now exists to optimize campaigns at specific CPA or ROAS sizes, but it’s useless if you don’t understand it (if you have the wrong logic to understand the cost per conversion or ROAS goal, it Could be worse.)
When discussing a strategy like text search advertising, these questions confuse me, which typically works in the second half of the purchase journey. CPA and ROAS numbers are incomplete without proper context. However, you can score points that are meaningful for campaign optimization when you spend the time and effort to collect the following:
6. Test Smart Bidding Strategies
Once you’ve built that foundation, you can send out the “heavy lifting” to achieve your campaign goals.
7. Invest in Microsoft Ads
Microsoft Ads have come a long way since the early days of Bing when many in PPC considered them retrograde, and we “looked around” when we had time as they ran their AdWords campaigns. What I did was easy to replicate. Of course, your brand needs no guarantees, but I’m seeing more consistent success with my client base than I did five years ago. They also have some features that Google doesn’t (and can’t). For more, see contributor Tim Jensen’s recent post.
8. Using Google Analytics Data
Have you ever noticed that everyone who visits your site looks the same? Are all visitors to your website the same?
Clearly not!
This is an example of both e-commerce and retail operations. High-quality site visits to a store’s website are designed to serve as additional features to improve the store experience.
9. Report the Store Visits Metric
While talking about brick-and-mortar stores, using the many metrics available in Google Ads is a great way to get additional campaign support. Sometimes the amount of managing digital campaigns can improve e-commerce, so displaying this type of information is essential.
10. Revise Your Campaign Structure
After completing an audit, marketing campaign restructuring is often the first thing PPC experts recommend. A lousy site structure is like a bad foundation for a house: nothing else matters if it’s in bad shape.
Getting your business structure right is always important, but it’s essential to use automation to improve and scale your business. For automation to take care of the clutter and get you out of trouble, you need to be very strategic in the way you work with your marketing campaigns. There’s no manual way to adapt a campaign to every type of business appropriately, but you should generally consider it.
Conclusion
PPC strategies remain an effective digital marketing strategy for businesses, providing targeted exposure and measurable results. Looking forward to 2023, AI automation, video advertising, and omnichannel trends are on track to shape the PPC landscape. Marketers can increase the effectiveness of PPC strategies by developing advanced strategies such as audience targeting, responsive forms, targeting, automation, alternative platforms, branding and campaign optimization. These strategies will allow businesses to stay ahead of the competition, increase ROI and succeed in the dynamic world of PPC advertising.
