By Gavin Jocius 
When it comes to PPC marketing, 2018 was indeed a great year – for example, we had the rebranding of the Google AdWords, including its new interface, new features at Bing Ads, as well as the rise of Amazon – which now seems to be a potential challenger to Google.
However, 2018 is in the past now – namely, we have to think in the present and start looking at the PPC trends that one needs to know for 2019.
Therefore, without any further ado, here are five of the most important PPC trends that you need to know this year.
Automation Opportunities
First of all, keep in mind that automation still works better if overseen by humans. Humans continue to do things better than algorithms and machine learning tools in certain areas. The creativity and management of accounts is still best done by people
However, there are areas where automation is beginning to do a better job than people. Biding is one example of this.
Bidding is a very time-intensive task for people. If account managers can offload this task to some highly efficient bidding tools, then they can focus more of their efforts on areas that can help with growth and overall performance.
The key is finding the right balance between automation and people power. Some examples of automation include:
- Using smart bidding options that Google and Facebook currently offer.
- Using tools like Adalysis or Optmyzr which provide automated recommendations for account optimization and monitoring tools.
- Using Scripts to manage your Google Ads accounts
Paid Search Audiences
We all know that, at times, Google doesn’t show us what we need to find. In the case of a business owner who tries to advertise their services, Google may not show ads on a search page simply because its algorithm does not think they are relevant for certain audiences.
This changes when it comes to paid search audience targeting. If you take advantage of audience targeting, you can have your ads displayed to highly targeted audiences with more accuracy. In short, audience targeting will get your ad in front of the people that are searching for what you are selling.
New Ads
As new ad options were released back in 2018, people are still trying to figure out how to create the right ads that get them the best results. Naturally, you have to do some split testing in order to determine winning and losing ads.
For example, there are people that have seen a 5x increase in their conversion rate, as well as a roughly 97% drop in their cost-per-conversion. Therefore, revamping your ads might be a good idea. Just make sure you thoroughly test them.
Video Marketing
Video marketing has been steadily growing year over year. Businesses are finding more success with video marketing and meeting their objectives.
For example, those quick 6 second YouTube ads come with an average brand message lift of around 30%.
Sponsored videos on Instagram usually get three times more comments when compared to sponsored photos. Also, according to statistics, 64% of the customers that watch an ad on Facebook said that they were convinced to eventually make a purchase.
Additionally, roughly 8 billion videos are watched on Facebook on a daily basis. That is an insane amount of views!
In short, don’t just stick to banner ads. It may be time for your business to test running video ads and invest in video marketing.
PPC Partnerships
Traditionally, most marketing and web design firms did everything in-house. All facets of marketing and design were done by full-time W2’d employees. This works just fine for many agencies. However, this industry really lends itself to decentralized work environments.
By that I mean, team members can work remotely. Contractors can more easily take the place of an in-house employee. Firms that specialize in SEO or web design, can advertise a new PPC service and outsource that fulfillment to a PPC company. They don’t need to try and bring it in-house.
This type of partnership can make it easier for companies to rollout a new service. The upfront cost of finding the right team of providers is drastically reduced when outsourcing the fulfillment portion of the service. This type of partnership is often referred to as White Label PPC. White label services are nothing new, but they have increased in popularity over the past few years. We think this trend is going to continue in 2019. If you are an agency who is currently looking to expand or create a new PPC service, then you might want to consider outsourcing it.
SME Paid Under
Sitetrail Research Team