PPC is one of the best online marketing platforms for ROI and instant results. And while a long term SEO strategy is extremely important for long term success, there’s no denying what Pay Per Click can do for sales and landing page traffic.
Businesses of every size, across all industries and sectors, will benefit from having a PPC strategy in place. But what’s important to remember is that with the growing shift from laptop to mobile means that the world of PPC is changing – and fast. And with Industry 4.0 looming and the Internet of Things set to revolutionize connectivity, it’s time to prepare for the tech-driven trends that could affect your campaigns.
Here are the PPC marketing trends to watch out for in 2018:
Mobile-First Index
The mobile takeover was always inevitable and in 2017, mobile users worldwide reached 4.77 billion. The increase is not about to slow down either, with forecasts revealing that the global figure could reach 5 billion by 2019.
Furthermore, every four out of five mobile users access the internet through their phones, making mobile PPC one of the biggest focuses of this year. And according to Smart Insights, one in two people are now shopping on their smartphones, so it’s time to tailor PPC landing pages for mobile first, desktop second.
Page Speed Matters
As mobile PPC increases, developers will need to focus their attention on improving page load speed. One of the biggest trends of this year will be to improve user experience, and this will mean instant gratification with smooth page loading. In 2016, Google launched Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and for PPC marketers, this type of page should be assigned for every campaign to boost engagement.
IoT Will Transform Experience
The Internet of Things has been a key driver in search engine personalization, and it will become a way to collect data on customers to create a completely tailored campaign for each individual. Google personalized search has transformed Audience Targeting, and there will be a big push on using audience data and selecting highly segmented options with any PPC campaigns going forward.
Smarter Spending
The Google Adwords budget has been doubled by Google, so having a dedicated Adwords manager could be the best way of managing your money. The changes were put into place in October 2017, with some advertisers reporting that their clients would be heavily affected, and others reporting that it wouldn’t make much change to their campaigns at all. What we do know is that the 2x budget update has been extremely confusing. Search Engine Land has provided a breakdown of the changes.
A Shift to Amazon PPC?
Google and Amazon seem to have been at loggerheads of late, and it could be about to get worse as Amazon pushes for ad expansion. With more and more people turning straight to Amazon for their shopping needs instead of using search engines to shop around, it only made sense for the commerce company to develop their own advertising platform.
About the Author: Robert Lovell is a digital marketer and writer based in the UK. When he’s not working for jcammidge.co.uk Robert loves music, movies and cricket.