Top 11 Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ad Trends For 2022
In online marketing, it’s crucial to stay on top of the trends of each marketing channel to have the optimum results. Whether it’s SEO, social media, or PPC, you have to keep up with the trends of all platforms.
In this post, we’ll discuss the PPC ads trends of 2022.
The new updates, changing user preferences, emerging technologies all contribute to the new trends in the PPC world. And if you intend to get the maximum ROI on your ad spend, then you better rethink your existing well-performing strategies.
There is no such thing as an evergreen strategy in PPC, your today’s best strategy can be the worst one tomorrow. So, you have to be agile and update your ad strategy according to newly emerging trends.
So, let’s find out what PPC trends should be in your focus this year.
- First-Party Data
It’s known that Google is taking down the third-party cookies data to secure the user’s data better. However, the disappearance of third-party cookies going away has significantly impacted the advertising world.
With third-party cookies, one can track the user behavior across the web, like frequently visited sites, purchases, and user interests. This data helps advertisers create personalized ads and remarketing campaigns that drive conversions.
In a cookieless world, this will affect the targeting, measurement, and attribution in PPC advertising across the globe.
Google is working on an alternative called FLoC to help marketers with this. However, you have to redesign your ads strategy and focus on first-party data more to strategize and run your campaigns in the coming years.
- Diversification
Google is the most popular search engine, so it is the most favorable place for advertising. Marketers suggested diversification and considering other ad platforms, but this cookie-less advertising on Google gave it the push. So, in 2022 we’ll witness increased advertising on ad-tech platforms other than Google. You should consider this and extend your marketing to other advertising platforms.
- TikTok Ads
In September 2021, TikTok celebrated reaching 1 billion monthly active users. (TikTok)
TikTok is now available in more than 200 countries. (Oberlo)
The average user spends 89 minutes per day on the app, according to a leaked deck from TikTok. (Music Business Worldwide)
All this data shows the increased supremacy of TikTok, which is why it’s one of the most popular advertising channels now. The user engagement of this app is amazing, and that’s why more businesses and marketers will include TikTok in their advertising.
This is the newest PPC trend, and we suggest that you go on TikTok if your target audience is there.
- Video Ads
The decreasing attention span of people and the growing behavior of ignoring ads is becoming a huge problem for marketers. People skip the ad in a fraction of a second when they know it’s an ad. So, it’s a challenge to attract the user’s attention and engage them. Videos are doing well in this arena. Videos have an impressive engagement, which is why it’s the most popular content format these days. For the same reason, video ads have become prevalent.
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Marketers will work on Google’s vertical video ads. Moreover, they will link products in the video ads to drive the traffic to the relevant page. Instagram stories continue to have the same popularity as video advertising. Furthermore, the bumper ads on YouTube are also an effective video advertising method gaining popularity. So, video ads must be a part of your PPC advertising in 2022 and beyond.
- YouTube Masthead and OTT Advertising
Smart TVs have changed the way people used to stream YouTube and OTT content. People now prefer to watch video content on big screens.
YouTube said 250 million hours of content were watched on TV screens every day.
Seeing this growing engagement on the big screens, YouTube rolled out YouTube masthead ads, which will show ads on the home page of YouTube. It’s like a digital billboard. So, it’s a new format of PPC advertising, and it will be used significantly in 2022 or beyond.
Abreast of YouTube, the OTT platforms have huge audience engagement, and some of these platforms offer advertising services. OTT advertising will gain popularity this year, and you should consider it if the OTT audience concerns you.
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- Voice Search Optimized PPC Campaigns
You can see the jump in voice commerce, and according to a study in 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches. This data is from 2020, and we are in 2022 now, which means we need to be ready for the voice search to take over. You can miss a lot if you don’t optimize your campaigns for voice search. Businesses are already doing it, and we’ll witness it noticeably this year. Here are some tips for voice search optimization.
- Use natural language or conversational style
- Include long-tail keywords
- Consider question-based queries
- Evaluate the common current search terms like Ok Google, Hey Siri, Alexa
- Add or remove negative keywords
- Automation
Automation is not new in the PPC management space, but it will be used more extensively this year, making it an inevitable PPC trend of 2022. PPC platforms’ machine learning and advanced processes offer reliable automation options for PPC campaigns. You can’t solely rely on the automation, but you can ease up your tasks with PPC automation while monitoring the performance and outcomes of your PPC ads.
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As the above graphic shows, automation can be really helpful in identifying the best ads, removing the underperforming ones, and testing the best suitable CTAs. Moreover, it can be used for campaigns optimization, A/B testing, and reporting. This takes the burden of your shoulders, and you can focus on other important things. It’s good to adopt automation, but human monitoring and inputs are always crucial.
- Artificial Intelligence
AI is growing exponentially, and its use is spreading quickly in the industry. PPC management is no different, and AI in PPC can help you run successful ad campaigns with much ease. You can’t deny the technology, and AI will not only have impact in 2022, but it’s going to be a trend for decades till something new comes up.
AI can help you optimize keywords after a certain trigger, like CTR, drops from a predefined value and determine or predict your ad campaign’s performance. It can also, analyze bids and help predict maximum possible results.
As you can see, AI in these tasks can be a great help. The best thing about AI is that it’s getting better every day. So, you can always expect better from yesterday.
- Smart Segmentation
It’s a cool option for those who do advertising on apps. Businesses and marketers show the ads to their app audience in an equal amount without knowing whether they’ll convert or not.
Smart segmentation can segment your audience in two parts: predicted non-purchasers and predicted purchasers. Machine learning analyzes the behavior of the users and the product to understand if the user will convert in-app or not.
- Responsive Search Ads
Responsive Search Ads allow advertisers to write multiple variations of an ad copy, and then Google Ads show the most relevant one according to the user query and search history. You can give 15 titles and 4 descriptions for an ad, making 32,760 possible combinations for your ad.
This way, you can show more personalized ads, which ensures the success of your campaign.
According to Google:
“responsive search ads have a 5 – 15% higher CTR than standard search ads”
Even this marketing agency used the RSA (Responsive Search Ads) and has seen reliable results. But situations vary for each business and marketer, so test and find out! It’s a PPC trend you shouldn’t ignore, and make sure to follow all the best practices to boost your performance with such ads.
- Smart Bidding
Smart bidding is a part of automated bidding, which uses machine learning to optimize your ads according to your goal. Smart bidding optimizes your ads for maximum conversions within your KPI targets. Here are the PPC goals you can use smart bidding for:
- Target CPA: Generate leads at your target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)
- Target ROAS: Get the best ROI on your ad-spend
- Maximize Conversions: Increase the conversions.
Manual optimization of bids for each campaign is a real pain for marketers, and smart bidding eases up things. Google also added settings like Campaign-level Conversion Setting and Seasonality Adjustment to give you more control over your automated bidding. As there is no guesswork, you can rely on this bidding feature to save your time and effort.
These are the 11 PPC trends that you’ll see in 2022.
So, keep up with these trends and grow your B2B SaaS business. Different businesses have unique needs, so make sure you utilize these trends to deliver stronger results.
