Top PPC Trends To Expect in 2020

Just as with any digital marketing platform and strategy, you can expect to see some big changes and twists in the way PPC marketing will be used in 2020. In this blog, I will share some insight into how you can expect PPC such as GoogleAds to change and be used in the year ahead.

Even More Automation

In recent updates to PPC platforms, we can see the blatant drive to more automation and AI-usage. This is especially prevalent from my own point of view when using GoogleAds. Whenever you try to setup a campaign, Google will automatically attempt to use one of their automated bidding strategies. Even when you manually select “Manual CPC”, Google will even try to automate manual bids through “Enhanced CPC” – which is when Google will decide by itself whether to lower or increase the bid based on the user’s likelihood to convert: and even with this there is still a warning displayed against using manual CPC and instead, Google will try to convince the user to pick an automated method.

Responsive Ads

Responsive Ads were launched in GoogleAds in 2019. These ads allowed marketers to create 4 different descriptions and up to 15 different headlines, AI would then automatically pick the best descriptions and headlines to use based on device width, expected CTR, relevance to the keyword/search query etc. In 2020, we can expect to see a bigger focus on responsive ads and the usage of AI to pick out the best ad content to show searchers.

Amazon Ads

When marketers think of PPC, most will think of Google Ads or Facebook Ads. However, in 2020 we can expect to see the third most popular (and fastest growing) advertiser to see an increased presence for marketers: this is Amazon Ads. The key for Amazon Ads is that we can target customers who are ready to purchase: Facebook is more for brand awareness, GoogleAds is more for interest/consideration, whereas Amazon Ads are perfect to target the people who are actively searching to purchase your product: so there will be a much higher ROI and conversion rate.

Video Advertising

In the last 3 or so years, and especially in 2019, we saw the considerable growth of video advertising. In 2018 alone, Forbes research shows that the average user spends 88% more time on a website with video. In the year ahead, we can expect to see video advertising take a more important role in marketing. An example of the drive for video advertising can be seen with Google’s “bumper machine”. This is an AI which creates 6 bumper ads (a 6 second video to use as an ad on YouTube) from a longer video. The AI picks out 6-second segments which it decides are memorable and leaves an impression on the viewer. Such simplicity and automation shows the beginning of a considerable drive to increasing the presence of video advertising and video marketing.