What are the most essential PPC trends to follow in 2022 if you want to be more successful?
We asked some of the top PPC experts for their thoughts.
According to 23 experts, here are the top 7 PPC trends to follow in 2022, ranging from paid search to paid social, remarketing, and beyond.
1. Automation
Automation is still a hot topic in PPC trends, with nearly half of our experts offering their opinions.
“For a couple of years now, automation has been gaining up speed and momentum,” said Julie Friedman Bacchini, President of Neptune Moon. “However, it feels as though it’s going to go into hyperdrive.”
Andrea Atzori, Co-Founder & Director of Ambire, concurred, stating that automation will play a critical role in assisting marketers in making data-driven decisions.
“The difficulty of extrapolating, consolidating, and collating data from many sources implies that this is not a job that can be accomplished without the use of automation,” Atzori explained. “Similarly, in order to succeed, the planning, execution, and analysis of scalable, data-driven campaigns across numerous channels and platforms would necessitate the use of appropriate procedures and tools.”
“Investing in smart(er) technology will enable marketers to obtain a competitive advantage over their competitors, as well as businesses and brands to be more nimble and agile in their marketing,” Atzori continued.
Humans, according to Brad Geddes, Co-Founder of Adalysis, are still better at strategy, empathy, insights, and prior knowledge than machines. Both camps appear to be merging as a result of Google’s enormous automation drive.
“Advertisers should utilise some automation, but keep in mind that Google is horrible at certain aspects of automation, and there are places where a human is plainly superior,” Geddes added. “This year should be a ‘catch-up’ year for the various groups, in which they learn to integrate human brilliance, insights, and strategy.”
The most successful B2B advertisers are already laser-focused on providing the right content to the right audience at the right time – and leveraging automation to do so, according to Melissa Mackey, Paid Search Manager, MerkleB2B.
“For both sponsored search and paid social, it’s time to get started on identifying consumers, providing a diversity of content, developing distinct advertising, and adopting automation,” Mackey added.
Should you fight automation or collaborate with it?
“In 2022, successful PPC advertisers will learn how to implement automated layering to stay in charge of modern PPC,” said Frederick Vallaeys, Optmyzr’s Co-Founder and CEO.
2. First-Party Data
Another trend that experts predict is that “continued support for privacy will make getting first-party data something businesses should be focused on,” according to Amalia Fowler, Instructor, BCIT & Google Ads consultant, Good AF Consulting.
In 2022, according to Sean Johnston, VP of Digital Advertising at Closed Loop, the integration of first-party data with advertising platforms will become even more important for digital marketers.
“Since the dawn of digital marketing, we’ve relied on pixels, tags, and cookies for marketing attribution,” Johnston explained. “However, now that businesses such as Apple and Google are beginning to limit the use of these tracking technologies in the name of consumer privacy, we must prepare for a future without them.” As a result, the importance of first-party data, particularly the ability to combine it with ad networks, will be critical to maintaining and improving digital marketing initiatives.”
Privacy will continue to be a top priority for our industry, according to Kimberly Shah, Senior Account Executive, Microsoft Advertising.
“With iOS14’s cookie tracking improvements and Chrome’s deprecation of third-party cookies looming on the horizon, additional publishers will certainly start to follow suit,” Shah said. “The reality of a 3P cookieless world is rapidly approaching, and in order to assure a successful entry into this world in 2022, it will be critical to heavily strategize, invest in, and test first-party data sources and begin to integrate these across all of your marketing channels holistically.”
Smart marketers should learn how to go “old school” with their targeting while employing current technologies, according to Jeff Ferguson, Partner, Amplitude Digital.
“Expect a significant change to more contextual targeting possibilities, but one that is more up to date than what we had at the start of the century,” Ferguson said. “Machine learning and other technologies will be on every marketer’s mind as they try to rebuild their first-party data in order to reclaim some of the targeting they had previously.”
3. Audience Targeting & Segmentation
According to Brooke Osmundson, Senior Director Client Strategy at NordicClick Interactive, you must ensure that your brands appear when your target users are online, not only when they are looking.
“Audience attributes will be even more crucial to capture and target our audience, with less emphasis on keywords, given the other announcement in how Broad and Phrase match keywords are being classed,” Osmundson added. “To summarise: fewer keywords, a larger audience, and a better goal.”
9Rooftops’ VP Search, Jonathan A. Kagan, concurred.
“As more’smart’ programmes roll out, the traditional digital levers we advertisers control are decreasing. This implies companies must emphasis on the most critical aspects of audience targeting and segmentation over which they still have influence.”
4. Responsive Search Ads
Google’s Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) will be phased out by 2022 as the company pushes all marketers to use Responsive Search Ads (RSAs).
According to Pauline Jakober, Founder & CEO of Group Twenty Seven, “advertisers who have already had RSAs live will be ahead of the game.” “They’ll have procedures in place for developing and managing these advertising, as well as performance data and metrics on which to base their decisions.”
“Advertisers who haven’t integrated RSAs in their ad groups yet should do so immediately,” she added. “RSAs necessitate a different strategy than ETAs, one that is backed by sound procedures and strategies for developing complete, focused messaging.”
Tinuiti’s Head of Paid Search, Aaron Levy, agreed.
“ETAs are on their way out, albeit they’ve been dead for a while because practically everything in the search engine world is responsive in some way.”
According to Amy Hebdon, Founder of Paid Search Magic, “it’s all about designing the greatest advertisements for your audience, not for Google.”
“Google has made it clear that RSAs are the ad format of the future. Even if Google warns you about ‘low ad strength,’ don’t be scared to pin and control your advertisements,” Hebdon advised.
5. Testing
With the end of enlarged text advertisements approaching, Amy Bishop, owner of Cultivative and a digital marketing consultant, advises customers to test, test, test.
“Test ETAs for as long as you can – and consider adding in extra variations for subsequent testing once they’re no longer possible to develop,” Bishop advised. “Also, try Responsive Search Ads (RSAs).” “Experiment with different messages and different ways of pinning certain elements of the ad.”
MightyHive Consulting Manager Ilya Cherepakhin wants marketers to reconsider copy testing.
“Perhaps the most impactful trend we observe in sponsored search is the transition to ad creative automation,” Cherepakhin added. “Not only does this have an impact on the tactical and technical parts of campaign management, but it also has an impact on any omnichannel marketer’s paid search and digital marketing strategy.”
“Rather than testing performance variations based on a few words, advertisers will need to think wider and focus on advertising that test concepts and phrases related to intent rather than individual words,” Cherepakhin said.
According to Robyn Johnson, CEO and Founder of Marketplace Blueprint, testing is applicable to Amazon advertising.
“Amazon advertisers should focus on ensuring that they are testing the new ad kinds and placements. Multiple match types/placements are being tested, as well as diverse ad products such as Sponsored Display, Sponsored Brands Video, and in some cases Amazon DSP.”
6. Diversification
“If PPC marketers want to be more successful, they must assist the brands they work with in looking beyond sponsored advertisements…” Take Some Risk, says Duane Brown, CEO and Head of Strategy. “Making ensuring the brand you’re working on has established other marketing channels such as PR, SEO, affiliate marketing, and even email marketing is more vital than it has ever been.”
“Neither paid ads nor these other marketing channels function in a vacuum,” he noted, “and the more ways you can expand your brand through channel diversifications, the more stable your business and brand will be.”
According to Akville DeFazio, President of AKvertise, this means searching beyond platforms you’re familiar with.
“Many of us became accustomed to and depended on what particular channels, such as Facebook, had to give and how it affected the bottom line,” DeFazio added. “If you haven’t already, look at what TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Quora, Pinterest, and other ad platforms have to offer, as they, too, have expanded and can be profitable.”
Tim Jensen, Clix Marketing’s Campaign Manager, concurred.
“While competent marketers will continue to develop ways to track as much data as possible,” Jensen said, “those that shift to looking more holistically at ROI data across the board are likely to have the most success.” “Diversification across various channels will become increasingly important, since marketers have seen one-channel success stories vanish overnight as a result of these developments.”
7. Be Ready For Anything
Marketers should be prepared for anything, according to Vallaeys.
Why? Because we haven’t yet returned to a predictable epoch.
He predicts that advertisers will need to be nimble in 2022, taking full advantage of all the flexibility that search marketing has to offer.
“Keep an eye on your data for any anomalies,” Vallaeys said. “Use your own tools and automations to keep things running smoothly when a colleague is suddenly unavailable, and have a campaign structure that is flexible enough to enable changing the path when business data demands it.”
