PPC Trends In 2022: What To Look For

Today we are covering PPC in 2022. We will be briefly discussing why PPC is important (as well as a quick explanation of the field for newcomers), and then diving into PPC trends in 2022 you should prepare for. 

Keep this post as a handy guide when creating your ad campaigns this year. PPC is a great way to grow your business, but it helps to be ready for certain trends!

What Is PPC And Why Is It Important

PPS stands for “pay per click.” This is a type of internet marketing in which an advertiser only pays a fee when one of their ads is actually clicked. This is opposed to most online advertising in which you will pay for the amount of times your ad is shown.

The obvious example here is search engine advertising. Advertisers will bid on certain keywords and then, depending on the competition, might be given the top ad spot on certain Google searches.

PPC is important for the brands that use it because it’s a way of cutting down costs while also getting a return on their investment. Think about it. If you pay 1,000 dollars for your ad to be shown a certain amount of times, that’s no guarantee that you’re actually going to see a return. Maybe your ad isn’t formatted the right way. Maybe the copy isn’t convincing enough, or the ad creative you use isn’t appealing. If you aren’t implementing PPC, you’re still paying for an under optimized ad.

Not so with PPC. PPC guarantees that the only thing you pay for are actual clicks on your ad. While this is no guarantee of success (your landing page and offer that a prospect sees after clicking on your ad still need to be good enough), it’s certainly more effective than other models. 

PPC Trends In 2022

1) AI and automation

Like so many other things in online marketing, PPC will also be influenced by automation. Essentially, AI will be used by experts to:

• Stop low performing ads and priortize the ones with the best results
• Generate ads (complete with copy) automatically based on the the behavior of web users
• Calculate which keywords are the cheapest to bid on and will get the best results for a company

While effective PPC will still involve human touch, expect AI and automation to play a bigger role in 2022. Give this guide a read for more background on the topic.

2) Video ads

Video has continued its upward trend and will only get stronger in 2022. While PPC has historically shown only text and pictures, expect this to change in the coming year. After all, more and more people are consuming video. 

For example, 82% of all business and consumer Internet traffic will come from video content. Simply put, if you are ignoring video in your PPC strategy, you are missing out. In order to adapt to this trend, there are a couple of things you might try in your PPC strategy:

• Link to products during video ads
• Incorporate Instagram Stories to reach a larger audience
• Start diving into the potential of virtual reality in the marketing of the future

3) Voice search

Just like video, the use of voice search continues to rise among consumers. People are doing more Google and shopping searches through voice than ever before, and the trend will only continue. What exactly this means for PPC? 

• Natural language. When using voice searches, people use more conversational language. This usually results in more words and longer search phrases. For PPC, then, short-tail keywords might not be very effective.
• Question based. Related to the natural way people use language when voice searching is the fact that they search questions more often. For example, when looking for a pizza place via text search, a person might type “Best pizza place near me.” Voice search? “What is the best place close to me?” Small differences, but they might make all the difference.
• Mobile first. The majority of voice searches are done via mobile. This makes it important to create PPC ads that are optimized to be viewed on phones. Don’t forget this one; at this point, the majority of searches are done on a phone!

4) SEO

While SEO is nothing new, it’s one of the PPC trends in 2022 you still need to take seriously. That’s because good PPC can’t stand alone, but is rather part of a bigger ecosystem. This ecosystem is built through content created to educate your audience. The way it relates to PPC is important. While relatively complex, follow this process to ensure you are running better PPC campaigns:

• Find out which of your content is the most popular. This will give you an idea into the things people enjoy hearing most about from. 
• Determine the keywords that drive traffic to these posts or videos. You can use tools like Ahrefs to understand which keywords these pieces of content rank for.
• Craft PPC campaigns around these keywords. If people are already finding your free content on this subject, you are likely to be a winner when making PPC campaigns.

Indeed, SEO and content are two sides to effective modern marketing that can’t be ignored. For a deeper dive into both topics, be sure to check out our ultimate guide to SEO as well as our ultimate guide to content marketing. These guides give you actionable tactics and advice you can implement at your company in 2022 and beyond.

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