PPC aka Pay Per Click is a form of paid advertising and when set up effectively can help your business secure those all-important additional sales by reaching the right people when they are actively searching. You will need a Google Ads account in order to set up, manage and analyse your ad campaigns. Sounds fairly simple so far right?
We’ve tried to make your life a little easier here at Carrick Create and have included some of the trends our PPC experts have revealed you need to be watching out for in 2021 to get the most out of your PPC advertising.
So, what can you expect to see this year?
Remarketing
Remarketing is not new when it comes to advertising. It’s much easier to convert someone that is already familiar/ interested or has already interacted with your business than it is someone who has never heard of you before. Remarketing Ads should form a big part of your PPC strategy in 2021. Google offers the ability to run some real sophisticated ad campaigns so It’s a good idea to delve a little deeper into remarketing. When it comes to setting up these campaigns you need to plan a strategy, particularly if you want to get really specific and target people who have interacted with certain products and pages as opposed to a one size fits all approach.
Top Tip – you will need a tracking code on your website to be able to place cookies on the browsers of those landing on your website.
Automation
Automating certain aspects can not only increase your ROI but also save you that things we all seem to run out of… time. Here are some of three crucial things that you can select to automate within your campaign and ad account.
- Bid Strategy – get the most out of your budget
- Dynamic Search Ads – let Google run the text combinations that are most likely to convert
- Email Updates – set up conditions to be alerted to important campaign news so you know when to make an adjustment.
Longtail Keywords
When it comes to deciding on your keywords for your campaign you need to put some thought into this. This year it’s expected that there’s going to be more of a focus on longtail keywords. Typically, many advertisers opted to target generic keywords believing that this would open them up to a wider audience, however, in doing that comes greater competition making it much more difficult to get your ad to the top!
Long tail keywords although might have a smaller audience reach the cost per click is likely to be smaller meaning your campaign will be more cost effective. Plus, if you’re getting specific with your keyword targeting it’s likely that your ad is going to be really relevant to the user typing in the search query. Compare this to a more generic keyword approach that lacks specifics, yes you might be reaching a wider audience, however, this wider audience could be less likely to convert as your content isn’t specifically suited to their needs.
Take the search term “lose weight” for example and then compare this with the search phrase “lose weight by cardio” … you know exactly what those searching the longer phrase are looking for and can tailor your ad accordingly to resonate with them and increase your chance of conversion.
Video Ads
It’s been no secret that video is beginning to dominate across a lot of the digital channels and it seems like that’s going to be the case for PPC too. Trends across social media are showing that users are much more likely to interact and take action from video content than they are with text posts. With this in mind, video ads need to be incorporated into your digital ad strategy.
These videos can be shown as different ads but can only be shown on YouTube. Google allows you to choose from in stream ads, non-skippable ads, outstream ads, discovery ads and bumper ads… so it’s worth researching which is right for your business and your target audience.
Voice Search
Okay, this is going to be huge! We’re becoming a nation that has almost become too lazy to type or quite simply, enjoy the ease of speaking our question or search query as it’s often quicker than typing and convenient when you’re on the go. Just think with popularity of software like SIRI and ALEXA, there are a lot of people opting to search using their voice. By the end of 2020 its predicted that 50% of searches will be voice! So, in addition to the other important factors, you need to consider when building your PPC campaign in 2021, here’s something else you need to be considering, otherwise you could be losing a lot of opportunity for sales!
So, what does this mean for your PPC campaign?
You need to be thinking conversation when it comes to setting up your ad campaigns, how would users typically ask questions by speaking them. Question centric phrases are a great place to start. Make sure that your ad copy answers the questions that they have likely asked in their conversational manner.
Top Tip – utilise extensions when it comes to voice campaigns! Add the call extension so that users can call your business with ease.
Putting it all into practice
Google Ads can be incredible at helping you grow your business by getting your content in front of the right people if you have the right advertising strategy. Whilst the support you can get from Google can be pretty useful if you have time to sit down and sift through your account with them, running a profitable campaign can be confusing and time consuming if you’re not quite sure what you’re doing. However, it’s important to remember, any Ad Campaign can dry up your budget pretty quickly if not managed correctly, so if at any point you’re doubting yourself it’s best to check in with the experts.