With 2018 being a huge year for the PPC marketing world, we saw some big changes such as updates to the AdWords mobile apps, AdWords being rebranded as Google Ads, arrival of LinkedIn profile targeting, other features of Bing Ads, or the over all ban of cryptocurrency ads, 2019 with its arrival has a lot in store for PPC marketers.
The major PPC trends in 2019 that can be predicted are:
Audience over Keywords
Relying on keywords and text ads won’t be as useful as it was earlier. Google is now more focused on user intent. Aaron Levy of Elite SEM believes 2019 will be the year the keyword dies, as advertisers shift their focus away from match types and terms towards context of people. But the statement is not all true for many just yet as keywords are still essential but with google updating its exact match algorithm to include close variants of keywords, we can surely feel the shift towards audience targeted search network.
AI and machine learning
Shifting from paid search campaigns to artificial intelligence, Google’s AI is taking over bidding keyword expansion, ad extensions and ad creations. Even though it is a work in progress and not yet there where it should be AI and machine learning is the next big thing. Right now machines are in the learning process and knows less than advertisers about products, trends and industries so, Google ads need to be directed in the most profitable way.
Refining negative keywords lists is also essential as well as guiding the audience to the exact product or service they are looking for.
Smart Bidding
An automated bid strategy, smart bidding uses machine learning to optimize conversations in auctions. Smart bidding strategies will grow in 2019. Ben Woods, digital director, Hallam, expects Google ads to continue to improve their built-in automation features. For advertisers to use automated bidding strategies in campaigns and increase the number of data points used in bidding strategies, google emphasizes on placing ads that work for everyone.
Growth in voice searches
As user behavior is changing just as Google Ads is, people are focused on their voice and less on typing and google did not fail to understand that. Alexa and google home being adapted, detailed and voice-oriented searches are going to be relied upon. For optimizing voice searches industries need to be updated with long- tail keywords and short ad copies.
Emergence of Visual Searches
With the growth of voice search, visual search is not far behind. Visual searches
Require exact pictures to be taken as the search query. Planning to build and incorporate videos into one’s strategies, increases placement on search engine result pages (SERPs). If not paid ads in the form of videos, one can use YouTube as an audience target for their search campaigns.
As a whole, various marketers are coming up with strategies for PPC. These points listed above are just the tip of the iceberg and you can expect a lot more trends and techniques to follow or be created in 2019.