Upcoming PPC Trends for 2023

Does your plan for marketing in 2023 include improving the effectiveness of your PPC Google ads? If so, you need to know how to take advantage of new PPC trends for 2023. Like everything tech, PPC ads continue to evolve in quality and effectiveness. Let’s take a look at PPC ad trends for 2023.

1. PPC Automation

Automation is emerging as an exciting way to boost your Google ads campaign results. Google has invested in driving performance in their PPC automation, giving you several options. When using PPC automation, you need to provide the algorithms with the information they need to effectively use machine learning. Good ad copy is crucial in combination with accurate conversion tracking and identifying keywords and your target audience.

Using PPC automation means fewer hours of work for you that you can use elsewhere in your business. But Google ads automation can’t replace humans quite yet. While machine learning is improving, you should still check in on your account regularly to ensure the best use of your ad budget.

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence seems to be popping up everywhere all of the sudden. But in truth, it’s been in the works for quite some time. According to Faster Solutions,

Experts expect AI to help the economy reach a whopping $15.7 trillion by 2030, boosting PPC campaigns in the following ways:

• Help optimize keywords and ads after a certain event, such as your CPC (cost-per-click) falling below a certain amount
• Determine the performance of ads with regards to quality scores
• Analyze the bids likely to achieve maximum traffic
• Predict the CTR (click-through-rate) for future ads, hence, enhancing future PPC campaigns

You can see AI at work if you’re using Amazon ads for your PPC campaign. AI helps you provide diagnostic data, optimize for long-tail keywords, and automatic bidding.

3. Smart Bidding

Smart bidding is an automated bidding system that uses machine learning to optimize conversion values in auctions. Optimizing conversion values includes looking at Target Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS), Target Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA), and Enhanced Cost-Per-Click (CPC).

As we get closer to 2023, you will see more use of smart bidding, and the percentage of smart bidding in marketing strategies sky-rocketing.

4. Additional PPC Platforms

With recent changes to Google’s tracking and collection of website visitor data, marketers will have fewer clues to work with when creating ads for PPC.

Diversifying your marketing platforms is a good solution to this issue. Google isn’t the only search engine and PPC isn’t restricted to search engines. Incorporating Microsoft Ads in your strategy for 2023 will help you reach about 1/3 more search engine traffic that Google doesn’t.

5. What about Amazon?

As mentioned above, Google isn’t the only PPC game in town. In the past, Google and Facebook have dominated the advertising market. But Amazon is coming up as a close third. One of the advantages of using Amazon is that their ads show up both on and off the Amazon platform. That is a huge benefit for marketers.

Buyer intent, or buyer and purchasing intent, is another reason to use Amazon. People tend to search on Amazon when looking for something to buy. That’s not necessarily true for Facebook and Google.

6. Optimizing for Mobile

Did you know that 70% of paid search impressions occur on mobile devices? 

People with smartphones generally keep them at hand throughout the day, using them for a lot more than making phone calls. As growth in mobile device usage continues, so does the amount of searches for day-to-day information. It’s just as important to consider mobile devices when budgeting for paid advertising as it is to make your website mobile-friendly.

7. Streaming vs. TV

The use of streaming to watch TV shows and movies is increasing rapidly with the events of the last two years accelerating that trend. That means that fewer customers are watching traditional TV. In 2020, traditional cable TV providers lost over 6 million paying customers.

Those customers are turning to streaming and YouTube instead, which means you are gaining an increasing market of potential customers via PPC ads. The addition of YouTube Masthead, a digital billboard on YouTube’s homepage, is another way to extend your reach to new customers in 2023.

8. Voice Search

Voice search, which used to seem like something we only saw on The Jetsons, is already in use through Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Cortana. You don’t have to live in a Smart House to search for TV shows, movies, or answers to questions using voice commands. Voice search is beneficial, especially in certain situations like if you are in the middle of a messy project like cooking or crafts.

According to The Street, about 50% of consumers will turn to voice search in 2023. Consider these facts:

• Voice search is available on many devices but is primarily used on mobile devices
• Users apply more natural language when using voice search, so short-tail keywords are less useful
• Voice queries tend to start with question words

9. Video Bumper Ads

With the increase of mobile usage, video views are surging, and will continue this trend in 2023. This means it’s time to add video bumper ads to your marketing strategy. Video ads are effective for both B2B and B2C marketing.

A new tool from Google, the Bumper Machine on YouTube, gives you the ability to turn short videos, under 90 seconds, into a range of bumper ads to display on the YouTube network. Even if you don’t have the budget for paid video ads right now, you can still host your videos on YouTube and drive traffic to them from traditional search campaigns.

10. Audience Targeting

Determining your ideal audience is nothing new to marketers. However, fine-tuning how to target them is always a challenge. Facebook advertisers have had the advantage of choosing their audiences with precision for some time.

However, Google has recently added the ability to target audiences to their ad repertoire. This ability helps you use your budget more efficiently, getting your ads in front of people who are already interested in your service.

You can now target categories such as household income, age, and even exclude audiences that don’t shop for your product. Marketers can now layer audiences on top of each other, combining keyword and demographic targeting.

Are You Ready?

Are you ready to work with an expert in PPC advertising services to maximize your budget in 2023? Or do you feel a bit overwhelmed by all of these changes? In either case, discussing your PPC budget with an expert who can work with you is very helpful.