17 PPC Trends for 2023

1. PPC Automation

PPC automation has emerged as a powerful way to improve campaign performance. Companies like Google have invested huge amounts into fleshing out their automation options.

To make the most of PPC automation, you need to help the algorithms work to your benefit and assist the machines with their learning. Set up accurate and effective conversion tracking and write good ad copy. Make sure you identify target audiences and keywords.

Pass a lot of the work to the machines and save yourself time and money. Even though you’re automating a lot of the work, you don’t want to be completely hands-off. There have been improvements, but not every option is good for your business. With some hands-on management, automation can free up your time allowing you to focus your efforts elsewhere.

2. Artificial Intelligence

By 2030, artificial intelligence is expected to have a major impact on the world. By implementing AI in your PPC campaign you can predict future ad CTRs, identify the bids that will get the most traffic, and analyze a customer’s likelihood of converting. By learning your audience’s behavior, you can create more targeted ads to help your PPC campaigns.

3. Evolution of Smart Bidding

Smart Bidding is a machine learning-controlled automated bidding system. It uses machine learning to optimize conversions and conversion values in auctions. Some examples include Enhanced Cost-Per-Click (CPC), Target Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA), and Target Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS).

As we move into 2023, smart bidding is only going to become more powerful, and strategies utilizing it are set to become more prevalent. We could actually see manual bidding become a relic of the past! This won’t be a bad thing, as it will allow marketers to focus on areas like analytics and strategy.

4. Amazon’s Emergence into Paid Advertising

While Google and Facebook still dominate paid advertising, Amazon is nipping at their heels. They are now the third-largest and fastest-growing advertiser. Amazon ads are displayed on and off of Amazon, which has skyrocketed its popularity with online retailers.

The other reason they’ve grown in popularity? Buyer intent. It’s the largest advantage they have over Facebook and Google.

Facebook and Google give access to the largest audiences but users aren’t usually looking to buy something. When compared to Amazon’s perceived buyer intent, this could mean lower conversion rates on these platforms. This means you could be spending more for less.

5. Going Social

Around 70% of people check at least one social media platform a month and these numbers are growing. If you are ignoring social media in your PPC strategies, you are missing out.

Most people are checking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest daily. Many of these demographics are on multiple platforms, especially younger people.

This means that PPC marketers will be focusing on ads for social media platforms. Since most people use several social media platforms, you’ll want to cash in on this multi-platform trend. Facebook and Google are still the bread and butter of paid advertising but you should look to expand your horizons in 2023.

6. Audience Targeting

One of the latest features of Google Ads is the ability to add target audiences. This narrows down who you want to see your ads. Taking advantage of this feature allows you to get the most out of your ad budget.

Audience targeting allows you to specify things like the age group or household income that your product is targeted at. You can even set ad preferences to exclude audiences that you don’t think your service appeals to. For instance, if you sell fine jewelry, you might exclude people with incomes less than $100,000 per year because they will be less likely to spend big bucks on a necklace or earrings.

The latest Google Ads updates also gave advertisers the ability to layer audiences on top of each other. This means you can use keyword targeting and demographic targeting together to create extremely relevant ads.

7. Ads Data Hub

Ads Data Hub will provide a more comprehensive reporting and measurement to help clients understand how effective their ads are across screens. This is helpful because Google announced that it will no longer allow third-party pixel tracking on YouTube because of security concerns.

8. Bumper Video Ads

When it comes to mobile content, video is king and it will continue dominating the market in 2023. In fact, search engine marketers without video experience are finding themselves behind those who do. Video ads are great for business reach, and aesthetic appeal and are relatively low cost.

With the recent introduction of the bumper machine from YouTube, Google’s latest video marketing tool, you can turn videos that are shorter than 90 seconds into a variety of bumper ads ready for display on the YouTube network.

Platforms are going to encourage advertisers to adapt to things like Google’s vertical video ads. Even if you don’t want to pay for video advertising, YouTube or similar video hosting sites are an excellent target for your search campaigns.

9. The Rise of Voice Search

Smart homes and personal assistant speakers such as Cortana, Siri, and Alexa have taken off in a big way.

Paid voice search advertising hasn’t yet made it to the mainstream, but due to a rise in technological changes, it’s nearly certain we will see these advancements start to emerge soon. Until then, you can get ahead with some preparation strategies.

One good strategy to get ahead of the game is to adopt a more conversational tone on your website. People are more conversational when making voice searches, so it will improve your chances of a hit. Updating FAQ pages on your website by using ‘long-tail’ keywords is another way to set yourself up for voice search success.

10. A Surge in Visual Searching

Visual search works by using a picture as the search query as opposed to text. For example, you take a picture of a vase you like and the visual search will output links to buy it. People want results faster than ever and visual search helps people get exactly what they want faster than typing in something like “blue vase with painted white flowers”.

Check out Bing’s visual search when we took a picture of a member of TheeTeam’s glasses:

We have already seen Pinterest and Instagram launch products in the visual search arena. Amazon has also shown the value of visual search by partnering with Snapchat.

To stay ahead of this trend, create a photo catalog of your products and services. Add metadata to the images to make sure they are categorized correctly by search engines. For example, a photo of a jade green vase would have alt text like, “small jade green vase.”

11. Collaborative Filtering

Collaborative filtering is a grouping system that groups users by shared tastes or preferences. If Bob has similar reactions to content as Sue, it is likely they could have other similar tastes. Filtering can be based on almost anything from age, interests, locations, and more to guide them to content that would appeal most.

You can see this when you Google something abroad. While Google will normally send you to google.com, if you are on vacation in the United Kingdom you will instead see google.co.uk. Google does this by checking your IP address when you search.

Collaborative filtering goes further, tailoring your content to your recent likes, browsing history, or trending topics. This allows websites to remain interesting, new, and relevant to individual users.

12. Remarketing

At its simplest, remarketing is tracking and displaying ads to users once they leave your site. It can be very targeted and personalized, making it a very effective marketing tactic. Showing people ads for things they’ve shopped for in the past, whether they actually made a purchase, tends to result in higher conversions.

Remarketing is about keeping your brand in people’s minds. Things have moved on from trying to appeal to people who are not ready to buy. The focus should be on finding out where your potential customers are in the buying cycle. Then create personalized, targeted ads that will help them decide to convert.

13. SEO and PPC Integration

PPC and search engine optimization go hand in hand. You’ll see better results when you integrate your SEO and PPC campaigns. This is a universal fact that will continue to be true in 2023 and beyond.

A good way to sync up your PPC and SEO is to analyze your top-performing ad copy. Create your content and blog posts based on that copy to boost your ranking.

You can use long-tail terms not only to boost your rankings but also in paid search bidding strategies. SEO and PPC integration allow you to target competitor’s keywords by looking at the PPC Auctions Insights Reports and more.

14. Bing, The Little Search Engine That Could

Bing is back! With its revitalized focus on ad inventory, data, and audience targeting capability, Bing has become a sleeping giant. Recently, Bing Ads rebranded itself as Microsoft Advertising. The latest numbers, as of September 2019, show that 1.3 billion people use Bing worldwide each month. In 2023, ignoring Bing could cost you money.

15. YouTube Masthead on TV Screens

YouTube racks up more than 250 million hours of watch time per day on TV, making it the fastest-growing screen for YouTube. The YouTube Masthead is a digital billboard placed on YouTube’s homepage for 24 hours, on TV screens. This allows advertisers to reach a wider audience. The Masthead will autoplay after a few seconds on all compatible devices.

16. Smart Segmentation and Google AdMob

Mobile apps are expected to generate up to $935 billion by 2023 via paid downloads and in-app advertising. Smart segmentation was launched in 2019 and allows gaming app developers to generate revenue from non-spending players. It uses machine learning to segment users based on the likelihood of them spending money within the app.

17. Alternative PPC Programs

While Facebook and Google have dominated the industry, people are spending more time on other platforms. Quora, AdRoll, and LinkedIn are just a few different platforms to consider for PPC.

PPC Marketing Strategies for a New Decade

PPC strategies are constantly evolving. If you want to stay competitive, your marketing strategies need to evolve, too.

Make sure you are always at the forefront of new technologies and best practices. Just because something worked for you last year doesn’t mean it will have as good results in the next.

Like this post? Check out our top digital marketing trends to get your business ready for 2023!