PPC Trends & Changes For 2020

As Blue Monday approaches, why not brighten your week with our PPC predictions for 2020. We look at how your customers can complete your contact form quicker, how voice search is impacting keyword strategies and alternative advertising platforms. Happy January, and Happy New Year everyone!

New Lead Form Extensions

Google Ads is testing a new type of extension in Search, allowing you to feature lead forms in your ads. They show beneath your search ad on mobile and tablet devices, and allows users to provide their contact information without leaving the SERPs. The motivation behind this new extension was to improve mobile advertising - mobile conversion rates are lower than on desktop. This may be due to the screen being smaller so your ad falls off the screen quicker, internet connection less reliable, or website navigability faltering (ever tried to fill out a contact form on your phone?!). The new lead form extensions jump out to users on the SERPs and make your search ad larger, grabbing their attention and helping users to convert faster. In addition, for those searchers that are already signed into their Google account, their lead form will be pre-populated with their contact information and can simply convert with one click.

New Ways Of Searching: Voice & Visual

With the proliferation of voice search through smartphones and personal assistants like Alexa or Google Home, marketers have related this trend throughout their paid media efforts, with nearly half of searches predicted to be voice searches. Whilst we haven’t seen paid search within voice, there are still ways to prepare for this trend, such as understanding how people might search for your brand in a conversational way. For example, rather than using an exact match keyword [cinema near me] to pick up users looking for the closest cinema, someone using voice search might say “what is the closest cinema to me”. Adjust your keywords to make them long-tailed and colloquial. Visual search allows users to search using a picture, rather than text, making searching easier for those who want quick answers or don’t know how to describe what they are looking for. Once an image has been taken, related products or similar images appear in the SERPs. This feature is still new, however could advance further in 2020, with Instagram and Pinterest launching visual search settings. This is one to watch for product-based eCommerce companies who use Google Shopping, for example clothing brands or homeware shops.

Alternative Platforms

Amazon Ads For retail businesses, this could be huge. Similar to Google Shopping, users type in a keyword in the search box, results appear and some of the top results will be the paid ads, with ‘sponsored’ next to it. Ads can also appear on individual product pages, both to the side of the product and below, by the reviews. TikTokTikTok, a video-sharing social networking service, launched in early 2019 with a beta version of ads. The app allows users, and now advertisers, to edit and share short videos with pre-loaded filters and music. Big brands like Nike, Apple and the NBA have promoted products with campaigns that differentiate and capture the younger demographics attention. It was the second-most downloaded app in 2019, beating Facebook, Instagram and YouTube - sitting only behind WhatsApp. Definitely one to watch in 2020. InstagramAs Facebook's traffic depletes, its investment into new Instagram advertising increases, with particular targeting of younger audiences. Instagram's new Checkout options allows users to buy products through Instagram, after swiping through relevant products to their preferences. E-Commerce products, particularly D2C brands, should prepare for this format (it's currently only available in organic posts, but should be available as an ad soon).

Rising CPCs

A trend that is certainly notwelcome by marketers in 2020 is the inevitable rising CPCs, particularly on Google Search. As SERPs are lacking space to monetise, this increases competition and pushes CPCs higher. Organic listings will fall further down the page, and those with larger budgets will increase their ad spend, thus driving up costs for everyone else. So those are our predictions, trends, tips and tricks for PPC in 2020. Check back in December and let's see what's changed, what we nailed and what curve balls came our way this leap year.