September 23, 2024
Search marketing, as well as other paid ad platforms, are witnessing technical advancement, new releases, and feature enhancements this year, making 2022 look like a promising year.
We’ve analysed 6 key areas that have seen changes and that you should focus on in the following 12 months. Whether you’re looking to optimise your existing campaigns or simply refresh your strategy, continue scrolling– we promise some useful insights.
Yes, ad platforms continue to roll out automation options to allow users to simplify the ad setup and management. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. You need to guide and monitor automation in order to maximise results.
For example, smart bidding strategies need to be consistently under supervision, so you can review target CPA and target ROAS every now and then.
When building your PPC strategy, try to understand what components of your account and campaigns can be automated, then monitor performance and evaluate results to understand where you need to adjust. You can also compare your results with results from previous manually set up campaigns and analyse the differences.
The tracking in ad and analytics platforms is getting more sophisticated every year, which means advertisers can track actions in more detail. Some common PPC conversion goals include:
- Transactions
- Form submissions
- Demo requests
- Phone calls
- Geo actions, such as getting directions
- Custom goals
- Etc.
Go back to your campaign strategy and revise your goals. Are you measuring and tracking everything that can be measured and tracked? Does every goal you set up have a value? How do your campaigns connect with each other and have you set up the appropriate goals for each campaign?
The new changes in the keyword match function will force you to revise your strategy.
Broad match modifier has been discontinued, and some of the other match types have suffered some changes too. We would advise you to revisit your old campaigns and give them a serious keyword strategy reboot.
Reviewing ad copy is a never-ending process. But this is particularly important in 2022, now that formats such as ‘expanded text ads’ are being phased out.
Google Ads is moving towards Responsive Search Ads. This format features up to 15 headlines and four descriptions that are mixed and matched in various configurations. The machine learning component will then help the asset combination that has the best performance. You can also"pin" two or more ad elements to indicate that a certain asset should be served. But make sure you don’t overuse pins, as Google doesn’t necessarily rate them very high.
If you’re already using Responsive Search Ads, go ahead and review the ad component ratings to see if any "poor" or "average"assets can be replaced with fresh creative that is similar to the"outstanding" components.
Responsive display ads can increase reach while also simplifying the creative process and ensuring that marketers get the branding messages they seek. They also simplify the creative process while also increasing the amount of inventory available on the display network. This is because they "fit" any location on the web where your audience is present by dynamically combining headlines, descriptions, and images.
Static image display advertising, on the other hand, can only be served in the exact ad space dimensions for which they were designed.
Another benefit of responsive display advertising is that they allow you to adjust ad assets using Google Ads performance feedback. Moreover, it can be used in conjunction with any picture display ad, giving you the ability to experiment.
