Hi, I’m Dave, Head of PPC at Passion Digital, and I’m here to share my top three PPC trends for 2020.

Automation

The first trend is automation. I think this has been a hot topic for at least the last three years. There’s so much availability when it comes to automation tools and script within Google Ads. I think people are going to become more and more reliant on them this year, especially as more and more data is being provided by these platforms.

With the amount of data available to us within platforms, automation in some form is a must for any agency or company running PPC activity.

Video

The second trend is video, especially YouTube videos. A lot of changes have been made on YouTube, such as around the recent sitelink extensions that have been provided within the videos. This is definitely something people need to take more advantage of, as YouTube is the second biggest search engine out there. People use it more and more, and there’s a lot more engagement on it. Having video content or utilising the options within site links is important.

Audience Segmentation

I think audience segmentation is a big part of PPC. Combining that with your search keywords means there will be a lot more audience availability. Google recently released options to target users by company size, Bing use LinkedIn data to target users.

I think there’s going to be a lot more availability of audiences to target users within Search campaigns, as well as in Display and on YouTube and Gmail.

Do you agree or disagree with my predictions? Let me know in the comments below.

Power your site in 2020 with the help of Passion Digital’s PPC team. Get in touch to see how we can help you reach new audiences.

Remarketing is one of the most important parts of PPC (Pay Per Click). However, if you are new to the world of digital marketing, you may also be new to this concept. Have no fear – I’m Dave, Head of PPC, and I’m here to help! Come along with me on a journey to learn all about the wonderful world of remarketing, from its definition to its place within a PPC strategy.

What is Remarketing?

As its name suggests, remarketing (also known as retargeting) is marketing something to an audience a second time. To do this, a personalised ad campaign and ad copy (usually in the form of display ads) are created and shown to users who have visited your website or viewed your other content in the past.

Remarketing Explained in 3 Simple Steps

The process of remarketing is simple:

1. A user visits a website or otherwise consumes a brand’s content.
2. The user gets tagged with a cookie, which means they are added to the brand’s remarketing list.
3. The brand then launches a remarketing campaign where the user will see remarketing ads as they continue to browse the web. These ads are are shown only to users on the aforementioned list.

The purpose of remarketing is to reach out to potential customers who are already aware of your brand’s products and/or services. Ideally this will increase conversion rates for your business as you are targeting the same user multiple times. The more they see the ad, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Currently, one of the most popular remarketing tools is Google Ads.

How Do I Use Remarketing in My PPC Strategy?

Now that you know the definition of remarketing, you may be wondering how you can harness its power and incorporate it into your PPC strategy. Here are some great ways to boost your PPC campaign techniques.

Lists

There are two major platforms that allow you to build remarketing lists: Google Ads and Google Analytics. Both will allow you to target users who have visited one of your landing pages before and who fit certain criteria (you can customise this to ensure you are reaching the right demographics).

The main difference between Ads and Analytics is that the former will let you build separate lists of criteria on each of your specific landing pages, while the latter means you can build more complex rule-based lists based on channel and engagement data.

This is the most standard type of remarketing.

Video

A great new way to utilise remarketing in your PPC marketing campaign is with videos. Google Ads has a feature that allows you to show video ads to users who have visited your website or viewed videos from your YouTube channel. These ads will appear either via the Google Display Network videos or on YouTube.

Email

Do you have a list of your customers’ email addresses? Upload their emails to Google Ads as a ‘custom audience’ and while they are browsing YouTube, Gmail or Google’s search engine they will see your ads.

Search Ads

Search ads is a Google Ads feature that targets users using the Google search engine. Applying remarketing lists to search campaigns means you can re-engage previous site visitors through search ads.

Mobile Ads

This refers to targeted ads that are specifically shown on mobile apps. You can use text, images and video ads.

Bing

If Google isn’t your cup of tea and you’re hoping to conquer the Bing market, consider checking out Bing Ads. Similar to Google Ads and Google Analytics, you will be able to cultivate remarketing lists based on:

• Recent converters – Those who have recently filled out a lead form or made a purchase on your site
• Loyalty members – Current and repeat customers
• Product visitors – Users who browsed a specific product, service or page on your site
• General visitors – Any user who has visited any page on your site
• Shopping cart abandoners – Users who added a service or product to their online shopping cart but failed to either make a purchase or fill out a lead form

Remarketing is arguably the most effective addition to any PPC strategy. Consider using the above tips to make your next campaign pop – or get in touch if you want us to do it for you. Happy selling!

From PPC and SEO to content marketing and web design, we’re here for all your digital marketing needs… and if your digital marketing needs involve a new step in your career, we can help with that too! Check out our current job openings and see if you have what it takes to become a Passionista.

So it’s been about 1 month since Google decided to remove paid adverts from the right hand side of the search results pages. When this first happened our first reaction was probably the same as a many others, ‘what will happen to the cost of clicks?’

We imagined inflated click-costs and clients’ CPA’s increasing. Not to mention CTR dropping due to the ads that have since moved to the bottom of the SERPs, having next to no chance of generating any interest.

Was this a ploy for Google to make more money? We had numerous conversations amongst our PPC team about what this meant and what we should be doing to make sure our clients are ranking in the top 4 positions.

Instead of panicking and increasing bids, we opted to leave bids as they were and monitor. We pride ourselves on well built, granular account structures, utilising all of Google’s available tools to maximise quality scores. We liaise with clients to ensure that the landing pages are optimised for PPC campaigns, which has helped achieve strong PPC results month-on-month, so why change our approach now?

We trusted that Google would continue to reward quality advertisers with higher rankings, instead of favouring poor account builds with higher CPC’s.
Dave Ashbolt, Head of PPC

Since the change how has this impacted our clients? Well, so far it’s been positive across the board. The majority of accounts have seen a reduction in costs per click, while maintaining or improving ranking and comparatively increased click through rates, due to the decrease in impressions now available.

We haven’t seen conversion rates suffer either; again, some clients have actually experienced some impressive improvements.

These changes haven’t been surprising when you think about it. Advertisers always strived to rank in the top 3 positions, due to higher click through rates and a conversion being more likely to occur when occupying one of those spots.

It’s still very early days, but the initial signs have been positive for us and we haven’t experienced any of our initial fears. The next few months will give a clearer picture of the effects on PPC results and we’ll report back when we have more data!

If you’re having problems since the change or need PPC advice. Contact enquiries@passiondigital.co.uk or call 0203 4321 369

We’re extremely excited to announce that Passion Digital have helped Action Medical Research to successfully join the Google GrantsPro programme.

Charities which utilise the standard Google Ad Grants programme receive $10,000 per month of in-kind advertising from Google, completely free of charge. With the help of Passion digital, Action Medical Research (AMR) now receive $40,000 per month of in-kind advertising, following their successful application to upgrade to Google GrantsPro.

This additional advertising budget which will be invaluable in helping AMR to fund medical research to beat the diseases that devastate the lives of so many children.  They have been funding medical breakthroughs since 1952 – such as the first polio vaccines in the UK, ultrasound in pregnancy and the rubella vaccine – helping to save thousands of children’s lives and change many more.  You can read about more of AMR’s medical success stories here: action.org.uk/about-us/successes

“Passion have managed our Adwords account for a long time and have effectively steered us towards the Pro account. 

As a small charity we are always looking for greater reach and visibility to continue our work, and the Pro account will give us the ability to compete with larger charities and test more effectively, raising awareness and generating much needed income to fund vital medical research.”

Grant Ellis, Web Manager, AMR. 

Passion Digital look forward to the challenge of utilising a much larger budget to increase donations and general awareness of this much-needed charity. If you have a Google Ad Grant account and need help upgrading to the Google GrantsPro programme, please do get in touch to see where Passion Digital could help.