With 2015 quickly approaching, it’s the perfect time to look back at what happened this past year. There is valuable information we can take from 2014 that we should be aware of for implementation in the coming year.
In this 2014 State of Paid Search survey, the most popular industries for PPC consist of retail, lifestyle and education. What ads are most important to those industries and what important factors should you be aware of to make sure you are making the most of them in your accounts?
Text Ads
As PPC managers, we know the importance of text ads. In fact, 97% of PPC managers categorize them as “important to very important” compared to display ads at 55% and social ads at 38%.
Text ads have been the driving force of PPC for many years. We’ve gone through the process of making them more relevant, adding extensions and regular optimizations. For these reasons along with overall better performance, they remain supreme over display and social ads for most accounts.
Important Factors With Search Ads
Keywords: At the core of PPC, advertisers bid on keywords that correlate back to what users search. Different bids will help determine which position your ads will appear on the search engine results page.
Ad Extensions: These extensions allow for text ads to occupy additional real estate. A benefit of utilizing extensions is that they can now help improve quality scores.
Search Partners: These sites partner with Google and can help increase conversions and improve cost per conversion by reaching an untapped audience.
Display Ads
Although display ads fell into second place, they have a number of unique advantages. While search ads are great for reaching potential customers with a clear intent who are further along in the buying cycle, they are plain text, making it difficult to stand out. Display allows advertisers to create more appealing ads, increase brand awareness, and extend their reach to new potential customers to which they may not normally interact. They have a very broad reach including YouTube, Blogger, Gmail and 2 million plus websites.
Important Factors With Display Ads
Placements: The most common Display Network option is to let your ads be automatically placed on sites based upon your targeting selections, however, if there are highly relevant or top converting domains, advertisers can add these specific sites as managed placements.
Image Ads: Advertisers can get creative with their ads and really resonate with their target audience.
Remarketing: Another advantage is the ability to reach users who previously visited your site but did not take a desired action or conversion. Additionally, you can target users who did convert in an effort to upsell.
Download the entire 2014-2015 State of Paid Search right now!
Social Ads
Social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are becoming increasingly significant. According to the survey, 57% fewer people said that social ads were unimportant compared to 2013.
Important Factors With Social Ads
Content: Reframe content to suit your audience. Each time you post a piece of content slightly reframe it so you’re not being repetitive.
Specific Offers: Ad copy should always reference a specific offer (e.g. free trial, demo, white paper) as the reader should know precisely what they are getting when clicking on the ad. Avoid more generic calls to action such as “Learn More,” when it comes to social.
Interest Targeting: This type of targeting makes it easier to get impressions, but engagement rates will likely be lower compared to keyword targeting. Interest targeting enables you to target followers of specific handles, which may be of particular appeal to certain advertisers.
