The end of the year is coming up fast and I’m guessing you’re probably in the middle of figuring out next year’s budget. It’s definitely one of your favorite things to do this time of year…right? right???
Yeah, we get it! To help ease the stress of next year’s planning and give you some guidance on where you could be spending your digital dollars, I’ll lay down some of the data we collected from this year’s State of PPC Survey. Download the full report for FREE here .
Some stats to think about:
- 62% of marketers will increase their PPC budgets in the next 12 months, while 35% will keep budgets the same
- Compared to 12 months ago, 68% of brands said that their PPC budget is bigger, with 18% saying that it’s MUCH BIGGER
- Respondents from agencies claim that 67% of their clients have bigger PPC budgets than 12 months ago and only 3% have smaller budgets.
Quick snapshot of how budgets look compared to 2017.
Platforms continue to dish out a rich buffet of ad types and placement choices – some more expensive than others. CPCs are pretty cheap on Instagram right now, but that will only get more expensive as time goes on and more advertisers jump on the bandwagon. That goes with any network. It’s important to carefully choose one platform that makes sense for your business to expand in and start testing now. It’s only going to benefit you in the long run.
Channels marketers are planning to increase their digital dollars in for the next 12 months.
Despite controversy surrounding Facebook this year, marketers haven’t been deterred in spending money in the platform and it looks like next year won’t be any different.
Amazon only came in at a 17% increase, but a lot of that is due to the fact that not all marketers who answered the survey are ecommerce. It was announced recently that Amazon is now the 3rd largest ad platform after Google and Facebook. If you aren’t advertising on Amazon or working with them in some way – you should be. Even though their UI is still pretty shaky, we know firsthand that the platform is working hard to improve it and develop more valuable features.
If video advertising is on the docket for next year, then social platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Linkedin (depending on who you want to target) should also have dollars assigned to them. Hanapin has been testing out the video ad format in Linkedin for our brands and we’ve had some decent success with it. If you are a B2B company, I would recommend trying it out!
Historically, in YouTube, video advertising hasn’t been actionable, optimizable, or measurable against direct response objectives. However, the platform is rolling out lead ads and overall taking deliberate steps to make video advertising more direct response focused. We think this will become a major area of focus for advertisers in 2019 (Especially for EDU, which, SPOILER ALERT, we’re releasing a specific industry report soon for education marketers!!! Subscribe to our content newsletter here if you want to be one of the first to get it)
Programmatic is another area to consider and worth it, if you have the budget for it. It is the next wave in the industry that will continue to grow and adapt. This channel’s targeting capabilities are in line with Google, making it familiar and comfortable, however the reach is greater. There are also capabilities outside what you can accomplish with Google (audio, more video, apps), which means it is essential to understand how these things translate to brand growth and loyalty, not just direct response.
Download the free State of PPC Report
This is just a brief look at the trends and benchmarks you’ll find in our newly released State of PPC report, but I hope this post gives you some guidance in the fun-not-so-fun area of budget planning. If you’re wanting a more technical sheet to use to play around with your budgets in, read this whitepaper on How To Use Excel Solver to Power Your Budgeting, by former employee now at Google, Jacob Brown.
