Over the past decade, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has been a reliable method for winning the game of digital marketing. However, nothing is constant in the field of digital marketing. Like any other industry, strategies change with each new development. PPC is no exception.

With every business still recovering from what has almost been a two-year global crisis, it’s critical to pay attention to how user behavior and media consumption have changed. Here are the top pay-per-click trends to watch out for in 2022 and how you can take advantage of them.

Enhanced AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gained a significant foothold in the world of paid marketing. Its use, particularly in pay-per-click ads, is expected to grow in the coming year. AI would drive things like the use of statistics in ad design, ad testing, and even content creation and management.

To get the most out of pay-per-click automation, you’ll need to make the algorithms work for you and help the computers learn. Conversion monitoring should be precise and effective, and strong ad text should be written. Make sure you know your target audience and what keywords they use.

You may save time and money by delegating a lot of the work to machines, but you certainly wouldn’t want to be fully hands-off, even if you’re automating a lot of work. AI can free up your time with some hands-on management, enabling you to focus your efforts elsewhere.

Smart(er) bidding

Smart Bidding is an automated bidding system that is managed by machine learning. It optimizes conversions and conversion values in pay-per-click auctions using machine learning. Enhanced Cost-Per-Click and Target Cost-Per-Acquisition are just a couple of examples.

Smart bidding will only get stronger (or smarter) as we get closer to 2022, and techniques that use it will become more common.

All things considered, it’s even possible that manual bidding may become a thing of the past! This isn’t always a negative thing because it will free up time for pay-per-click marketers to focus on things like analytics and strategy.

Increased media usage

While it seems like every paid marketing advice list has included the use of videos in the past few years, some companies and brands are still apprehensive to use video marketing. With the development of TikTok and Instagram’s announcement that it is now a video platform, however, it seems that things are about to change.

More than 85% of consumers want to watch more videos from brands, and at least 67% of companies plan to boost their video spending in 2022.

Some businesses are using the potential of longer-form original content to help them establish brand affinity, in addition to short films for social media. Investing in live streaming or explainer videos can help businesses grow their audience and educate them about their brand.

Collaborative filtering

Collaborative filtering works by categorizing individuals based on common interests or preferences. If Jack and Jill have comparable reactions to the same content, it’s likely that they have similar likings in other aspects.

Filtering may be done based on nearly anything and everything you can think of. This includes age, hobbies, and geography, which then directs the person to the most relevant material.

If you’ve tried looking up something while you’re abroad, you might have already seen how this works when the Google homepage changed to that of the country you were in. Basically, when you search for something, Google checks your IP address and matches the results with it.

Collaborative filtering takes it a step further, customizing your material based on your recent likes, browsing history, or popular subjects. This lets websites stay fresh, entertaining, and relevant to their viewers.

Voice search pay-per-click ads

Voice search, also known as voice-enabled search, is where people can look up information by speaking into their phone instead of typing into a search box. By removing the need to open a search engine web page and type a question into a search box, searching by voice saves time.

Voice search poses a concern for traditional pay-per-click marketing as queries are more conversational and do not revolve around your usual PPC keywords.

It’s expected that more individuals will switch to voice-search purchasing. Hence, if you don’t incorporate voice-search into your PPC campaign, your chances of success will be significantly reduced.

Make effective use of long-tail keywords in conjunction with seed keywords. When it comes to combining voice-search with PPC advertising, keep in mind that long-tail keywords are more important.

SEO integration

It’s no longer a secret that pay-per-click advertising and SEO go hand in hand. Indeed, when you combine your SEO and PPC strategies, you’ll get greater results.

Professionals in digital marketing have debunked the age-old belief that these strategies should not be used simultaneously. They are now more likely to combine these approaches, and this trend is expected to continue in the next year.

It’s important for you to be aware that combining SEO with pay-per-click has various advantages. Thus, if you aren’t already doing so, strap up and get started right now.

An excellent method to align your pay-per-click and SEO efforts is by analyzing your top-performing ad keywords. To improve your rating, you can opt to create content and blog entries based on those keywords.

The Bottomline

Pay-per-click advertising is continuously growing and evolving, but some significant changes are expected in 2022. Companies and brands must not only plan for the future of PPC, but also be ready to capitalize on it.

It’s should be emphasized that just because something worked for you last year doesn’t guarantee that it will work the same way this year. If you want to make sure that you’re up to date on the new technologies and best practices of pay-per-click advertising, drop us a message at Igloo.