Pay-per-click can be unpredictable at the best of times. 2024 was an unprecedented challenge for everyone, and 2024 is shaping up to be another interesting year in the world of PPC.
Internet use in the UK surged to the highest levels ever in 2020, with UK adults now spending roughly a quarter of their days online. This upward trend was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is expected that people will keep trending towards spending more time online in years to come.
What are the new Google Ads rules?
Google Partners are advertisers that are certified by Google. By working closely with the team at Google, certain PPC agencies in London and around the world have direct access to multiple account managers that are on hand to assist with granular details in your campaigns. The new Google Ads rules change the requirements for becoming a partner:The new Google Partner program benefits
A new Partner badge has more advanced requirements, more transparency, and more guidance on how to earn it.New status and product capabilities categories to help your company stand out, showcase your areas of proficiency and provide more exclusivity in the market.
New program benefits that support your business needs and ability to drive customer success.
While this all sounds super, there are a handful of caveats to these new rules.
New Google Partner criteria
To meet the Google Partner requirements, you must meet new criteria in all three categories: performance, spend & certifications.Performance
To meet new performance rules, Google Ads will grade your performance from 0-100%. To remain a partner, you must keep your optimization score above 70% - simple enough, right?Google will now make recommendations such as keywords edits, repairs & ad suggestions, among others. The more of these recommendations that you apply, the higher your score will be. While this isn’t inherently a bad change, the recommendations aren’t tailored to your clients. It’s important to always put your clients’ success first, which might now mean sacrificing your optimization score.
On the other side, Google suggests that ‘advertisers who increased their account-level optimization score by 10 points saw a 10% increase in conversions, on average.’
The general consensus is that this change benefits Google and could hurt clients’ campaigns; only time will tell just how much of an impact this has on the PPC market.
Spend
The minimum 90-day ad spend is increasing from $10,000 to $20,000. This is a small but significant change, especially for small businesses whose advertising average might float beneath $20,000.Certifications
Before now, a company was required to have only one user certified in Google Ads. This will change in 2024, with a company now needing to have at least 50% of their eligible users certified. While this is a time-consuming process, it should not have any tangible disadvantages.What are alternatives to Google Ads?
As Google shifts more towards machine learning, advertisers will need to invest in diversification. There is a huge variety of alternative advertising platforms that might offer the perfect experience for your clients in 2021.Many social media platforms provide the ideal avenue for reaching your target audience.
PPC advertising on LinkedIn
Not only this, but social media platforms are, well, social! LinkedIn provides the option to use its InMail feature for conversation ads, which helps you drive engagement more personally. This happens in real-time, as messages can only be sent when your target customer is on LinkedIn.
You can also filter and target companies based on various parameters, with filters varying from high-profile sites such as Fortune and Forbes to something as integral as a company’s growth rate. This allows you to use your market research to target the perfect businesses quickly and efficiently.
PPC on social media
Keeping your social media profiles lively and engaging is key, especially in a world where people spend more time online than ever.Content is, of course, key. It is essential to ensure that your social media accounts are filled with interesting insights and useful discussions. Using PPC will bring eyes to your profiles; the benefits are multi-faceted.
Take this example from American Airlines:
You can use PPC to bring traffic to one profile (Facebook, in this example) and divert off to other social media platforms. Interlinking & being present on a variety of channels is crucial when building a brand, and a unique social media strategy should be a part of any marketing team’s plan.Microsoft Advertising
When you think about PPC advertising, you’d be forgiven for thinking almost exclusively about Google Ads. Still, there are some distinct advantages that Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads) has over the dominant platform.Microsoft’s platform is generally cheaper, less competitive, has a unique, wealthier audience (through Bing) and offers device targeting opportunities.
While all of the above sounds great, it is worth mentioning that Bing only holds 2.69% of the search engine market share versus Google’s 91.38% (as of January 2021), so if your objectives are growth-based, then Google Ads will still be the favorite pick.
Microsoft Ads is compatible with Google Ads and lets you import an existing Google Ads campaign effortlessly, so why not both? Investing in PPC for both search engines only increases your overall reach!
