It’s already March, and 2023 is well underway. At Impressive, we’ve spent the opening months of this year looking at how PPC is changing for 2023 and beyond, understanding the trends and market shifts you need to be aware of this year.
So, what have we found? Let’s look at four of the most important PPC marketing trends we’ve uncovered for 2023.
Economic Woes Will Impact PPC
The economy is always a hot topic, but this is especially true right now. The cost of living — and the cost of running a business — is exerting extraordinary pressure here in the US and elsewhere across the world. PPC is not going to be immune to this.
So what does this mean for PPC trends in 2023? From what we can see, budgeting and efficiency will be high on the agenda. PPC marketers will leverage data like never before, analysing returns on investment, costs per action, and other critical pieces of information as they try to make their campaigns as cost-efficient as possible.
Artificial Intelligence Is Becoming a Key Aspect of PPC Marketing…
We may be in the age of data, but increasingly we seem to be edging into the age of artificial intelligence. As solutions like ChatGPT make the headlines, PPC marketers are looking beyond this in 2023 and harnessing AI in ever more sophisticated ways.
Google loves incorporating AI into their products, so artificial intelligence was always going to be a big part of PPC marketing, and this looks likely to continue in the future. Marketers can use artificial intelligence to forecast the performance of ads before they are deployed, analyse potential conversion rates, and settle on the perfect bid.
Meanwhile, machine learning makes PPC ad software even more effective. During deployment, machine-learning-enabled software can learn more about how to place successful bids, empowering automated bidding functions to help businesses succeed with PPC.
…But Close Control Is Still Vital
2023, and the next few years, will be about balance. Yes, automated features like responsive search ads — i.e. ads that display according to various signals such as user device, past browsing behaviour and browser preference — and AI-based forecasting tools are going to play a huge role this year, but you still need to maintain control and agency over your campaigns.
One of the common misconceptions about AI and automation, at least at the moment, is that we are heading towards a ‘set and forget’ situation. In other words, you set up your campaign using these AI-based tools and automated features and let intelligent software do the rest of the work for you. This is a mistake.
Instead, you need to retain close control over the aspects of your campaigns that demand it. Firstly, you need to ensure you are doing your research so that the inputs you provide are up to scratch and your campaigns perform within the right parameters. Secondly, you must continue monitoring your campaigns’ performance — even, and perhaps especially, your automated campaigns — to ensure they achieve the right results. If they aren’t, then you need to be able to make manual changes without delay.
PPC Must Fit Into an Omnichannel Strategy
Omnichannel has been an important digital marketing concept for some years now, so what has changed in 2023? Well, 2023 needs to be the year that businesses start paying attention to what this means. For too long, marketers have confused their multichannel strategy with a genuinely omnichannel one. They are using lots of channels but are not necessarily linking these channels together.
Your consumer journey can take lots of forms. It can be pretty ‘route one’ — a customer enters a search engine query, finds a product, and converts. Or it can be more circuitous — a customer hears about a product on social media, saves the post to their favorites, and then returns later on another device to research the product further. You need to know what your customers are up to and understand how you can reach them.
This is one of the key trends we’ve picked up on for this year — placing PPC ads at the heart of an omnichannel strategy. By analyzing data across all channels your customers are using, you can better position your PPC ads for success — both this year and in those to come.
Keep Your Finger on the Pulse… Stay Impressive
Want to stay ahead of the curve on your PPC marketing for 2023 and beyond? Of course, we all do! At Impressive we’ve made it our mission to stay ahead of the game, which helps us develop strong, targeted digital marketing strategies for our clients – that’s why many big brands turn to Impressive for help with their online strategies.
Ready to get started? Get in touch with our team today!
