5 PPC Trends To Watch In 2019

With major search engines like Google continually tweaking their algorithms, effective PPC marketing is an always moving target.  The changes are understandable...after all, they need to account for people who learn to "work the system," as well as the presence of new competitors like Amazon who emerge as major challenges with their own advertising program.

The one thing you can count on year-to-year is that changes will happen, and you will need to learn the rules all over again.  That doesn't mean our vision of the future is clouded entirely, however, so let's take a look at four significant trends we can expect to play a vital role in PPC marketing in 2019.

Keywords will continue to lose relevance.

Online advertising has traditionally been highly keyword-focused, but as time has passed, a combination of new technologies have allowed us to shift the focus to people and context-based tools.  Some have been more successful than others, but the common thread is that keywords have been declining in relevance for years.  2019 may not be the year they slip into the grave once and for all, but expect them to continue losing ground.

Real advertising alternatives to Google will continue to gain traction.

For many years, online advertising began and ended with Google, and no competing services matched their reach, profile, or results.  However, no empire is too big to face upstart challengers, and while Bing, Facebook, and others have substantial built-in audiences they can leverage in similar ways, perhaps the most considerable challenge has come in the form of Amazon.

Amazon's strategy has been both simple and powerful: many Google ads were explicitly designed to get users clicking through to Amazon product pages, so why not cut out the middleman and sell the same advertising directly on Amazon?  Their Sponsored Product Ads give marketers the opportunity to reach consumers who are already shopping on Amazon directly, and that's just the beginning of what Amazon looks to offer in the retail industry and beyond.

Video advertising will become the preferred online ad medium.

To a large extent, this has already happened.  There’s a reason you’re now practically guaranteed to see an ad before any YouTube or Facebook video, and that pretty much every Google search now returns video results above the traditional links: that’s what people are looking at.

The mobile revolution is a significant driver of this shift, but since all the major online platforms are now giving video a particular weight in their algorithms, you're leaving money on the table by not getting on board.

Remarketing will drive brand ubiquity.

Have you ever visited a website, then suddenly started seeing ads for that website and their products displayed on other, unrelated sites you visit afterward?  If so, it’s no coincidence: Google Ads offers a service called remarketing that is specifically designed to keep brands and products in front of people who have shown interest and enticed them back.  This has been reported to offer much higher click-through and conversion rates than traditional advertising.

More new ad types and tools will emerge to change the dynamic again in 2020.

The one constant you can count on is change, and to PPC marketers, the cycle will begin again as 2019 will provide more unknown factors to consider for the following year.  It's not sure what form these new tools will take, but as always, PPC marketers will want to keep their eyes open, identify the potential game-changers, and make sure they're ready to take advantage of them if and when they supplant current tools and strategies.

Conclusion

The ever-changing world of PPC marketing makes it incredibly challenging to know where to spend your paid media budget.  However, understanding the trends mentioned above gives you a good starting point in the most effective ways to achieve the maximum return on your advertising investment.