PPC After Lockdown - What To Expect

What a year 2020 was, one that will go down in history as the year the world went into lockdown.

The pandemic in March 2020 had a catastrophic effect for many, as a national lockdown kept households indoors, caused businesses to close and for those businesses able to remain open, for many, the marketing budgets were dropped.

Google reported a significant drop in advertising revenue in Q1 and Q2 of 2020. However in the fourth quarter of 2020, Google’s revenue amounted to $56.7 billion, up from around 46 billion U.S. dollars in the preceding quarter*.

Given such a challenging year for most businesses, is it a surprise that Q4 2020 Google achieved an increase in revenue of 24% compared to the same period in 2019?

As we continue to push forwards into 2021 with new business goals, we investigate and share with you, some of the key expectations for you to consider for your PPC activities as we prepare to move out of lockdown.

Changing consumer behaviour

Customers are buying online.

According to a report published by McKinsey & Company in 2020 for us to progress to the new normal, the recovery will be digital, with businesses digitizing at speed and scale. Is this why Google have seen record profits in Q4 2020? We think this is certainly a big part of it.

With consumers moving online in reaction to coronavirus restrictions, companies have had to learn how to launch new e-commerce businesses quickly, and this isn’t likely to change in the near future. Of course, for industries such as travel and leisure this has not been possible, but many other sectors have been able to develop their service offering, whilst using online promotional tools in the absence of footfall to their closed doors.

Some workers have been on furlough and others have started to get used to remote working, with many people still earning in a time when retail stores are all closed. There will of course be an influx of people wanting to get out and return to their old shopping behaviours as soon as restrictions are lifted, perhaps some will wait until they’ve had chance to visit their hairdresser? Or maybe others will feel buying online is the easier and safer option.

The last 12 months have taught us consumers that we have a lot of buying power, we are able to research, compare and buy online without speaking to any pushy salespeople, and this is a power that will continue. As more people venture out of lockdown a new normal will gradually start to creep in for every sector, B2B and B2C, and with this, buyers will always be online, browsing or researching, this is one certainty that won’t change.

At least we won’t be using House Party!

Increased automation with Google Ads

With more automation, comes less control.

Back in 2020 Google reduced the visibility of search terms and this isn’t going to be a one off, Google will continue to hide data and make us rely more on machine learning, so embracing Automation is going to be key in 2021 and beyond. However, the data gathered from 2020 as consumer behaviours changed is likely to be very different than previous years and so reviewing and trusting patterns in the data will be the challenge.

From our experience, Automation can work well when there is enough data to feed the machine, but for some accounts with smaller budgets and less activity getting this right is problematic indeed.

As an example, when completing a recent audit for a potential client they asked us to investigate 2 campaigns that were set up the same, and on the same automated bidding strategy, why one was underperforming and had never really worked – the answer was simple, with different budgets there just wasn’t enough data in the campaign with the reduced spend to allow the automated bidding strategy to work, and Google were unable to use the limited data to predict future successes.

If you haven’t started using the automation tools in Google Ads, we suggest you start adding features to your campaigns, but test, test and test again. This way you can gradually relinquish control over your campaigns once, and only when you are happy that it is working for you.

A great place to start is with responsive search ads. They can work really well, and when tested alongside any legacy expanded text ads, it is a great way to gradually introduce these into your campaigns, and slowly phase out any underperforming adverts as you split test.

With new campaign types and messaging options to test using more automation features, the future is going to be a very experimental for advertisers who have yet to embrace Google’s Automation, getting this right will involve testing small segments of your PPC activities, and gradually expanding as you monitor and grow your return on ad spend.

There will be some advertisers that won’t accept the loss of control within Google, and we are likely to see an increase in competition for advertisers on the Bing search engine which may in turn drive bids upwards. However, the volume of search queries with Microsoft Advertising, although it is increasing, is not likely to match the volume of searches Google have been recording in recent years.

Automation isn’t going to go away and so getting on board early and testing what works well for your business will give you the advantage over your competitors in times to come. It’s really important to ‘feed the machine’ with accurate data and with a focus on the right goals for your business, as this data will train the machine learning and drive growth for your campaigns and your business goals.

With more Automation in Google, we are forced to look at the wider picture, to create captivating ad content and direct it to a specific audience that we set because we want to target them. But wait, this is something Facebook have been good at for some time, right? So, we already know it works.

Where is your audience?

Your target audience, where are they now?

Testing other PPC tools outside of the search engine, such as native ads, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn is a sensible option for advertisers to diversify from traditional PPC tools and not rely on an ‘all eggs in one basket’ approach.

As we ease out of lockdown it is time to reassess the journey your customer takes through your buying process and consider any impacts of changing customer behaviours on this process.

Where are your customers and how do they interact?

For business to consumer (B2C) sectors Facebook and Instagram can be a really effective tool for highly targeted marketing campaigns and content marketing strategies. However, remember that it can also be effective for B2B too, people buy from people and behind each business are dedicated employees wo are real people with social profiles (we hope!).

Or, if you are B2B is LinkedIn Advertising the right approach for you? Using LinkedIn Advertising to drive regular content to your audience can be a great way to validate your knowledge and expertise in your field of business as well as generate enquiries.

What do they need to make their commitment to your brand?

Think about how easy it is for your customers to say yes to your offer. In a new world where buyers have all of the power a quick and simple buy-in is often what will convert the sale over a complicated and drawn-out registration process.

Just take Amazon as an example, every product page has a ‘Buy now’ button, to capture those impulse buys for those that are just too busy to add it to a basket.

How are you measuring each step they take?

Or should we start with ‘Are you measuring each step they take?’ because if the answer is no to this you need to get on board, fast.

There are various digital touchpoints for every user journey, and they are never the same. It’s really important to monitor and map the story of your most profitable customers, who are they? what platforms do they use? which channels are they referred from? Having this information gives you valuable marketing insight into where your customers are and what they are looking for.

Now you need to measure this journey, find gaps where they are falling out of the process and create steps to implement change and increase your revenue and profitability.

What does it all mean?

What do we need to do to succeed?

We at Key Principles always ‘bang on’ about accurate tracking. It really is important to make sure you are following the user journey as much as possible, that includes tracking the new ecommerce platform you are/have just launched, and that also includes tracking your phone calls and any offline promotions you are running.
Understand your audience, learn from data who your best customers are, where they are coming from and how they want to interact with your business. Then use that knowledge to target them with dynamic content and compelling imagery.
Embrace Google Automation, but do it carefully and based on the data.
Align all of your PPC marketing efforts with your offline activities whilst embracing a new buyer journey as we come out of our 12-month hibernation.