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Changes for PPC in 2015?

by Sophie Edwards | 20.11.2014

With Christmas adverts decking our halls.. not only does it signal the start of the festive season, but also 2015 (woo)! With the New Year comes new things and PPC is not excluded from this trend!

Since the beginning of 2014 there has been a gentle rumble that mobiles will become more important in PPC and advertising. There are over 7 billion people on the Earth and 6.8 billion own mobiles!

ppc-for-mobile

An employee from Marin Software predicts that by the end of 2015 50% of paid search budget will be spent on mobile. However, others speculate that with increased privacy settings that PPC may find it harder to target mobiles. Either way, it is clear mobiles will be one of the big changes for 2015, whether they provide more insight into people’s daily shopping, lingering and travel to reach a particular product or whether they become a barrier!

Alongside a change in mobile targeting there has also been speculation of an increase in competition for the Top 2 ad positions. I know it seems as though everyone in PPC would desire to have an ad in a top position, but sometimes this isn’t productive for the campaign, often position 3 or 4 may work well for a company. However, with the Top 2 ads taking up an increased amount of space there is heightened competition!  Will 2015 bring an increase in Ad Bid cost or more severe delegation of the Quality Score? Or will it remain the same?

As much as people (like me) can speculate about 2015 changes …. In 2011 (I know, it feels like ages ago!) Google’s official blog made 6 predictions that would occur BY 2015…. As the year quickly draw to an end will we see the 6 predictions come true?

So here are Google’s 6 predictions for display advertising ….

1. The number of display ad impressions will decrease by 25% per person. 

It was perceived that people would become frustrated with constantly being bombarded by irrelevant information. So have more relevant ads been created? Does bombarding people work? Or did this prediction not quite cut the custard?

2. Engagement with display ads will increase by 50%. 

As ads become more relevant.. more people will respond to them! But have they?

3. People will have a direct say in 25% of the adverts they see

Whether to watch videos, subscribe to ads. Have we increased our engagement with adverts?

4. 35% of campaigns will primarily use metrics beyond clicks and conversions

When Google speaks of ‘metrics beyond’ they are referring to emotional engagement such as impact on offline behaviour (store shopping). Can PPC deliver personalised ads to people who enjoy different images etc

5. 25 billion ads a day will tell people why they are seeing them

This one is pretty self explanatory!

6. Over 40% of online Americans will name display ads as their favourite ad format

Okay so this may not have occurred in the UK, due to the study being conducted in the U.S.A but the research did find that out of the 1,000 US internet users that only slightly less said they preferred display ads compared to glossy ads and cinema ads.

Google has yet to have the ‘big reveal’.. but gosh are we excited for the stats!!  Let us know whether any of these 6 changes have happened to your account – or whether you experienced something completely different!

Here’s the 2011 blog from Google if you want to check it out!