
The latest in pay per click advertising and the digital advertising world š°
The PPC world is ever-evolving. Deep, and blue, and full of clicks, there are tons to keep up to speed with at pretty much all times. But weāre here to help with that.Ā
Here are some updates on whatās new in PPC that we think you should know about:
Google and other giants pass costs of new Digital Services Tax to advertisers
I had a rant planned, but itās probably not appropriate here. Just know that the DST ā a 2% tax for international companies on profits made within the UK ā is going to be passed onto the advertisers paying for those services.
This is something that will have to be accounted for in advertising budgets, so be sure to have these discussions when it comes to planning out your ad spends over the coming months
Itāll be billed as a separate line on Googleās invoices, so should be fairly easy to manage and keep track of – but it may result in new budget conversations having to be had with clients.
A new anti-fraud certification for advertisers seems to be working
Continued benchmarking from the Trustworthy Accountability Group (aka TAG) seems to show that their anti-fraud efforts have done wonders for the rates of Invalid Traffic from marketing campaigns.
Its certification is awarded through meeting the requirements of a programme that proves that thereās no fraudulent activity in any part of the marketing supply chain.
So, whyās this a big deal?
Well, leaping off from the massive shift to digital use, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, criminals have seen this as a similarly massive opportunity to scam people. This has meant fraudulent activity on all levels of the marketing pipeline ā from companies paying for fraudulent traffic from naughty agencies to marketing agencies paying for services they never get.
The TAG certification seems to have dropped instances of invalid traffic by 88% for those signed up. Which is great news for those who want their marketing efforts to be seen by people instead of bots!
B2B companies struggling to produce enough content to meet sudden digital demand
Finding a good writer is like finding a good cheese, you canāt just pick up any old āCamembert-style cheeseā and expect that exquisite ripeness only developed by cheeses allowed to graze on French fields. Well, Iām not sure if thereās a shortage of cheese, but it seems that thereās a shortage of writers.
35% of content marketing companies have struggled to produce enough content of a high enough quality to capture and retain audiences. This makes sense considering the time-investment great content takes, but is surprising that it wasnāt prepared for, given that decision-makers are now making many more decisions based on online content.
(Ahem, if youāre one of those caught short, get ahead of the curve)
Google is restricting search term reports
Queries in search term reports with low volume have begun to be restricted when they are deemed to have āinsignificantā volume ā this could be as much as 28% of search queries.
Inability to see low-impression queries means advertisers canāt effectively do things like identifying negative keywords as well as they could do so before ā and, although these may seem small-fry, the costs do and will add up. Especially considering that a single wrongly-bidded negative keyword can cost up to Ā£5.
In practice, however, this change will have a more significant impact on accounts that are primarily managed manually. Thatās because any query activity (whether relevant or not) wonāt inform any bidding strategies that are in place ā while we canāt see this data, remember, Google still can. So those who are making effective use of Smart Bidding will feel the strain less as any auctions ads are entered into will inform learning and performance moving forward.
Now, itās worth not underplaying how significant of an impact this will be for those marketers itāll affect (itās not uncommon to see upwards of 50% of a budget be spent on fewer than 10-click queries) but in order to minimise the effects, marketers should make a concerted effort to move to smart bidding.
So thatās just a quick update in whatās going on in the world of PPC for 2020 Q4. If youād like to know more about PPC – and how we can help you with your campaigns, then get in touch!

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