PPCsurvey.com has recently published a new State of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Global Report for 2024, which gathers insights from over 1,100 PPC specialists worldwide.
The report delves into various aspects of search marketers’ concerns, key priorities, expenditure data, automation trends, and an array of information regarding the most significant developments in paid search.
Here is a summary of some of the major discoveries highlighted in the report:
Primary Focus Areas:
AI and automation have emerged as the top priorities for search marketers in the current year. This trend has been evolving within Google Ads, starting from the utilization of broad match keywords, progressing to automated bidding, and now extending to the automation of creatives and their placements.
Key Objectives:
In 2024, 72% of search marketers have set their sights on achieving efficient growth as their primary goal. This indicates a concerted effort to boost spending while upholding efficiency benchmarks such as Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) or Cost per Acquisition (CPA). Essential priorities for PPC professionals are likely to revolve around:
- Minimizing unnecessary expenditure.
- Establishing protective measures through layers of automation.
- Enhancing performance beyond the confines of ad accounts (e.g., optimizing landing pages).
For the nearly one-fifth of marketers aiming to enhance efficiency, the focus lies on maximizing output from the existing budget without room for expanding the ad budget.
Advertising Budgets:
Advertising budgets are predominantly on the rise, with 12 out of 23 campaign types anticipating increases, particularly on platforms like Google Ads and Meta. There is a specific emphasis on campaigns targeting ‘ready to buy’ prospects at the bottom of the sales funnel. Google’s Performance Max campaign, based on product feeds, stands out as the preferred choice for increased budget allocation, favored by 63% of experts. Across diverse company models, more than half of the respondents intend to escalate spending on feed-based Performance Max campaigns in 2024, highlighting the profitability of investing in automated campaigns supported by high-quality product data feeds.
Performance of Performance Max Campaigns:
While Performance Max campaigns enjoy widespread adoption, their implementation varies significantly, often deviating from their intended purpose. Surprisingly, less than half of the respondents employ a dedicated full-funnel approach, which involves including essential assets for placements on platforms like YouTube and others. To address this discrepancy, Google is actively working to simplify the process by leveraging generative AI and other tools to automatically generate assets.
Trends in Automated Bidding:
Automated bid strategies have become the preferred choice for most advertisers, with options like target Return on Ad Spend (tROAS) and target Cost per Acquisition (tCPA) taking the lead. Manual bidding, although still in use, has taken a backseat. Bidding for target impression share is primarily utilized for safeguarding brand integrity but is less commonly employed for other strategies.
Targeting Options and Campaign Preferences:
Exact match targeting remains popular, while the new Demand Generation feature has not gained significant traction. This is because most advertisers benefit from exact match targeting, with only a small fraction requiring expansion beyond Google Search. Performance Max campaigns (with feed) are now more prevalent than Standard shopping campaigns, although the latter still retains its proponents and applications.
Challenges in PPC:
Close to half of PPC specialists believe that managing campaigns has become more challenging over the past two years. The primary reason cited by 49% of practitioners is the lack of insights and data resulting from automated campaigns like Performance Max. This includes the frustration of not having access to complete search term data. Increased competition and rising Cost per Clicks (CPCs) pose significant challenges, as advertisers feel they are investing more without commensurate results. Furthermore, changes in tracking mechanisms, privacy regulations, and attribution models further complicate the measurement of campaign effectiveness.
Concerns with Ad Platforms:
Trust in advertising platforms has waned over the past year, with only LinkedIn exhibiting a net positive sentiment. Google (54%), Twitter (51%), and Meta (42%) experienced the most notable declines in trust. These platforms have encountered issues such as prioritizing platform-driven automation over user control, reputational harm, undesirable content, and overall inconsistency.
Popularity of Ad Platforms:
Global advertising expenditure is projected to increase by 8.2% in 2024, with over 50% of this spending directed towards five major tech firms:
- Alphabet (Google, YouTube).
- Meta (Facebook, Instagram).
- Amazon.
- Alibaba.
- Bytedance (TikTok, Douyin).
Significance of Staying Informed:
Remaining abreast of trends within the PPC industry is vital for making well-informed decisions regarding aspects like ad placement, ad expenditure, campaign types, and bidding strategies. This ensures that decisions are data-driven and more likely to yield successful outcomes.
Insights from PPC Experts:
Frederick Vallaeys, co-founder & CEO at Optmyzr, shared his thoughts on the report’s findings, emphasizing the importance of merging machine capabilities with human oversight for optimal digital marketing success.
For more detailed information, you can access the complete State of PPC Global Report 2024 by downloading the PDF.
About the author
Nicola Agius serves as the Paid Media Editor of Search Engine Land, having joined the team in 2023. With a focus on paid media and retail media, she brings a wealth of experience to her role. Prior to this, Nicola held the position of SEO Director at Jungle Creations (2020-2023), where she was responsible for steering the company’s editorial strategy across multiple websites. With over 15 years of journalism experience, Nicola has worked with various renowned publications including OK! Magazine (2010-2014), Mail Online (2014-2015), Mirror (2015-2017), Digital Spy (2017-2018), and The Sun (2018-2020). She has also collaborated with SEO agency Blue Array to co-author the Amazon bestselling book “Mastering In-House SEO.”
