The past 10 months or so have given PPC pros a crash course in adaptability, ingenuity and nimble marketing. Those who thrived in pandemic-era PPC deserve some sort of advanced honorary degree in “PPC’ology.” In many instances, smart, effective PPC has literally saved brands from the brink of devastation.
But let’s face it, PPC pros have been in a near-constant state of reinvention since PPC first became a thing. Compared to other marketing disciplines such as print and broadcast, we’re in our adolescence at best, which is actually an exciting place to be. 2020 just made us do a lot more reinventing and adapting in a very short amount of time.
The tumult of the past several months may be a hidden blessing. Smart PPC pros are now well-positioned to use the tools at their disposal to help brands ride a wave of recovery while adapting to new normals in the way people use search to do commerce.
PPC automation: 2020’s lessons for a banner 2021
We’ve discussed the power and pitfalls of PPC automation at great length over the past year, in particular. It was the main topic of our October 21, 2020 Search Engine Land article and was a recurring topic during our now-bi-weekly, virtual PPC Town Hall, which launched in response to the pandemic.
Now, we want to advance the discussion beyond how we work in highly automated channels and tie in lessons learned during the wild and unpredictable months of the recent past. Sure, automation makes it easy to do basic PPC, but it also makes it easy to be lazy. Don’t be lazy. Take some cues from 2020 and learn to adapt and be great. Predicting and responding quickly to behavioral changes using a smart mix of automated tools and manual controls can keep you ahead of the pack.
Lesson 1: Homebodies still do commerce
Early in the pandemic, many people feared that economic and employment concerns would wipe out spending. In many instances, it did the opposite. Pandemic purchasing skyrocketed in many areas. Those who anticipated the shifts won.
- More time at home led to more spending on home improvement, home office goods, consumer electronics, landscaping services, and other things to make quarantining more bearable.
- Closed gyms led to skyrocketing demand for bicycles, home fitness gear, kayaks, and online health coaching.
- Less air travel and more ground travel helped push people to get a nicer ride. Auto dealers who understood changing motivators and used tools like Campaign Automator to prioritize the right inventory cashed in big during 2020.
Many indicators show that a lot of companies and employees now embrace more flexibility and remote working arrangements. People have enjoyed gaining back an hour or more of their day otherwise spent in traffic jams. And as we saw from the points above, people naturally try to make the best of their situation. It’s this combination of factors precipitated by what happened in 2020 that may well lead to a permanent shift in how people engage with brands and conduct commerce (on and off company time).
As PPC pros, we can thrive by focusing more on our strategic roles and letting the machines handle the tedious and repetitive button-pushing that we once did ourselves. But let’s be clear, humans are an essential part of the formula for PPC success in 2021 and beyond.
As consumer behaviors continue to morph in unexpected ways in reaction to societal and pandemic-related forces, the machines cannot succeed on their own—artificial intelligence and machine learning use historical trends and data.
While the machine can change bids in response to external factors impacting conversion rates, it cannot decide that a company should change its distribution model and rewrite all their ads to highlight a significant new trend in 2020: BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store). A big lesson from 2020 was that rapidly changing dynamics on the ground can send signals the machines can use to avoid wasted ad spend, but not always in ways to help businesses capture new opportunities.
PPC pros have an opportunity (and a responsibility) to master the tools at their disposal AND apply deeper strategic insight to ensure the machines are doing the best they can to reach audiences through paid search.
Relying solely on the platform tools won’t work in 2021 and beyond. The native, disparate automations within Google, Bing, Amazon, and Facebook can certainly work for basic paid search. Still, they are not well suited to the needs of advanced PPC marketers who strive for stellar results.
The evolving landscape for digital marketing in 2021 will require PPC pros to remain at the forefront of developments and opportunities. PPC rockstars will be those who maximize all the tools at their disposal this year.
Lesson 2: People LOVE convenience, making eCommerce an omnipotent king
Okay, on the surface, the importance of convenience is self-evident. But during the past several months, the desire for safety and security made people double-down on the need for ease and convenience. Smart PPC marketers are looking more holistically at their marketing mix. Some things to consider: