Even during the pandemic when everything was locked down, those who survived the PPC campaigns literally were responsible to save brands from the brink of devastation. 2020 just made people do a lot more reinventing in every field. PPC pros are now looking for tools to help brands ride a wave of recovery while adapting to new normal in the way people use search to do commerce.

PPC Automation: 2020’s Lessons for a Banner 2021

Many people had concerns early in the pandemic that the employment uncertainties would wipe out PPC spending. In many cases however, pandemic purchases skyrocketed in a number of areas. Those who anticipated the shifts ultimately won. Many people had more time at home and this led to spending on home improvement, landscaping, electronics and other things that made the quarantine more bearable. Closed gyms led to demand for bicycles and home fitness gear. Less air travel and more ground travel helped people get better road transport. Further, many companies and employees now embrace the flexibility of remote working arrangements. People have enjoyed gaining back an hour or more of their day that was stuck in traffic jams. This completely and permanently changed how people engage with brands and conduct commerce. As consumer behaviours change, PPC trends changed too and AI and ML used to understand this change provided historical trends and data to base decisions on. Rapidly changing dynamics can send signals that the machines can use to avoid wasted ad spend, but not always in ways to help businesses capture new opportunities. PPC pros have an opportunities to master the tools at their disposal and apply deeper strategic insights to ensure the machines are doing the best they can to target the appropriate audience.

People Love Convenience

The importance of convenience is self-evident. But, desire for safety and security enforced by the lockdown made people double down on the need for ease and convenience. PPC marketers strive to make things easy. People do not just search one channel. They search Google, Bing, Youtube, Amazon, Facebook and lots more. The extra time people got during the lockdown, gave people more time in front of screens and hence more time to shop! Even though people avoided restaurants the take-outs and home deliveries increased. Cross-channel PPC marketing is where the winners are.

With campaign automators, advertisers can ensure that their ads are hyper-focused on just those products that are ready to be bought. After specifying templates for account structure, ad text, keywords and extensions, the tool automatically builds necessary campaigns and ad groups to advertise the available inventory. It even makes the ads more relevant by letting advertisers insert dynamic elements such as lowest price, number of product variants or limited availability to instill a sense of urgency.

So, if you are setting your goals for 2021, there are a lot of lessons you can learn from 2020.