Online businesses have witnessed considerable growth during the past decade, especially with Google starting the online advertisement services, Google AdWords(which was later renamed as Google Ads) in October 2000. Google Ads has made it possible to target customers according to the products and services offered with the minimum cost possible.
Covid-19 pandemic, however, changed the dynamic of businesses, both offline and online. The offline stores had to face the wrath of universal staying at home orders with many trying to get digital and creating their own online platform in order to sustain themselves. The majority of online business community, on the other hand, got a very high boost during the pandemic.
According to Wordstream, the conversion rates of PPC in United States alone dropped by an average of 21%. However, it varied from business to business and fluctuations were observed throughout the year. According to WebFX, 95% of paid search ad clicks on mobile were driven by Googlein 2020. According to Net Market Share, Google was responsible for 67% of smartphone traffic and 94% of organic traffic in 2020.
Some industries like Non-Profits and Charities, Health and Medical, Business Management, Finance, Beauty and Personal Care, On-demand Media, and Greetings, Gifts and Flowers saw a boom in their sales during the pandemic (Wordstream).
The industries that were moderately hit and had mixed paid performance are Real Estate, Home Improvement, Home Furniture, Automobiles, Retail, Jobs and Education, and Legal Services (Wordstream).
The industries that were hit the hardest are Travel and Tourism, Bars and Restaurants, Live Entertainment, Conferences, Sports and Fitness, Building and Construction, and Industrial and Manufacturing (Wordstream).
The transition in consumer behavior during 2020 led Google to develop a one-stop destination for people to managetheir business campaigns and advertisements in 2021 without any hurdles. Various featureswere released under a single umbrella including Data Exclusion Controls, Estimation of Similar Audience Size, Expansion of explanations to Search Engines that use Target CPA to name a few. These tools have made sure to make online presence of businesses easier during the global pandemic that doesnot seem to be getting over anytime soon.
“TRENDS THAT CAN MAKE YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE BETTER”
DATA EXCLUSION CONTROLS:
A new data exclusion tool was rolled out by Google that prevents you from including conversion data, created due to technical errors like taggingissues and websiteoutrages.
Taggingissues may involve the mistakes where the tags to be considered are not mentioned or accidentally removed from your website. It makes the process of smart biddingaccurate with least number of errors.
Google Ads 2021 Smart Bidding is defined by Google as: A subset of automated bid strategies that use machine learning to optimize for conversions or conversion value in each and every auction—a feature known as “auction-time bidding”. Smart bidding can be useful in increasing your return on investment, can savea lot of time and help you meet your business goals.
The campaigns for which data exclusions are available are Search, Display and Shopping.
Google Ads 2021ESTIMATION OF SIMILAR AUDIENCELIST SIZE:
As you may already know, Google lets you target (or you can say retarget) the audience that has visited your website but not made any purchase or left the page mid-way through due to some unknown reason. You can also find people who have similar interests as that of your existing customers.These customers, in simple terms are called Similar Audience in Google Ads 2021.
Similar audience lets you expand the reach of your retargeting list. This can be cost-effective as well as guarantees new customers since the targeted people have already shown interest in your product or services.
Earlier, the estimated list size of your similar audiences was visible to you when you wanted to apply them to your campaigns. Now, Google has made it trouble-free and you can simply view them in the Audience Manager in Google Ads. However, Google has made the list available only for Search Audience Lists with more than 20,000 users, and for YouTube Audience lists with more than 5,000 users (Google). The coverage is expected to be elaborated soon.
EXPLANATION EXPANSIONS TO SEARCH CAMPAIGNS USING TARGET CPA:
There are changes that may occur in the performance of your campaigns while optimization. Explanations is a feature provided by Google that lets you find these changes without much hassle and just a single click—a process that typically can be laborious and cumbersome—making it easier for you to investigate the issue that may have risen and ultimately, resulting in time management.
The Explanations tool has now been expanded by Google to search campaigns that are using target CPA (cost-per-action). This update will ensure that the reason for the changes in cost and conversions are visible to you with ease.
While using this feature, you should be aware that it can only identify major significant changes in your campaign and not minor glitches.
With all these features, Google has tremendously helped ease the paid online presence of businesses. A lot more can be expected from Google in the upcoming months, don’t stop here and wait for more!
Article on GOOGLE ADS 2021 – written BY – SEERAT GUL – (Intern)