2019 will be a year full of challenges for business! Although search engine marketing (SEM) will continue to be one of the most significant bets of brands, advertisers must be aware of the change in consumer habits. What will be the most groundbreaking SEM trends that await us?
Did you know that 4 out of 10 brands are considering increasing the PPC budget, according to SocialMediaToday data. This indicates that this type of marketing continues to be an effective tool for marketing teams.
But 2019 will pose an endless number of new challenges for advertising companies. The boom of advertising blockers, the growth of visual searches or the need to increase the presence of brands in social networks will be key in the coming months.
What will be the most groundbreaking SEM trends in 2019? Discover them!
Social networks, a must in SEM campaigns
One of the SEM trends will have social networks as protagonists. Facebook Ads, Buyable Pins from Pinterest or Shoutouts from Instagram will increase their use among SEM marketing teams. Why? Let’s see:
● Facebook has 2.2712 million users (January 2019)
● The Instagram community recently exceeded 1 billion.
● Twitter and Snapchat together exceed 500 million users.
Is it really necessary to show more statistics? These and other social networks are one of the most interesting markets for advertisers. In the United States alone, 7 out of 10 Internet users use at least one social network. Ignoring them would be a serious mistake for SEM specialists.
Brands and advertisers will spend a greater amount of time and budget to exploit the possibilities of ads on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and other platforms. In this way, they will also seek to achieve greater diversification in their SEM campaigns. Putting all your eggs in the same basket is never a good idea.
Pay attention to visual searches
PPC marketers must prepare for the increase in visual searches. Creating image catalogs, designing more visual ads and giving, in short, greater importance to aesthetics will be successful practices.
Although the algorithms of Google and other search engines do not favor image search, users insist year after year on using Google Images to find results. Recently Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, joined this trend with the launch of Bing Visual Search, aimed at advertisers who want to “capture new audiences”.
In the visual search, the results of a given query do not include text, unless the user clicks on the image. That’s when, in Bing and other search engines, the ‘Visual Search’ option appears. This function is useful to search for restaurants, computer equipment, etc. Marketing specialists should not underestimate its importance.
LinkedIn will compete with Google Ads
For SEM specialists, Google Ads has traditionally been the best choice, even for B2B companies, due to its optimal value for money. But this will change in 2019, when LinkedIn will be part of the equation. And it will do so for two reasons:
● More than 590 million active users (January, 2019).
● A highly segmented community, perfect for business-to-business marketing.
● A cost per click cheaper than in the past, which is around 7 dollars.
However, the cost of advertising on LinkedIn remains expensive compared to Google Ads. But some companies will overlook this negative aspect because of its many advantages.
What about Amazon? It will also add to the equation
Another of the most interesting PPC trends in 2019 relates to the ecommerce giant Amazon, whose search engine surpassed Google a few years ago: according to a survey conducted by Bloomreach, 55% of consumers use Amazon to search and analyze the products in which they are interested.
To talk about e-commerce is to talk about Amazon, due to the weight of Jeff Bezos’ platform in all retail. For brands and companies that want to leverage the reach and impact of their products, using Amazon Advertising will be crucial this year.
In addition, Amazon’s advertising tools have been perfected in recent years. They now offer greater variety (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Product Display Ads, etc.), flexibility and value for money.
Even if a local brand is a competitor of Amazon, in 2019 it will succeed in using its ads to position itself. Sometimes success can only be achieved by staying “standing on the shoulders of giants,” as Newton said.
Ad blockers will change the rules of the game
High competition in pay-per-click ads will not be the biggest problem for the 2019 marketing teams. The use of advertising blockers will grow in the coming months, putting Google Ads and its advertisers in check.
But the rise of applications such as Adblock Plus, uBlock Origin, AdAway or AdGuard hides an alarm signal: ads should provide value and be less annoying for the user. That’s why Google and other platforms have begun to offer the option of silencing their ads. In remarketing, limiting the number of impressions per ad is also a step forward.
From the perspective of advertisers, in 2019 there will be two winning strategies: segmenting the target audience more and better and designing advertising campaigns that draw attention (not bother) to users. Only in this way will it be possible to reduce the use of advertising blockers.
While some of these SEM trends may be obvious, specialists should not underestimate their importance. Reaching sales targets in 2019, with the highest possible ROI, could depend on visual searches, the use of Amazon Advertising and LinkedIn or social media ads.
