by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, September 28, 2017

According to the “State of PPC,” Hanapin Marketing’s annual survey of the pay per click (PPC) advertising industry, channels like programmatic, native, social, and mobile continue to grow and will not stop trying for a better share in the PPC industry. As the PPC marketplace has become even more complicated, the role of a PPC specialist that knows the ins and outs of the industry and its updates, is even more important.

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This year, a big uptick in agencies that filled out the survey, 57% compared to 33% from last year, says the report. The study took special steps take make sure it was not only reaching brands, but those whose roles are heavily immersed in PPC, finding that:

Overall, there weren’t any big changes between last year and this year in spend, says the report. Comparing Brands and Agencies side by side, 49% of brands are spending more than 50K per month in PPC compared to 62% of agencies.

84% of respondents feel good about the PPC market this year. Out of all the respondents, only 1 (a brand) said that they felt poor about the market, compared to last year’s 7% response.

“Mobile and social features have come a long way especially over the last year, but advertisers are finding it challenging to define goals and effective strategies for these entities says the report. Advertisers should be thinking first about the endgame and then moving backwards. For example, if the goal is for mobile users to call, the ad and landing page should clearly emphasize the phone call. If the goal is more Facebook likes, the brand should put out engaging and relevant content. These entities can show positive returns as long as the process is clearly defined.”

            Matt Umbro Associate Director of Search | Hanapin Marketing

The most surprising part of the study response, says the report, is the lack of a major increase in mobile and social effectiveness. With the inclusion of new features in Search and Social platforms, and more emphasis placed on both channels over the past year, it would seem reasonable to think that advertisers would see more improvement in performance by now.

Some reasons that could be affecting performance, says the report: 

• Advertisers aren’t understanding how to put together effective strategies (not enough time or resources available possibly, opines the report) 
  
• Advertisers are only doing the minimum amount of work to implement (like only boosting posts on Facebook and not planning a complete strategy around a social campaign)

Overall, budgets continue to expand and companies are proving how valuable the PPC channel is to a company’s bottom line.

• 72% are spending more or significantly more on Social Ads this year, compared to last year.
  
• 60% are spending more or significantly more in Text Ads and Mobile Ads.
  
• 18% Display Network ads saw the biggest decreases in investments 

Native, Programmatic, and Shopping all had the biggest percentages of staying within the same budgets. Below shows how spend has increased.

Text                     63%

Display               39%

Social                 72%

Remarketing     53%

Mobile                 60%

Native                 26%

programmatic   33%

Shopping           39%

Budgets Past: In 2014, says the report, only 10% of industry leaders surveyed said they planned to increase their budget in 2015. However, over 70% of leaders surveyed reported an increase in their PPC Budgets during 2015. In 2014, the PPC industry was still making the case for why paid ads even needed to be included into a company’s marketing mix.

Budgets Future It’s clear in this comparison, says the report, that in the last several years, the PPC industry has done a better job of proving why paid ads are a vital part to a company’s marketing mix, as well as showcase the various opportunities there are available to expand a brand’s presence in the marketplace. An overhaul of more friendly platform features across Search and Social have helped in this regard.

“It’s no longer about creating a mobile presence if you have to. It’s about unifying and optimizing the user experience regardless of device, but we also need to focus on curating a unique experience for each device . Since we spent a while ignoring mobile, we’re now hyperfocused on optimizing it, because it needs to catch up!”

            Kate Wilcox CRO Manager | Hanapin Marketing

For additional information from HanapinMarketing, please visit here.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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