See the top 10 PPC updates and features of 2022 and learn why your 2023 marketing plan needs them.
Can you believe the year’s end is already here? It’s simple for time to pass quickly when the advertising ecosystem is undergoing so many changes.
The year 2022 will be recognised for both positive and negative updates to the Google Ads and Microsoft Ads platforms, as well as for brand-new capabilities for emerging channels.
It’s challenging to keep up with all the changes when there are so many PPC platforms available to advertisers!
As many PPC platforms and campaign kinds as I could manage are represented in my list of the top 10 new PPC features and improvements for 2022.
Google Ads: Expanded Text Ads Are Gone
While competing platforms keep adding new formats and alternatives, Google keeps systematically removing Search ad options.
Although it was already announced in 2021, Google’s Expanded Text Ads will end on June 30, 2022. The Responsive Search Ads model currently dominates search advertising.
Why does this matter so much?
The lack of control for marketers was a major setback, particularly for any regulated company that requires legal consent on all copies. Many advertisers also saw that their ETAs outperformed their RSAs in terms of performance.
The upside of ETAs going away is that marketers had to reconsider their communications approach.
Due to the variety of headline and description options, Google may mix and match to deliver the appropriate message to each user at the appropriate time.
This required deleting the extraneous material from RSAs and switching to a chance to develop more deliberate messaging for each keyword theme.
The greater visibility of advertisements was another advantage of switching to RSAs.
According to a May 2022 Optmyzr study, RSAs generated 2.1 times as many impressions as ETA-only ad groups.
Microsoft Ads: First Video Ads
In 2022, Microsoft will continue to gain market share in advertising and marketing.
The Microsoft Audience Network was expanded, and just last month, video ads were introduced in a formal manner. Although they were initially beta tested in 2021, video ads are now widely accessible in the following places:
- United States.
- Canada.
- United Kingdom.
- France.
- Germany.
- Australia.
- New Zealand.
From the standpoint of a marketer, this enables you to reach your audience in places where you might not have been able to do so in the past.
Recent statistics from Microsoft show that:
39% of users view MSN videos instead of YouTube videos.
MSN is where 57% of consumers watch videos while avoiding Facebook.
You avoid having to start from scratch by extending your video approach to Microsoft Ads.
To save time and money, repurpose your existing YouTube or other video ad spots. If repurposing that content, make sure the audience purpose is the same.
YouTube Commercials: Audio Takes the Lead
Google declared audio ads to be officially out of beta testing and accessible to all advertisers starting in October 2022.
This is a significant victory for marketers that are looking for new ways to connect with their target demographic depending on how they use YouTube.
Users who specifically listen to music on YouTube receive audio adverts from Google.
For music listeners, marketers would prefer audio advertisements than video ones because it is likely that these individuals aren’t actually watching what is displayed on their YouTube screen.
The use of podcast placements is another significant development for audio.
Additionally released by Google in October.
What does this have to do with YouTube ads, you might be wondering.
Both audio and video ad formats are eligible for the podcast placement on YouTube.
Facebook Ads: New Resources For Small Businesses And B2B
Facebook, which is now officially known as Meta, has been covered extensively in the media this year, unless you’ve been living under a rock.
While privacy and content rules have received the majority of the attention in the headlines regarding Meta, Facebook has this year added new options for marketers.
Facebook released new tools in May 2022 that are aimed at B2B and small enterprises. These tools consist of:
Features for messaging and conversations.
Tools for customer acquisition and lead generation.
A new ad format is now available in the message and chat functions.
Directly from the WhatsApp Business app for businesses, Facebook is developing advertisements that may be displayed on both Facebook and Instagram.
By promoting message-based interaction, this ad format aids in fostering a relationship between a company and its customers.
Facebook found that over 70% of users want the option to interact more naturally with brands in order to support this function.
New features for lead generation and customer acquisition include:
Instagram requests for quotes.
Filtering leads with Instant Forms.
versatility in the arts.
gated material.
Integration of partners.
In my opinion, the quote requests and gated content include the most essential information from an advertising standpoint.
Considering the increasing demand for first-party data, developing a gated content ad is a terrific approach to gather crucial user data, like email, in order to interact with them later.
Introducing AI-Powered Ads on Instagram
New ad formats are the source of some of Instagram’s most famous PPC features.
Instagram just unveiled “Multi-advertiser advertisements,” a new AI-powered advertisement, as this platform has become more shoppable.
Based on a user’s activity and involvement with the app, this ad style will emphasise various businesses’ advertisements.
Although it’s not always an ad format that marketers can create, this AI-powered format combines your existing advertising along with its algorithm to put your brand in front of consumers who are actively shopping.
TikTok Ads: New Search Ad Placements
Users first saw a new “Sponsored” ad placement in the top search results in March 2022:
The fact that this Sponsored listing is currently in Beta and that TikTok has not specified a timeframe for a general rollout to all advertisers is crucial to keep in mind.
Why is this PPC feature such a huge deal, then?
Users can find content on a wide range of subjects on TikTok.
Advertisers will soon (hopefully) be able to target their adverts more precisely based on user searches thanks to the search feature.
In a sense, TikTok is evolving into a unique category of search engine. If you haven’t already, this placement is additional incentive to try out this advertising platform.
Shoppable product pins on Pinterest using the WooCommerce extension
Shoppable Pins have been around since 2022, but a new feature that was implemented in July 2022 made it more simpler for businesses to publish advertisements. More than 3 million retailers, specifically.
Simply put, the Pinterest for WooCommerce extension streamlines the setup process for selling your products on Pinterest.
So how does it function?
With the help of this new plugin, your complete product catalogue is converted into Pinterest Shoppable Product Pins. There is no need for manual uploads because the catalogue listings are uploaded to Pinterest automatically. If you use WooCommerce to run your online shopping website, you don’t want to miss this feature.
Campaign Manager Interface for LinkedIn Ads
Although LinkedIn has added new ad types and targeting choices, I believe its new Campaign Manager interface to be the most significant upgrade.
LinkedIn heard the complaints of other marketers about how ineffectively campaigns and performance reporting were previously managed.
With a left-side navigation, the new UI imitates other platforms like Google and Microsoft Ads.
Easy-to-find sections are included in the left-side navigation, such as:
- Plan.
- Advertise.
- Test.
- Analyze.
- Assets.
- Account Settings.
The interface’s second largest feature improvement makes it much simpler to switch between numerous accounts.
Twitter Ads: Adaptive Collection And Product Ads
Another social media site that has received a lot of media attention in 2022? Twitter.
Let’s not dismiss the new PPC features it provided to advertisers in 2022, even though most of the buzz has centred on the management transition and its lasting repercussions, similar to how Meta (Facebook) has done.
These apply to e-commerce professionals.
Earlier this year, Twitter debuted Collection Ads and Dynamic Product Ads (DPA).
Like Facebook or other programmatic platforms, DPAs for Twitter Ads operate in a similar manner. Users of an established product feed management software can easily combine it with Twitter.
You can either prospect new consumers with appropriate product advertisements or retarget users based on engagement with DPAs.
Expanded Ad Placement Inventory for Apple Ads
It’s no secret that during the past few years, Apple has focused on user-privacy rules and criteria.
It has been challenging for advertisers to precisely demonstrate the success of campaigns due to constraints on marketing measurement.
While advertisers’ top concerns were measurement and visibility, Apple formally announced in November 2022 that more ad spaces would be made available in the Apple App Store.
The newly placed inventory includes items for:
Tab advertising today.
advertisements on the product page.
The enhanced inventory in Apple Ads is crucial because it shifts consumers’ attention away from being so “search” focused and toward discovering businesses.
Apple’s ad inventory has previously placed restrictions on several brands since user queries could only gauge demand.
With Apple tripling the number of ad places accessible, marketers may target its iOS user base specifically with their awareness campaigns.
Because user searches could only capture demand, many firms previously had their options for advertising with Apple constrained.
Marketers can target their awareness campaigns particularly at the iOS user base thanks to Apple’s tripling of the number of ad spaces accessible.