Category: PPC

U.S. search ad revenue grew 33% to $78 billion last year

Search advertising revenue continues to grow. In 2021, according to the IAB, search accounted for $78.3 billion of all U.S. digital advertising revenue, which came in at a whopping $189 billion.

However, the IAB noted in their Internet Advertising Revenue Report: Full Year 2021 report that the growth of search wasn’t as strong as other formats, such as digital video, which was up 50 percent year on year (YoY). As a result, search lost 0.8 percentage points in total revenue share.

Paid search remains king. With 41.4% of all digital ad revenue in 2021, paid search is still the leading format. Mobile accounted for $54.7 billion (up from $39.7 billion in 2020), while desktop accounted for $23.5 billion (up from $19.3 billion in 2020).

Top advertising format by share/Internet Advertising Revenue Report: Full Year 2021

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Social media advertising rebounds. Social media advertising plateaued at the start of the pandemic. In 2021, revenue from social platforms (including Meta-owned networks, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok) hit $57.7 billion, up from $41.4 billion in 2020. What helped fuel this growth? In particular, the IAB noted that 80% of brands now work with influencers and content creators, which began during COVID-19.

The state of digital advertising. It’s strong. Of note from the IAB report:

  • Total U.S. digital ad revenue increased by $50 billion in 2021.
  • YoY growth was 35.4%, the highest increase since 2006.
  • YoY growth was strong in each quarter of 2021. (And that is expected to continue in 2022.)
  • Q4 2021 digital ad revenue hit a new record: $55 billion. That’s up nearly $10 billion from the same 2020 holiday season.

Why we care. At the start of the pandemic, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether we’d continue to see online advertising continue to grow. In 2020, we wondered whether we’d only see single-digit growth heading forward. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened. Search – like all other digital channels and formats – shows strong growth. 

The IAB predicts digital ad growth to continue across all channels. However, the IAB notes some potential challenges, including privacy regulation, the deprecation of third-party cookies and measurement. What else could impact digital marketing this year: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ongoing supply chain issues in the U.S. and other economic issues. That said, as the IAB notes, “brands have spoken, and digital is where they are putting their dollars.” That will again be true in 2022. You can view the entire report here (note: the report is free, but you must log in or create an account to download it).

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Jason April 12, 2022 0 Comments

Mother’s Day 2022: 3 search trends to know

Are your Mother’s Day paid search campaigns ready? If not, now is the time. Microsoft Advertising today released new data and tips that provide some useful consumer search insights.

Although search queries typically peak the week before Mother’s Day, searches start picking up five weeks before the holiday. That would mean queries already started increasing on April 3. If my math is correct, that was a week ago. So if your campaigns haven’t started yet, you’re already a week behind consumers, according to Microsoft.

Hare three trends from last year that search marketers need to know in 2022.

Trend 1: Most popular queries. For the past three years, these have been among the top “Mother’s Day” queries:

  • Mother’s Day gifts
  • Mother’s Day images
  • Mother’s Day cards handmade
  • Mother’s Day gift box
  • Happy Mother’s Day gif
  • Printable Mother’s Day cards
  • Mother’s Day rings
  • Mother’s Day shirts
  • DIY Mother’s Day gift ideas

Trend 2: Gifts. As is typical, flowers, sweets, cards, and jewelry were among the most popular gifts for Mom in 2021. Here’s some data from Microsoft:

  • “Flower arrangement” searches spiked 57% year-over-year (YoY).
  • Greetings cards, flowers and special outings (e.g., meals or restaurant gift cards) were the top three most popular Mother’s Day gifts.
  • Restaurant-related searches increased 46% YoY the week of Mother’s Day. Microsoft noted this was significantly higher compared to the three years prior to 2021.
  • Jewelry searches increased 26% YoY the week of Mother’s Day. 

Trend 3: Local. The second most clicked gift last year was spas – and more than 20% of mothers surveyed said they would like a spa visit in 2022, Microsoft said.

Spas are an example of this local buying trend. More than half of those surveyed by Microsoft said they planned to shop at a local store or restaurant for Mother’s Day. But don’t worry – the same people said they still plan to search online first for information, offers and deals.

Why we care. Mother’s Day is one of the biggest retail holidays of the year. To maximize profit, it’s critical to always optimize campaigns based on what consumers are searching for, and when. Hopefully, this data will help get you started on the path to higher conversion rates and more revenue. Most important of all, don’t forget that Mother’s Day is May 8 – and quality time really is the greatest gift of all.

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Jason April 11, 2022 0 Comments

Search Engine Land seeks editor to cover paid search marketing

Come work with us! We’re looking for an Editor to join the team as a key reporter on topics related to pay-per-click search and social media marketing as well as digital commerce advertising. Reporting to the VP, Content, the Editor will contribute to Search Engine Land’s daily production of news, features, newsletters, analysis, special projects and more.

As one of several authoritative journalists on the team, the Editor also helps to create agendas for Search Marketing Expo – SMX, our conference series. The Editor will also moderate panels and discussions at SMX, and even may lead presentations on search marketing developments.

This is a forever remote position and the salary range is between $75,000 and $85,000 annually.

Core job responsibilities

  • Write daily news articles, feature articles, guides, and other forms of in-depth content on developments in PPC search marketing, social media marketing, digital commerce marketing and more.
  • Speak and moderate panel discussions and support agenda development for SMX.
  • Edit some staff and contributed content.
  • Compile daily newsletters.

Who we are looking for

While past experience with PPC search marketing topics for a news or content marketing department is a plus, we know that any hard-charging reporter who knows the craft can learn a new beat, so it’s not a prerequisite. Instead, the perfect candidate is someone who:

  • Is a hard-charging reporter with a passion for breaking news and engaging a readership
  • Is endlessly curious about our subject matter.
  • Knows how to cultivate a large body of reliable authoritative sources.
  • Empathizes with our audience’s challenges.
  • Is a strong writer who holds the clarity and impact of a piece above flowery language, Oxford commas and whether it follows AP style, etc.
  • Is confident on stage or leading a video-based discussion.
  • Has at least 5 years experience at a digital news outfit, newspaper, B2B media brand or in-house content marketing department.

If you are interested, please email resume and clips to Henry Powderly, VP of Content, at hpowderly(at)thirddoormedia.com. Or, if you would like, please apply at the LinkedIn job listing.

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Jason April 8, 2022 0 Comments

Microsoft Advertising announces open beta for RSA ad customizers

Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) will gain the ability to leverage ad customizers in this quarter’s open beta, Microsoft Advertising announced Tuesday,. That news should be well received by those advertisers that crave customization. Ad customizers have been available for Microsoft’s Expanded Text Ads and can now be deployed across the modern RSA ad unit.

RSA customizers can help to create more dynamic ads that feature more product information in the ad copy without requiring advertisers to manually change the copy. These enhancements allow marketers to create hundreds of ad variations across what is technically a single ad. These ads can be more targeted based on unique product details fed to the ad. This customization can, in turn, lead to higher conversion rates and lower cost per acquisition.

This will be in an open beta this quarter and will allow for the customization of RSAs using custom attributes. That matches similar functionality that Google Ads offers.

What’s included in the beta?
The custom attributes announced for this open beta reflect much of what was previously available for Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) including:

  • Text – Product names, descriptions and product categories
  • Number – Inventory count and colors available
  • Price – Sale discounts and product costs
  • Percent – Interest rates or discount rates

Microsoft did not say if the previous “date” attribute will be maintained. It is also worth noting that previously Microsoft Advertising’s ETA ad customizers were available for any field except the final URL field.

The ad customizers for RSAs can be created in two ways. The first is using Microsoft advertising online and adding in the additional customizers via the web version. The second will be to upload a customizer feed that will dynamically leverage these attributes. Feed-based customizers are the most popular in terms of implementation due to the ease of updating via export from internal platforms.

What else did Microsoft announce? Included in Microsoft’s monthly updates are:

  • Soon to be released open beta for campaign level conversion goals. Not much information was released on this beta, but we’d expect that it would follow Google’s lead on Campaign specific primary and secondary goals.
  • RSA info in the Microsoft Advertising app. Advertisers will not be able to see RSA data from within both the Apple and Android versions of the Microsoft Advertising app.
  • Rollout of Smart Campaigns in more countries. Good news for any advertisers out there that prefer the use of Smart Campaigns over traditional campaigns. These simplified campaign types geared towards small business are following out in Canada, France and Germany.
  • Microsoft Audience Ads will be available across 39 additional countries. The native ads solution will be rolling out to India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan. In Europe this includes: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Holy See (the), Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, and Turkey.

Why we care: Advertisers that have utilized ad customizers for their ETAs can join the beta and bring that customization to RSAs. It’s clear that RSAs are here to stay, but some of the functionality to make these ads truly dynamic has been lacking. These new changes look to mimic the previous functionality from Google Ads, which should make implementation a breeze. In a world where automation is taking over, these detailed customizers give advertisers yet another welcomed input into the system.

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Jason April 5, 2022 0 Comments

Google Ads latency issue confirmed with ad reviews

Google has confirmed an issue with the Google Ads console where there is “higher than normal latency” during the ad review process for Responsive search ads (RSAs). Google said this is impacting a “significant subset of users.”

If you are noticing slowness in the Google Ads console, do know Google is working on resolving it.

The notice. Google posted “we’re aware of a problem with Google Ads affecting a significant subset of users. We will provide an update by Apr 4, 2022, 7:00 AM UTC detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change. The affected users are able to access Google Ads, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior. Currently, Responsive search ads (RSAs) might experience a higher than normal latency during the ad review process.”

Fix ETA. There is currently no specific estimated time when this issue will be resolved but Google is working on it and promises to give us an update by Monday on this issue. I suspect it will be resolved sooner, but we will keep you posted.

Why we care. If you are experiencing slowness, you should know it is not your fault. Google is having an issue that they are working on resolving. So check back later or put the work off until Monday.

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Jason April 1, 2022 0 Comments

Google’s Privacy Sandbox ad technology testing begins

Google has announced that the first round of testing is here for its crucial Privacy Sandbox initiative. In this round of testing developers will gain access to Privacy Sandbox’s newest measurement proposals: Topics, FLEDGE and Attribution Reporting. These ad technologies are the replacement for the beleaguered FLoC initiative that was killed off back in January.

What are these technologies again?

  • FLEDGE, or First Locally Executed Decision over Groups Experiment, calculates ad auction data in the browser itself instead of at the server to help increase privacy by limiting a user’s data flow.
  • Topics is a technology that helps identify interests for advertising while retaining greater user privacy.
  • Attribution reporting allows for better measurement on the conversion from ad clicks or views.

Together these technologies are aimed at helping limit the use of personal data while ensuring accuracy in reporting. 


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Origin trials. Announced back in 2020, origin trials are a way that developers can test experimental features for a limited time before the public. These trials generally occur on a first-party basis only and on one “origin”. As of today, developers will be able to see and test the code for Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting in the Canary version of Chrome. 

After this is iteration is rolled out, testing will then begin in a limited Chrome beta and then to a stable version of Chrome. The origin trials for the above-mentioned Privacy Sandbox technologies are worldwide. 

If you are interested in API access, Google has a developer guidance page here to help.

User controls. A nice new addition announced today are updated settings that allow participants to understand and manage their information usage more clearly. This will allow users to manage their interests or turn off trials altogether.

Why we care. Many of these new privacy technologies have been hypothetical until today. It’s great to see this next phase of Google’s (well needed) new ad technology begin to come to fruition. The feedback and news that will be generated in this stage of testing should help marketers prepare for the realities that we will soon face with Google’s initiative. 

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Jason March 31, 2022 0 Comments

How paid search marketers can address brand measurement challenges and grow in their careers

Climbing the corporate ladder isn’t always the most straightforward process, especially for paid search marketers. Professionals seeking to grow their careers need to map out a path, accounting for their unique roles within their organizations.

“The most important thing is to look at your current position,” said Pascal Skropke, CMO of Design-Bestseller, at SMX Next. “Not everybody has the opportunity to work at a fast-growing e-commerce company or startup.”

He added, “Look at where you are and find out if it’s possible to take steps within your company — and understand what your company needs to succeed.”

Skropke says marketers seeking to climb this ladder should establish an “anchor point” within their company — the cross-section of their company’s needs and their career goals. One of these points is the issue of campaign advertising measurement — the lack of direction, accurate data models, and resources for many brands in the digital retail space.

Here are some of the key measurement challenges paid search marketers can help their companies with.

Address issues in advertising spend and ROI

“Performance advertising is killing it for most retailers,” said Andreas Reiffen, founder and CEO of Crealytics, in the same presentation. “At the same time, we see legacy retailers falling behind.”

Despite impressive increases in compound annual growth rate for online retailers such as EtsyBoohoo, and Farfetch (44%, 55%, and 64%, respectively,), more traditional retailers are falling behind, even in the e-commerce sphere. Reiffen noted that although some of these legacy brands are meeting their KPIs, their slow overall growth could be a major issue down the road.

“The question we need to ask ourselves is, ‘Why am I seeing great results when the company isn’t growing?’” said Reiffen. “The issue we are all facing today is that the measurement is broken. The methodology that we use to track conversions and conversion values — one click, last click, or many clicks — is misleading us because people don’t necessarily buy when they click on ads.”

He added, “They might have happened to click on ads when they purchased, but there’s no direct correlation.”

Source: Andreas Reiffen

Inaccurate measurement models can disrupt return on ad spend (ROAS) projections, making it that much harder for legacy brands to stay competitive.

Paid search marketers and managers can help executives of legacy-style brands address these discrepancies by optimizing paid advertising spending — adopting more accurate tracking models and allocating spend more effectively. This can help marketers establish more authority within their brand and encourage executives to lean on them for their expertise in the future.


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Establish accurate data analytics systems

“We’re seeing big companies like the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey building departments for data analytics,” said Skropke. “This is a sign that analytics is not just something that the data nerd is working on, but something that’s now on C-level.”

data analytics for marketing and advertising to measure ROI impact
Source: Pascal Skropke

Data matters, not just to search marketers, but to all those in brand leadership positions. The sooner search marketers can encourage their managers and company executives to consult paid media analytics when making business decisions, the more respect they’ll garner from those same decision-makers.

“If you work in a paid search manager role on an operation level, it’s rare that you would be asked to do these things,” said Reiffen. “But it’s a major problem that is present now on the C-level.”

He added, “Measurement is the most important thing to get right, so that’s where we see a good opportunity to step up and challenge the numbers.”

Create a growth strategy and align target market goals

Inaccurate measurement clearly causes issues in advertising ROI and data analytics. Unfortunately, it can also disrupt brand growth by derailing target market strategies.

“Wrong targeting leads to poor results,” said Skropke. “So, we should always ask what’s driving the value for the business. Is this the top-line revenue or is it the profitable acquisition of new customers?”

improving company growth strategies and targeting alignment
Source: Pascal Skropke

Whether it’s targeting a disproportionate amount of existing customers or pushing products that have lower than average profit margins, C-level executives will inevitably get parts of the targeting and growth strategy wrong. This is where paid search managers can share their expertise and help leadership set clear, actionable goals.

“So, where’s the opportunity here?” asked Reiffen. “It’s in taking the time to explain this, giving [leadership] examples.”

He added, “Start stepping up and explaining that it’s the targets themselves that are limiting performance.”

The post How paid search marketers can address brand measurement challenges and grow in their careers appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Jason March 31, 2022 0 Comments

YouTube to drop Maximize Lift bidding

Google will be ending support for Maximize Lift bidding for YouTube, the company said, leaving a TrueView, in-stream ads option behind as YouTube continues to enhance its ad offerings.

What it did. Maximize Lift was a very specific bidding strategy that worked in conjunction with Brand Lift measurement with a goal of hitting more of the right audience that was currently in the consideration phase. If you aren’t familiar with Brand Lift, it is a tool that helps to measure recall, awareness and consideration and requires a Google Account Rep to activate on your behalf.

Maximize Lift used details input by advertisers about their brands and products to generate content to be used in Brand Lift surveys. The survey responses were then used by Maximize Lift to focus on those consumers that may be the best fit for your products. Unlike other bidding types Maximize Lift didn’t optimize towards views, rather would optimize towards lift.


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“We launched Maximize Lift as a beta in 2018 to optimize TrueView in-stream campaigns,” a Google spokesperson said. “While we did see some success, we are sunsetting the bidding tool to focus on scalable solutions like skippable in-stream ads that are more in line with how advertisers want to buy.”

Maximize Lift was launched in 2018 with the allure of driving meaningful B2C results. Upon release, Google touted a 2x return on ad spend for COVERGIRL’s Lashblast Mascara product. However, it seems that there has been less and less focus lately on Brand Lift within YouTube.

Why we care. If you are an advertiser that uses Maximize Lift bidding, you’ll need to look for other solutions come April 1. Additionally, this change may alter the results that you see in Brand Lift if you have been leveraging Maximize Lift at the same time.

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Jason March 30, 2022 0 Comments

3 ways Google Performance Max campaigns boost paid search in 2022

Google recently released its Performance Max campaigns enabling businesses to advertise their ads across all of Google’s channels (Search, Display, Gmail, Maps, Discovery, YouTube, etc.) instead of creating specialized ads for each channel.

However, as with any automated advertising platform, it’s best to oversee and guide the overall strategic direction to ensure campaign success. 

Join paid search experts from Adthena to learn three ways to boost your Google Performance Max campaigns to ensure they deliver real business results.

Register today for “3 Ways Google Performance Max Campaigns Boost Paid Search in 2022,” presented by Adthena.

The post 3 ways Google Performance Max campaigns boost paid search in 2022 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Jason March 29, 2022 0 Comments

Microsoft Advertising updates reporting dashboard with recent reports, real-time previews and more

Microsoft Advertising has updated its reporting dashboard, the company announced Tuesday. The updates include easier access to recent reports, real-time report previews as well as formatting options and shortcuts.

Microsoft Advertising’s new reporting dashboard is now available in all markets and all languages.

Easier access to recent reports. Advertisers can now select recently run reports from the drop-down menu and use default or customized reporting options, as shown below.

Recent reports in Microsoft Advertising. Image: Microsoft.

New preview options. Real-time report previews, which adjust as you create and modify your columns and filters, are now available. Microsoft Advertising has also improved report load times, according to the announcement.

Additional formatting options and shortcuts. This update also includes new capabilities around conditional formatting, inline edits, sharing, scheduling, saving, scope changes and common Excel shortcuts.

Why we care. These updates are aimed at streamlining your workflow by making reports easier to customize and access.

Since reports are typically generated for clients on a regular basis (and using the same template) being able to select a recently run report can help practitioners save time — particularly those that work at agencies. Similarly, the new report preview capabilities may also help cut down on unnecessary steps while generating reports.


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Jason March 22, 2022 0 Comments