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The future of PPC: in your opinion where our industry is going and what are some alternative sources of traffic?
Posted by on October 10, 2020 at 4:35 pmHi everyone,
Last couple of months make me worry a bit about viability of my current sources of paid traffic.My primary source is FB Ads, and I kinda accepted that it inevitably becomes more expensive and less accurate (because of the privacy concerns). But these months are just terrible, with unexpected jumps in results, blanket account bans and ad rejections. And you can’t appeal these in most cases, unless you have a dedicated account rep. FB used to be a great source of traffic for smaller businesses, but I have a strong feeling that it’s going to change.
Google Ads are implementing more and more changes that hinder the ability to tweak and improve performance (like expanding exact match and removing small volume queries from search reports). While not as dramatic as changes with FB, Google seems to slowly remove advanced settings which let specialists make the difference. Could be that we’re headed for a future where there’s no place for independent agencies or freelancers? Everything will be done through automated “one-click” campaigns.
Of course I may be cherry picking and missing the big picture, but these trends make me nervous. I’d appreciate input from other specialists, especially from those who are longer in the game (I’m doing this for only 2 years), know more and see more.
1) what’s your opinion, what’s the near future (2-5 years) will be? Will we use the same platforms? What will change in our work?
2) What are some viable alternatives to FB and Google Ads worth exploring today? Especially if you work with smaller businesses and budgets (think 3-4 figures monthly budget range).Thanks!
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2 Replies
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You’ll always need humans in my opinion, machine learning/algos can’t do it all on either Google or Facebook, especially when factoring it external variables.
But whilst there has been a lot of focus on these platforms automating bidding/setup, there hasn’t been much focus on what is probably even more important which is how you measure success. The current form of deterministic cookie/device id based attribution is pretty much screwed from data privacy & ecosystem changes. Hence you are seeing vendors including these two slowly revise how they measure success, which will no doubt raise even more questions.
I’d say programmatic is relevant but is still quite difficult for smaller brands to get into due to the platforms that exist / different approach of buying vs the freemium model of Google Ads / Facebook. Those 2 will no doubt remain the top 2 places to buy ads but will be interesting to see if Amazon continues to blow up / Apple decides to get involved outside of ASA.
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I have concerns about the same issues. It’s becoming less and less viable for lower budget advertisers to enter the market with these changes. A lot of these issues are alleviated at higher budgets.
That said there will always be demand for people who can get the most out of these platforms but there may be a market contraction. I suspect demand will shrink.
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