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Covid-19 has had a major impact on digital marketing. This is especially true for PPC where it has affected the spend and performance of many industries and businesses. However, in a time when the Pandemic controls every aspect of our lives, let’s divert our attention to other trends.

 

It’s Official, the Tablet is Done

For many years we saw a decline in usage and purchases of tablets. This trend carries into PPC. In 2020, the spend declined at least 45% each of the first two quarters of the year. This was as expected. Larger, yet more portable smartphones have taken the place of tablets. A smartphone in today’s world can do just as much as a tablet. Additionally, laptops have become more compact and portable eliminating the need for a tablet. While it’s important to check-in on tablet sourcing, the likelihood of users utilizing the table is declining. This is mainly due to the fact that tablets only account for 4% of Google search clicks.

 

No More Google Search Partner Share

Google announced that the Shopping ads featured on Google image search would be grouped with the core search network. This was at the expense of Search Partner Network. Following this decision, Yahoo turned to Microsoft for search ads. This severed their relationship in terms of search partner traffic. These decisions ultimately led to a decline in click share. The specifics of the clickshare for both text ads and shopping was below 1%.

 

Broad Match is in Decline for Non-brand Clicks

In 2020, broad match only accounts for 10% of non-paid search for Google. This can be attributed to how much exact match covers. Exact match keywords usually also cover close variants and in general it is hard to imagine any other keywords that are not encompassed in close variants. The reduction of broad match keywords also helps with limiting poor matches driving impressions. 

If you would like to read more about these trends in detail, here is the source.