Machine Learning in PPC: What it can do for you?

Each and every day, we as humans interact with a wide variety of technologies. From the phone in our pocket to watch on your wrist, technology is an ever-increasing part of modern life for each one of us. In many ways, technology is limiting the need for human interaction, with self service checkouts now commonplace in supermarkets and intelligent fast food ordering through dedicated websites, it would appear as though human intervention is seen now as hinderance rather than adding value.  The same is holding true when it comes to advertising, and in particular search engine advertising, where in recent years we have seen the rollout of machine learning technology.

In 2017, Google began unveiling the first of their machine learning technologies through its ad platform, and since then, developments have continued to make advertising your business online significantly easier. In this piece we will explore a few of the machine learning technologies available to business and search marketers in Google Ads to help you hone your skill and grow your overall return on investment through Google Ads.

In – Market Audiences – Targeting People who actually need your business

According to Search Engine Land, Google completes over 63,000 searches every second. Pretty astonishing right?

But with so many searches happening every second, serving your ads to the correct target market has proven difficult. But not anymore.  We’ve already mentioned that the first of Googles Machine Learning Technologies was unveiled in 2017. In-Market Audience targeting was said technology.

For the first time, businesses can target potential customers actively researching solution providers with their advertising.

Google’s Machine Learning technology interprets search behaviour, website interactions & search patterns to develop a picture of the service or solution a user is looking for. Using ourselves as an example, we can now target individuals actively researching web service providers such as SEO & SEM partners as well as people looking for website developers.

Aside from the obvious benefits, in-market audience targeting can prove an invaluable resource for building brand awareness for fledging businesses, as they can deliver their marketing message to individuals actively looking for solutions

Bid Strategies – Get more users to your website through bid automation

A further addition to Google Ads is the introduction of new smart bid strategies. These strategies utilise a succinct combination of machine learning and contextual signs to deliver intelligent bids during the bidding process. Factoring in elements such as time of day, user location and even the users device allows smart bidding strategies utilise the most appropriate bid.

Smart Bidding strategies can be harnessed in a multitude of ways, but marketers should endeavour to ensure their chosen strategy aligns with their marketing objectives. Having used smart bidding with great effect over the past number of months, we have seen significant reductions in cost per acquisition metrics for a multitude of clients across a variety of industries.

Responsive Search Ads – Serve enticing ad copy that actually appeals to your customers.

Responsive Search Ads are a machine learning newcomer so to speak. Currently in Beta, responsive search ads allow advertisers add a variety of USP focused headlines, as well as numerous descriptions, and Googles Machine Learning technology will serve the most appropriate ad copy to the end user. Although it is still relatively early days for this technology, we have seen it reduce cost per click by up to 75%.

We envisage this automation technology becoming mainstream following beta testing and will become search advertising cornerstone going forward. Get ahead of the competition today and start using and testing responsive search ads in your Google Ads Campaigns.

So, what does the future hold? The reality is the sky is the limit. We are only beginning to see machine learning at work in Google Ads and I have no doubt that machine learning will become a profound influence on search engine marketing over the coming years. So why not try out some of the new features