Google Instant – effects on PPC

Search: PPC & SEO — By Terry Richards on September 14, 2010 12:45 pm

As many of you may know, Google have launched Google Instant Search, in which search results shown are updated and refined with every character that is typed into the search bar, so that results will change as you are typing. Google claim that this will have the following benefits:

•    Faster search results by showing you results before you have finished typing your search query
•    Smart predictions of what you are searching for to help you if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for (or if you can’t spell)

How will this affect PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising?

PPC ads (also known as Google AdWords Sponsored Links) are shown based on how relevant they are to the search made and the cost the advertiser is willing to pay per click.

Therefore Google Instant is sure to have an impact on anyone using a Google PPC campaign.
As you type your search into Google Instant and the results change, the ads will keep changing until you have finished typing or Google Instant has predicted what you want. Therefore many of the ads that are appearing as you type will be irrelevant to your final search. As a result of this, the number of times the ad is shown before it receives a click will increase, decreasing Click-Through-Rate (CTR) & increasing Cost-Per-Click (CPC), making the results look much worse than previous results.

How will this affect the cost of a PPC campaign?

Ultimately, it could stop ads from showing for a large range of keywords, as Google won’t see your ads as relevant anymore. If this happens, the only way to increase traffic again is to raise the Cost-Per-Click, and hope that you start to get some ad visibility again. This could be worrying because it could start a much more aggressive bidding war which would raise the price of a PPC campaign.

How will this affect your choice of PPC keywords?

In addition to relevance of ads changing, so will the relevance of the keywords that trigger the ads to appear. At the start of a buying process, the search terms you would use are much more generic (e.g. Laptop) and later on in the buying process you will have a better understanding of what you want, and so the search term is longer (e.g. Laptop 500gb 17” Screen), which is known as a long-tail phrase.

Generic keywords

With Google Instant, the searcher is only entering half of the keyword before finding the relevant search result; this could make long-tail keywords less relevant than they used to be. For example, if you have a keyword ‘mobile phones’, and the searcher types into Google ‘mobile’, chances are they will find an ad relevant to mobile phones, before they finish typing the word ‘phones’.
This would mean that advertisers may have to start using much shorter, generic keywords, just so that their ad is shown.

Long-tail keywords

On the other hand, Google Instant could make long-tail keywords much more useful than generic keywords. If searchers start to spend more time taking notice of the ads that appear as they are typing, they can continue to make the search query increasingly specific in order to find the most relevant ad.

This is in contrast to current practise, whereby users type in a search query that they think is relevant, but don’t necessarily get the ads they were expecting.

What should you look out for?

•    Are impressions increasing while your clicks see little change?
•    Are your current keywords as relevant as they used to be?
•    Are your Costs-Per-Click increasing?

What should you do in these situations?

•    Look for new keywords as people are searching differently, by making good use of Google’s historical data reports
•    Remove any keywords that have seen a drop in performance
•    Update the text in your ads to be more relevant to what searchers want
•    Look out for any changes that Google make here.

So, how will this affect Google?

At the moment, Google are saying that this will affect impressions negatively on PPC campaigns, by increasing the number of times an ad is shown without receiving a click. But, would they really be in a rush to improve the technology, and fix the problem? We’re not so sure.

So what will happen if advertisers are seeing more impressions?

•    More advertisers will use generic keywords
•    Ad visibility for existing advertisers will reduce
•    First page positions will become harder to achieve for generic keywords
•    Costs-Per-Click will need to be increased by all advertisers
•    Advertisers will engage in a bidding war!

Let’s face it, this is going to change PPC strategies and account structures for all advertisers moving forward. So, keep watching and make sure your agency is on top of these changes!



Tags: click-through-rate, cost-per-click, CPC, CTR, google adwords, google instant, pay-per-click, ppc, search