PPC Trends

AI is only part of the equation. We are also seeing shifts in auction competition, CPC transparency, funnel role, and measurement. On the DMI podcast we recently outlined six headwinds facing PPC marketers—let's unpack each one.

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Competition Is Increasing

After the pandemic, demand dropped as people moved away from online, but there was still a huge amount of competition for clicks. One of the battles that PPC specialists are fighting is to keep their cost per clicks down in the face of this competition.

Temu, the online retailer, spent about $15 billion on PPC ads alone in 2023. When you’ve got a huge spender like that, it increases competition for everyone and you have to work even harder to keep your cost per clicks down.

Brands Need to Move Away from ROAS

ROAS still matters, but obsessing over it can stifle experimentation. During the pandemic, inflated ecommerce demand made ROAS look perfect—now it can create tunnel vision. Layer in broader KPIs like customer growth, brand search lift, and share of search so you can tell a more strategic performance story.

Costs Are Rising

Google now charges for clicks based on factors advertisers can't fully see or control. That makes owned experiences—landing pages, conversion paths, site speed—your biggest lever. Elevate quality score inputs so you can offset higher CPCs with better conversion rates.

Marketers Need to Grow Brands

Look beyond direct-response metrics and track how PPC contributes to brand growth. Even when clicks are pricey, campaigns can still drive new demand that shows up in branded queries, direct traffic, or cross-channel lift. Treat PPC like a lever that influences how people perceive your brand everywhere else.

Search's Role in the Funnel Has Changed

Paid search has moved up the funnel. Brands now buy informational keywords to win awareness and consideration, especially through campaign types like Demand Gen. Higher CPCs are easier to justify when they introduce new audiences earlier in the journey, so set expectations internally about assisted conversions and halo effects.

Marketers Have to Use AI and Automation Strategically

AI and automation can help marketers be much more efficient in their PPC campaigns. These AI tools for PPC strategies and campaigns can help digital marketers refine audience targeting, conduct keyword research faster, improve bidding strategy, and more. However, marketers need to be strategic in how they do this.

PPC Strategies for Success: Thinking Beyond Search

Given all these shifts, how do you keep campaigns performing? Start with the ten tactics below—they expand your reach, improve efficiency, and keep you agile even when AI changes the rules.

1. Use YouTube ads
2. Explore Demand Gen campaigns
3. Optimize landing pages
4. Know when your search campaign isn't working
5. Have accurate measurement and reporting
6. Get to know GA4
7. Change your bidding strategy when necessary
8. Change default location targeting if needed
9. Use negative keywords strategically
10. Set up proper conversion tracking with one goal per campaign

1. Use YouTube Ads

When you build a paid search strategy, don't forget video and display. Running YouTube and Google Display Network campaigns lets you reach customers all across the Google ecosystem so you are not limited to bottom-of-funnel search demand.

YouTube is especially underutilized. With hours of user-led content and the title of top streaming service in America, it is still a cost-effective space for smaller brands. About 11.6% of YouTube users now watch via TV screens, which means you can show up in someone's living room at primetime without linear TV budgets.

Costs will rise once more large advertisers jump in, so this is the moment to establish your brand while CPMs remain reasonable.

2. Explore Demand Gen Campaigns

Google Ads is an ad-buying platform, not just a search tool. When your search campaigns are maxed out, Demand Gen lets you run native-style creative across YouTube, Discover, and Gmail to generate demand at the top of the funnel.

Pro tip: When search caps out, use Demand Gen to literally stimulate more demand and watch for a subsequent rise in branded searches.

3. Optimize Landing Pages

Many advertisers overlook what happens after the click. Google evaluates landing pages when scoring ads, so consider the full journey:

• What questions are people asking Google? (Their keywords)
• What answers are you providing? (Your ads)
• Where do you send them to complete the task? (Your landing page)

Build bespoke pages that match intent, capture the data you need, and help users complete their task fast. If someone searches for a specific product, send them to that product page—not the homepage.

Pro tip: Make sure you have the relevant product in stock. Otherwise, you could be wasting money on clicks that don’t convert.

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4. Know When Your Search Campaign Isn't Working

Search is not always the right channel. If you serve a niche market with little search volume, you cannot force demand. In those cases, focus on building awareness so people search for your brand later rather than the niche keyword today.

Use YouTube, content marketing, or influencer collaborations to drive interest, then monitor branded search volume to see when prospects are ready to come back.

Pro tip: Track branded queries and direct traffic as leading indicators of long-term success.

5. Have Accurate Measurement & Reporting

Measurement is one of the toughest challenges, especially with GA4's learning curve. Supplement GA4 with back-end data (Shopify, CRM, offline conversions) to understand what really drives revenue.

Think beyond monthly reports. Extend your analysis window to six or twelve months and prioritize metrics like net-new customers, branded search growth, and share of search.

Pro tip: Download our FREE PPC Strategy Worksheet to keep track of your KPIs, the most important metrics, and more.

6. Get to Know GA4

The Google Analytics 4 interface is complex and evolving, with tweaks, AI features, and recommendations that need to be carefully navigated.

Google Ads has been around a long time, and it’s very good at what it does, enabling you to show ads and ultimately make money for Google. And now GA4 is enabling you to automate many decisions with its AI integrations, nudging you towards what Google thinks are best practices. (There’s even an option to apply all recommendations, with a hard-to-resist blue button!) However, it’s worth taking the time to carefully judge whether GA4 is making the right decisions for you.

7. Change Your Bidding Strategy When Necessary

Smart Bidding is powerful with enough data, but manual bidding can still win early in a campaign or in niche accounts with limited signals. Run structured tests comparing Target ROAS, Max Conversions, or Enhanced CPC against manual bids to see what really drives impression share and CPA.

Consider hybrid approaches: start manually while signals build, switch to automation once stable, and fall back to manual if performance drifts.

8. Change Default Location Targeting

Google's default includes people "in," "regularly in," or "interested in" your target area. If you only sell locally, that setting wastes spend. Switch to presence-based targeting to focus on people physically located in your region, or intentionally build separate campaigns for travelers and expats.

9. Have a Smarter Keyword Strategy

When it comes to maximizing your PPC campaigns, keyword targeting is everything. While marketers often obsess over choosing the right positive keywords, negative keywords are just as important.

As competition increases and Google becomes more aggressive with broad match and AI-driven automation, the lines between different intent signals in keyword searches are starting to blur. That’s why you need to actively shape your traffic, not just accept whatever Google serves you.

This means

10. Set Up Proper Conversion Tracking with One Goal

Misconfigured conversion tracking derails bidding. Validate tags, deduplicate events, and ensure each campaign optimizes for a single primary conversion. If you track micro conversions like add to cart and purchases, treat the former as secondary so Google doesn't double-count.

Before launching anything new, fire a test conversion and confirm it records exactly once in Google Ads and GA4.

Final Tips for Your Paid Search Strategy

PPC has become more complex, but the fundamentals remain simple: keywords are questions, ads are answers, and landing pages are conversion points. Keep campaigns tightly aligned to human behavior and let AI assist—but not replace—your strategy.

"Search, since the dawn of the internet, is just three things: keywords, ads, and landing pages." — Cathal Melinn

Treat PPC as an active learning loop. Test, measure, and feed insights back into creative, bidding, and landing pages. That mindset keeps you resilient no matter how AI or auction dynamics evolve.

Ready to go deeper? Refine your PPC skills with DMI's short Paid Search course to learn how to set up, manage, and optimize campaigns alongside GA4 reporting and data visualization fundamentals.