PPCChat | PPC Wish List | 22nd Dec, 2020

With the year 2020 coming to an end, PPCers look back at how this year went. Looking forward to 2021, they discuss their wishlist for the PPC platforms (Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, LinkedIn Advertising and Facebook Advertising) in the year 2021. Hosted by Julie F Bacchini, here is the screencap of the session

Q1: What do you think the biggest change was in PPC in 2020?

Strategizing and Empathizing with different client industries in how they were impacted (positively or negatively) by the pandemic….. that and of course search terms becoming more limited.. – @_GilHong

many agencies had to change their mindset that projections and planners can go off the rails very quickly. those who weren’t able to pivot, fast, were hit hard. – @PPCGreg

The biggest change is that across the industry I’m seeing more and more working within platform automation instead of trying to fight against it – @ferkungamaboobo

The most macro change was having no context for anything for most of the year. No YoY comparisons or even any clue what to expect in any given month with the situation being so fluid and generally awful. – @NeptuneMoon

I dont know if there was any one major change, but the free PLA’s and HEC both stood out to me – @JonKagan

Hiding the search term! Search Terms have been so fundamental from the start. Not sure if this change was biggest for performance… but taking this away, for a BS reason, felt like a (sad) statement about where Google Ads is headed. – @yaelconsulting

many agencies had to change their mindset that projections and planners can go off the rails very quickly. those who weren’t able to pivot, fast, were hit hard. – @PPCGreg

Q2: What is your biggest general wish for PPC in 2021?

BRING BACK AVERAGE POSITION @GoogleAds Impr. (Abs. Top) %& Impr. (Top) % is a joke. – @markbclicky

I’d love for platforms to approach changes from a user/marketer’s viewpoint rather than a profit/engineering one. – @_GilHong

Support (beyond Google and Facebook) for deep funnel or offline optimization. Thinking about @LinkedInMktg@Twitter@Quora Etc. Plus for all networks: Easier mechanisms to implement deep funnel / offline optimization. Better ways to link the funnel to the ads – @hhawk

for google to give us all the data they have available. I’d love to see impression share for each targeted area in a campaign. – @PPCGreg

that advertising platforms give the customers more valuable information how to present their services better to their customers. – @Maiglisreal

LESS ENFORCED AUTOMATION. – @markbclicky

Be more transparent with data. Applies to every platform. Don’t be scrooge with the data. – @DigitalSamIAm

My biggest overall PPC wish is for reasonable access to data for advertisers. Search terms are the biggest item, but there are others. – @NeptuneMoon

more control over GDN placements – @leo_pinon09

My biggest wish is for automated display, whether through GDN or programmatic vendors, figures out the inventory problem. The long tail inventory – the value of this channel – is no longer the asset that it was once sold as. – @ferkungamaboobo

This really takes a major mindset shift. The traditional metrics don’t apply to brokered display in the same way. E.g.: What’s the point of comparing CPMs when the value of each impression is so wildly different? – @ferkungamaboobo

#ppcchat for @GoogleAds Support to stop being an oxymoron, and actually be helpful and knowledgeable – @JonKagan

More control and less “black magic” Examples: Google Ads: “Starting today, feature Y will do less of what you intended” Microsoft Ads: “Whatever Big G said” Facebook: “great day, great day, wtf day, account disabled, oops (you’re live)”… repeat cycle – @yaelconsulting

for google to give us all the data they have available. I’d love to see impression share for each targeted area in a campaign. – @PPCGreg

Q3: What are your PPC wishes for Google Ads in 2021?

Hybrid match type, eg. hybrid phrase and modified-broad – @seo_sitch

I’d love more access to my data – @SarahScarfeMktg

1. Smart Shopping search term reports and added negatives. 2. Back to Search term report 3. Apple search engine 4. Manage LinkedIn Ads campaigns in @MSFTAdvertising 5. Break up Google Search/display/YouTube 6. Break up FB/IG/What’s app 7. Improve Amazon platform – @360vardi

Google would reverse all of these little anti-agency moves, including contacting clients directly, using optimization scores as FUD and making promises that AI cannot keep in many scenarios. – @scottclark

My expectations from Google Ads for 2021: Access to search terms in shopping campaigns, Youtube video ads with shopping tag, Shopping search ads (it was closed in Turkey) and the faster a panel – @esra_kadi

A Google fridge or bike would be nice 🙂 But in all seriousness, transparency in the data that we’re paying for: Search terms, better product data for shopping, more accurate keyword matching, etc. – @_GilHong

Google Ads should… Show all query data. Provide real support. Don’t force RSAs on us. Make match types mean something again. You know, the basics – @NeptuneMoon

I forgot a major one for Google Ads! Get rid of the 10,000 placement exclusion limit! Let advertisers truly exclude full categories of placements like apps or YouTube or games! – @NeptuneMoon

Ditch the optimization score. I was tempted to say “give us back STR data”, but I think these go hand-in-hand, and the OS is the bigger threat long-term. So let’s put that away and never speak of it again. – @DigitalSamIAm

First is definitely data visibility and a strong second is more actual help from Google Ads support. – @AllyQuilty_MKTG

More transparency on smart campaigns and for recommendations to go away – @JonKagan

More innovative tools and features that can ONLY (and really) help advertisers INCORRECT: changing “Exact” into “Kinda-Exact” to help advertisers expand their reach CORRECT: Bring back “Exact” match… ( pretty please?) – @yaelconsulting

I always struggle sharing/getting access to accounts. I feel like there has to be a better way! – @AllyQuilty_MKTG

Q4: What are your PPC wishes for Facebook Advertising in 2021?

An offline bulk editor for Facebook would be amazing! As well as a more intuitive interface! – @SarahScarfeMktg

Ad support!!!! Unless you have a dedicated rep, it’s like purgatory. A4: Ad account disapprovals need to have much, much better causal information given to the account holders and much faster appeals process. – @scottclark

Would love for Facebook to streamline their Business Manager access for ad accounts, pages, pixels, audiences, etc…. Definitely my least favorite part to onboarding – @_GilHong

a google ads editor-esque editor. gotta clean up the suspensions and disapproval / or at least the review process. – @PPCGreg

If we able to add ROAS goal to campaigns for Facebook would be amazing! – @esra_kadi

Actual customer service would be nice – @seo_sitch

Ad support!!!! Unless you have a dedicated rep, it’s like purgatory. A4: Ad account disapprovals need to have much, much better causal information given to the account holders and much faster appeals process. – @scottclark

Facebook needs to provide actual support to advertisers. Theirs is worse than Google’s. On offline editor would be amazing. Make it easier to see which ad set or ad you are looking at in a lot of the screens. – @NeptuneMoon

Make the process to get access to an ad account WAY EASIER. Seriously, it is a mature platform, it should not take the ludicrous steps it now takes to get access to a client account. – @NeptuneMoon

#ppcchat to go 12 months without a scandal – @JonKagan

1. Customer service 2. Offline editor 3. Some Consistency – or an effective way to set limits on extreme fluctuation 4. Stop random account disabling – @yaelconsulting

Offline editor; bring back 3rd party data sources now that Apple’s declared war; ad units in DCO (like headline, image go together), better sequencing features; Conversion API + GTM Integration; stop timing-out older audiences; less bugs during campaign builds. – @timmhalloran

Q5: What are your PPC wishes for Microsoft Advertising in 2021?

A better merchant centre experience would be awesome. It’s so hard to work with at the moment! – @SarahScarfeMktg

More shopping traffic (it would be great if they got amore traffic in general Better performance in display (option to add actual LinkedIn ads) – @360vardi

I’m not quite sure what’s on Microsoft’s agenda for increasing relevant inventory and search share, but that would be nice. – @_GilHong

better location targeting. not nearly as clean as google’s. – @PPCGreg

Be less Google. – @markbclicky

to scale volume and quit trying to push me on using their syndication network – @JonKagan

MS Ads is always the quiet one. LinkedIn audiences are interesting, but they perennially seem to be in Google’s shadow. Other than adding 10-20% to Google Search spend, give me a compelling reason to suggest it as a standalone network. – @ferkungamaboobo

I think we would all like more volume on Microsoft Ads network. I’d love to see more integration with LinkedIn audiences. – @NeptuneMoon

better location targeting. not nearly as clean as google’s. – @PPCGreg

Originality – OK copying convenient features from Google to keep up. But I’d love to see them, for once, set the pace. Do something that Google will want to copy and win over advertisers. NOT pissing off advertisers by hiding search terms, like Google, don’t count – @yaelconsulting

Two-way data sharing between Microsoft and LinkedIn. Give us search intent data in LI; & all the LI data points in Microsoft. Having said that, I’m happy with a lot of the features they’ve rolled out this year. They’re doing a good job – @timmhalloran

More shopping traffic (it would be great if they got amore traffic in general Better performance in display (option to add actual LinkedIn ads) – @360vardi

Q6: What are your PPC wishes for LinkedIn Advertising in 2021?

Better ad preview sharing – to show clients ads ready to launch. We have to do screen recordings of carousels now. Lower thresholds for analytics. In the world of ABM, saying “below analytics thresholds” for impressions by company name is a big problem. – @scottclark

When sponsoring a post let us alter the utm parameters on the URL. The original post had organic UTMs and the boost needs paid UTMs. As of now, you cannot even append parameters to it when you sponsor it. – @scottclark

more controls. less structured campaign builds… i still can’t update a campaign’s budget without doubling their bid. – @PPCGreg

better integration wish really anything – @JonKagan

This is really snarky but prove to me that anyone lurks on LinkedIn. I’ve heard I’m the only one who InMail works on. I can’t imagine those top banners get much play. Side-rail ads? There’s a reason FB dropped them. In-stream content promotion seems somewhat valid? – @ferkungamaboobo

In general, for everything but the resume and job-focused services, LI feels like a solution in search of a problem. So few “real” rainmakers are there in the way that I think the ads assume they are. – @ferkungamaboobo

I want LinkedIn to have a true ad duplication function. The one they have now weirdly ties your duplicate ads to the original ad. It makes it so you can’t use it without causing issues, especially if you use tracking parameters in your URLs. – @NeptuneMoon

Allow to advertise fully using Microsoft Advertising This will make it much easier to advertise and learn all the odd quirks of the LinkedIn advertising platform. It will surely gain significant traction. – @yaelconsulting

Get your costs under control + do something that isn’t copying facebook. I love the first party data, but LI costs are just stupid and makes the platform difficult (esp. for smaller advertisers). Also, improve your data integrations w/ Bing – @DigitalSamIAm

That they acquire Quora, make it easy to sign-in/sign-up with your LI username, roll-up all that question data and make both platforms more valuable in the process. – @timmhalloran

Q7: What are your PPC wishes for other platforms (Amazon, Twitter, Quora, Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok, etc.) in 2021?

copy facebook’s feature of giving users the ability to click and see “why am I seeing this ad.” fuller transparency for users, whether they use it or not, will bring our industry back to reality and make us rethink our creepy/egregious targeting habits. – @PPCGreg

Twitter’s targeting is awful. At every level it is just odd. I’d like to see more options that are things I’d want to target – @NeptuneMoon

Quick-fire: Amazon – ecosystem insights would be invaluable to understand MOM/YOY trends Twitter – do something different. What exists doesn’t work. Quora – prove to me non-trolls use your site, because I don’t see it. – @ferkungamaboobo

Pinterest – what are you doing to reengage old users? Haven’t heard real folks actively using the site in a good bit. Tiktok – give me content from someone over the age of 17 consistently and I’d be much more interested – @ferkungamaboobo

copy facebook’s feature of giving users the ability to click and see “why am I seeing this ad.” fuller transparency for users, whether they use it or not, will bring our industry back to reality and make us rethink our creepy/egregious targeting habits – @PPCGreg

It varies, Amazon I want to be transparent, Snapchat I want to stop existing, TikTok I want insight and growth, Pinterest I want a wider demographic, and Quora I want a better way to pronounce your name – @JonKagan

Q8: What are you hoping to get to do or try in 2021 that you didn’t get to in 2020? What kept you from it this year?

I’m hoping to write more articles, join some podcasts and conferences. A full time job and the need for sleep kept me from doing some of this in 2020. But some additional late nights in 2021 won’t hurt! – @BrettBodofsky

test, test, test, and test again. learn more about the e-commerce side of ppc. read/listen to more books. I don’t have a good reason why I didn’t this year.. just busy with other stuff. – @PPCGreg

Deep funnel optimisation wth end to end tracking for content within @HubSpot ads on @Facebook and @GoogleAds – @hhawk

Would love to have an opportunity to try Snapchat. Have only be tangentially involved in Snap campaigns. Didn’t have a good match in client base this year to really do it. – @NeptuneMoon

Growth and logic. Always want demand to increase, but not because of stupid unrelated things like an election. – @JonKagan

Sleep. Work got in the way!!! – @yaelconsulting

PPCChat Participants:

• Julie F Bacchini – @NeptuneMoon
• Doug R Thomas, Esq. – @ferkungamaboobo
• Jon Kagan – @JonKagan
• Sam – @DigitalSamIAm
• Lior Krolewicz – @yaelconsulting
• Greg – @PPCGreg
• Gil Hong – @_GilHong
• Daniel Vardi – @360vardi
• Mark BIssoni – @markbclicky
• Léo Pinon – @leo_pinon09
• Ally Quilty – @AllyQuilty_MKTG
• Harry Hawk – @hhawk
• Maikl – @Maiglisreal
• Sarah Scarfe – @SarahScarfeMktg
• Scott Clark – @scottclark
• Esra Kadi –  @esra_kadi
• Mike M – @seo_sitch
• Tim Halloran – @timmhalloran
• Brett Bodofsky – @BrettBodofsky