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Paid Strategy

9 Stats Showing the Power of Paid in 2022

Paid advertising is great for a quick boost, but can it be part of a larger growth marketing strategy? It can, and these 9 stats will shine some light on why.

7 mins read time
Joe Martinez
Joe Martinez

Feb 28, 2022

Thanks to its laser-focused targeting and fast results, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a staple of many brands' marketing arsenal. Simply put, there's nothing like it when it comes to getting a boost of traffic ASAP.

But will the same hold true in 2022 and beyond? The answer is a definitive "yes," and these nine stats can show you why (and reveal some of the biggest PPC trends for 2022).

 

1. PPC Spending Projected to Reach $95 Billion This Year

If the amount of funds being spent on search advertisements is any indication, then brands are more committed to PPC than ever. How much money are we talking, exactly? Just over $95 billion in 2022:

 

search-ad-spend-2022

Source

 

By comparison, only $55 billion was spent in 2019 — that's an increase of $40 billion in just three years.

 

2. Advertisers Make $8 in Profit for Every $1 Spent on Google Ads

You may have heard the oft-cited statistic that advertisers make $2 for every $1 spent on Google Ads, but did you know that that number is actually closer to $8?

It's true: As Google states in their Economic Impact Report, "We conservatively estimate that for every $1 a business spends on Google Ads, they receive $8 in profit through Google Search and Ads."

It doesn't take an economist to figure out that an 800 percent ROI is beyond excellent.

 

3. One-Third of People Click on Paid Search Ads Because They Answer Their Search Query

In a survey of 500 people who had clicked on paid search ads within the past month, one-third (33 percent) said they did so because the ad answered their search query.

To a slightly lesser extent, they also clicked on ads because they mentioned a familiar brand, were listed first, or had a compelling title, image, or description:

 

clutch-ppc-survey

Source

 

Based on those results, your PPC search ads might get even more clicks if they clearly answer users' questions.

 

4. Almost Three-Quarters of Marketers Say PPC Is a Huge Driver for Their Business

As a survey of over 200 brand marketers found, 74 percent say that PPC is a huge driver for business.

By comparison:

  • 13 percent said they've had some success with PPC but not a lot;
  • 11 percent said it's not a huge part of marketing but is still worth doing anyway; and
  • a mere 2 percent said that their PPC performance has been downright poor.

Suffice it to say that for the large majority of marketers, PPC pays off.

 

5. Search Is the Most Effective PPC Channel

That's according to a hefty 74 percent of marketing agencies that say search is the most impactful PPC channel for their clients.

On the other hand, over half (53 percent) say that display is the least effective channel:

 

ppc-channel-efficacy

Source

 

Put differently, agencies have found that brands using PPC tend to get better results from search ads than display ads.

 

6. PPC Is One of the Most Powerful Mediums for Generating Leads

Marketers drive qualified leads in a plethora of ways, from networking at IRL events to orchestrating social media marketing campaigns. But not all those mediums are created equal, and PPC is one of the most powerful.

To be precise, 17 percent of marketers cited PPC ads as being their most prolific lead generation method. Email marketing took second place with 17.6 percent, and their own website came in first with 23.9 percent:

 

lead-capture-mediums

Source

 

This finding confirms what PPC users already know: While PPC might not take the gold medal in lead generation, it's still firmly on the podium.

 

7. Search Ads Can Boost Brand Awareness by 80 Percent

In a meta-analysis of more than 60 studies conducted by Google and a market research company, analysts concluded that search engines significantly increase top-of-mind awareness and unaided brand awareness. Crucially, this remained true even when the customer didn't click the ad.

Specifically, respondents who viewed a SERP with a search ad demonstrated an average top-of-mind increase of 6.6 percentage points or 80 percent. That number was even higher in some industries, including automotive and B2B:

 

search-ad-brand-awareness

Source

 

In other words, even if your pay-per-click ads don't result in, well, clicks, they may still help to boost brand awareness among your target audience.

 

8. Two-Thirds of Google Ad Clicks Come from Mobile

Given that mobile traffic now accounts for more than 50 percent of all internet traffic (that's why Google switched to mobile-first indexing for all websites), it comes as no surprise that most of the people who click on search ads do so from their mobile devices.

But the story doesn't end there. In a study of its own clients, customer experience management company Merkle found that a whopping 67.4 clicks on Google paid search ads came from smartphones:

 

merkle-paid-clicks-study

Source

 

Interestingly, the same wasn't true for ads placed with Microsoft Advertising — in their case, over 70 percent of clicks came from desktop users. So if you're aiming to capture a bigger share of the mobile market, you can't ignore Google's PPC offerings.

 

9. Brands Can Get 20 Percent More Incremental Sales with PPC

One of the core pillars of growth marketing is that it looks at the entire marketing funnel rather than just one portion of it. This helps maximize revenue and ensure that no part of the customer journey is being overlooked.

It's for that same reason that PPC can be so valuable. In a Google-commissioned study conducted by Nielsen, researchers found that "brands traditionally focused only on upper-funnel tactics experience 20 percent more incremental sales when they also invest in mid- or lower-funnel tactics with Google Ads."

So if your top-of-funnel (TOFU) marketing is on point, but your middle-of-funnel (MOFU) and bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) marketing are lagging behind, PPC could help pick up some up the slack.

At the end of the day, the paid search trends of 2022 promise to deliver a bigger and better PPC landscape than ever. And while PPC will never be able to replace a long-term SEO strategy, it can certainly complement one — and get plenty of fresh eyes on your brand in the process.

 

Get the Most Bang For Your Buck  Time to put your money where your mouth is — and nothing speaks quite as loud  as paid markerting.  Learn How We Can Help

Joe Martinez

Joe Martinez is the Co-Founder of the Paid Media Pros YouTube channel. He is a regular contributor to WordStream. He has also written for Social Media Examiner, Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, PPC Hero, SEMrush, Unbounce, Leadpages, Optmyzr, and AdStage. He has hosted webinars for SEMrush, Unbounce, Quora and Microsoft Ads. He regularly speaks at conferences such as SMX (Advanced, Munich, East, West), HeroConf, Inbound, Pubcon (Pro, Florida, Austin), SMXL, SEMPO, and more. Finally, he was named a Top 25 Influential PPC Expert by PPC Hero in 2017-2020.

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