The analysts at tdigital marketing agency iProspect have formulated several predictions for internet use in 2017. These projections for the year ahead focus mainly on online marketing and on issues such as pay per click advertising. Below is an overview of what iProspect believes we can expect from Google in 2017.
Shopping ads will rise and rise
iProspect envisions that one of 2016’s key trends will continue into 2017: this is the rise of shopping related ads, which already dominate 41% of the CPC (Cost Per Click) market. In addition, one detail that iProspect has included in their prediction is that most of these ads will be mobile ads, given the fact that in 2016 the number of mobile ads clicked on surpassed desktop ads for the first time.
Product listings tailored to suit higher volumes of CPCs
Though Google is often cagey about the details of the latest developments that it has put in place for AdWords, iProspect expects that Google will continue tweaking AdWords to ensure that it is tailored to cater for shopping related CPCs. This is obviously heavily related to the rise in shopping related CPCs, described above. Key tweaks might include optimising product descriptions so that they show as clearly as possible on online search rankings. These changes began before the last year was out. Late in 2016, Google added in the need for 10-15 word descriptions of products or web pages that would appear in search rankings on Google. As a result, ecommerce sites scrambled to rework their web copy so that all of their web pages would begin with a short tagline that would look attractive on Google search pages.
A Fall in Click Through Rates
One thing that iProspect noted about 2016 was an emerging trend of CTRs (Click Through Rates) decreasing and decreasing. Though impressions were up (particularly on mobile devices, which saw impressions of around 80%), the number of people actually clicking through to sites that they had seen began to decrease. This is something that ecommerce owners will need to work on throughout 2017. They will need to ensure, iProspect’s report suggests, not only that their sites appear in an attractive format on Google search pages, but also that they entice web users to actually click through to their sites to browse and (hopefully) make a purchase.
