How to adapt to an evolving PPC advertising landscape

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising was invented in 1996 as a research project between Planet Oasis and Google at Stanford, and eventually, it would come to comprise the bulk of the revenue generated by Google’ behemoth tech empire. Considering that PPC advertising, driven primarily by Google and Facebook, constitutes the flagship model for advertisers, marketers, and small businesses to reach their intended audiences today, it is worth evaluating just how impactful, and different, PPC will look as we progress to the Web 3.0 

At the core of the evolution in PPC advertising is the coupling of big data analytics with a transition to more byte-sized, dynamic online content. 

In an age where content is king, extracting valuable metrics and touch points from brand engagement campaigns will inevitably allow the best firms to rise above the competition. Doing so is not an easy task, however, but some firms are already showing a penchant for innovation — like White Shark Media — for upending conventional notions of PPC advertising models.  

Building valuable, open PPC tools 

One of the prevailing trends of social media, blogging, news articles, and e-commerce in the latter half of the last decade has been the preeminent rise of short-form video and dynamic content. Engagement times among younger generations, especially with the prevalence of mobile devices, are down significantly from the early 2000s. 

For example, research by Sumo reveals that only 20 percent of readers will actually read an entire blog post, with an average visitor reading only 25 percent of the piece. Similarly, Medium, the popular blogging platform, provides metrics citing that Total Time Reading (TTR) drops precipitously as the length of the post increases. Add in the distinct rise in social media platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram — where short videos and pictures dominate — and it is evident that attention spans are diminishing. 

The trend applies distinctly to PPC advertising models because of the increasingly limited windows from which campaigns have to grasp user attention and convert their interest into revenue. On top of that, users consistently jump between applications, landing pages, and other media types — making it challenging to address large swathes of data that often show minimal correlation at face value. 

“The increased access to technology, information, and brand engagement produces an insurmountable amount of touchpoints and moments of intent,” says Alexander C. Nygart, Founder of White Shark Media. “Adapting to a changing content landscape means building tools that can translate from one model to another and extract valuable data that is otherwise hidden.” 

Nygart’s sentiment is reflected by some of the powerful, and increasingly popular, PPC tools offered by White Shark Media. 

White Shark Media pioneering PPC advertising 

White Shark Media offers a suite of three PPC products focusing on targeted metrics and data extraction to meet the demands of a new web paradigm. Gleaning their insights from more than 50k managed campaigns and over a decade in the PPC landscape, White Shark Media’s tools include AdInsights, Optimizer, and Academy. 

In particular, AdInisghts is the firm’s automated PPC auditing tool that pulls data insights from Google Ads and Microsoft Ads — presenting them in a digestible UI for businesses and marketing firms to better manage the performance of their campaigns. 

“AdInsights helps you obtain a clear path to optimize your PPC campaign, knowing exactly what you are doing wrong, or not doing at all,” details Nygart. 

The product is supplemented by Optimizer, an expert-driven instruction program for identifying what actions need to be taken with PPC campaigns, and Academy, a guided course to help businesses grasp some of the more complex topics of PPC campaign management. All of the products are underscored by machine learning, fueling the curation engine that can pull valuable metrics and insights across media channels and dynamic content ranges. 

White Shark’s methodology has proven both accurate and popular. They’ve already serviced more than 200 advertising agencies, led over 50k campaigns, and have a team of over 100 experts in the field. Sometimes extensive experience in a field can lead to entrenched positions and a sense of contentment that forgoes innovation, but that is not the trajectory White Shark has followed. 

The firm even offers an end-advertiser solution and white label products for their clients, backed by its extensive team of experts. 

“Our open, free PPC tools are crafted to support White Sharks’ vision for a better experience for clients — and help move a step closer to simplifying PPC management,” says Nygart. “Clients will be able to catch up to the ever-evolving PPC conversation.” 

Indeed, the PPC conversation is consistently changing, and, parallel to ongoing technological and social developments, is poised to continue accelerating towards a data-driven model.

“The sheer amount of data that humans are generating with every transition from Instagram to a customized newsfeed then back to their favorite e-commerce site isn’t tractable by other humans anymore,” says Nygart. “We need automated solutions that can adapt to more data, providing high-quality analysis in the process.” 

That’s the niche that White Shark has lived in over the years, and it has proved a profitable corner of the market. And other firms should take notice, lest they are left behind in the race towards scalable, successful PPC models in a field flooded with competition. 

PPC advertising has come a long way since its humble origins in a Stanford lab, and it will only continue to change at a more rapid pace as the Internet evolves. Keeping pace in the contemporary PPC landscape simply isn’t sufficient anymore, and many firms should take a page out of White Shark’s book if they want to succeed.