Retail spotlight: what’s next for Paid Media?

Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen exciting new features come to the various paid media platforms: features that should be integrated into your paid media strategy to help with a good return on investment.

Looking back, it’s clear to see how diverse and intelligent ads have become since being introduced and, with e-commerce sites among the highest spenders in digital media, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve.

As little as a year ago, ads looked more prominent in Google, appearing at the side of Google search results or served up at the top before users scrolled to organic search results.

These ad slots used to be a hot commodity. Now, ads look a lot more organic; it’s hard to tell which listings are ads and which are naturally ranking.

Nowadays, we’ve seen Google Promoted Places allowing local businesses to stand out within Google Maps, as well as Facebook Local Awareness Ads typically driving footfall into local businesses, and whilst these tools are incredible, digital marketing and particularly paid media are moving at a fast pace things just don’t stop there.

What’s on the horizon for Paid Search?

We’ve seen the introduction of Google Attribution integration with AdWords and DoubleClick to bid adjust using DDA. This allows the right bids at the right time, if a site has a lot of touchpoints for a sale – like an e-commerce site.

Of course, it’s not just Google that has changed the ad landscape. Bing have introduced Bing Expanding Images ads that can include up to five images, each linking to a unique URL.

Facebook has made waves with their Local Awareness Ads, Collection Ads and most recently, their Value-Based Lookalike Audiences, which are currently in BETA. When live, these will change the way we target using Facebook, allowing us to get more precise and personalised with our approach and ads.

We’ve also seen Instagram promoted stories and Instagram shopping ads: functionalities that appear naturally through users’ feeds. Instagram promoted stories appear seamlessly between users’ stories, with a sponsored label, much like Snapchat ads. You can choose the objective for your campaign, such as further reach, and define your audience for targeted ad placements.

Through app integration, Instagram have also built shoppable features into their in-feed ads, and with 600 million active monthly Instagram users, the scope for audience reach is massive.

What does the future hold for Paid Media?

With exciting functionalities and integration coming up, we anticipate that the future of paid media will be even more exciting.

Rumours and experiments suggest that Google ads are set to take up even more space in search results with ad placements, along with Google Maps seeing pop-up ads.

LinkedIn Lead Gen ads can help you to get a potential customer to complete your desired goal without taking them away from the mobile browser and coupled with the latest Matched Audiences launch, we can get super targeted in our approach.

There’s lots happening in this space and a user’s experience with paid media is only going to get better, with even more personalised and targeted ads.

Koozai is hosting a free Breakfast & Learn session on paid media trends and best practices in retail. The event is takes place from 8.30am to 10.00am, 10 August 2017 at Albert House, 256-260 Old Street, London. The Koozai team will also be joined by Prezzybox.com founder and managing director Zak Edwards, who will discuss the importance of being a 360-degree marketer.

Samantha Noble is director of strategy at Koozai