PLA: Becoming A New PPC Opportunity

As of February 19^th the right side of PPC Ads will no longer appear in Google SERPs. This will have an affect in the way search results will appear in Google. With the removal of the ads we are going to begin seeing an increase in the number of Product Listing Ads (PLA).

What are PLAs?

Product Listing Ads are ads that include product information related to your online search. This allows for the user to not only view the product but also make online comparisons when it comes to the item they are looking to purchase.

When you are viewing a variety of PLA items you will see the product image, title, price, message and company name. Online merchants are able to showcase their products alongside ads and top retailers who appear organically in the search result. When you run a PLA campaign you will see the following:

Benefits of a PLA campaign

1. An increase in impressions
2. Low bids
3. Low cost per click
4. Increased product showcase against the top commercial companies

With the removal of the ads on the right side we will start seeing 4 ads to start the page before you see the organic listings. If you are wonder if this is a big deal in January 85% of the clicks came from the top ads. We will be seeing an increase in ad bidding in order to appear as a top 4 search results. If you are a company with an ecommerce website this can be the advantage you need to not only promote your product but also compete against some of the top industry leaders.

With a lot of large commercial companies looking to stay in the top position they will increase their bids in ads and not focus as much in PLA campaigns. During this change WordStream noticed an increase in click-through-rates (CTR) for PLA campaigns on the day the change took place. This increase in CTR is not a temporary increase we are going to be looking at a long-term effect in search results.

Just like we are going to see an improvement in impressions for the top 4 positions we will also be seeing the increase happen in the PLA products that appear for the same search results.

Always Open

Having a PLA campaign will keep your website open 24 hours for all those searching online over the weekend and after hours. Having a low cost in bidding you can run your campaign without setting any limits to the days or hours during the week.

Many may be scared of the idea of increasing their AdWords campaign in Google because it is not within their budget but if your company can do it you will want to take advantage of what is available with a Product Listing Campaign. Small businesses are now in a position to compete without having to put in a top 3 bid in Google AdWords.

Thrive Internet Marketing has a variety of PPC specialists who can help in creating and optimizing an existing PLA campaign to help you take advantage of all the features they have available for website. Contact us today to learn more and get started.