What You Need to Know About PPC Advertising in 2025
It’s no secret that the world of digital marketing is constantly changing. Advancing technologies, adjusted algorithms, and the evolution of the digital marketplace combine to create an ecosystem that is always in flux. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is no different.
PPC allows you to place targeted ads—without paying for the ad until someone clicks on it. With the ability to set demographic information such as age, gender, region, and even time of day, your advertising is precisely positioned to reach your target audience. With the right strategy, PPC campaigns can generate quite a bit of business, very quickly. But, to make sure you’re using the right strategy, you have to stay current with the latest trends in PPC advertising. (Here’s more on PPC advertising and how it differs from SEO)
So where are PPC ad trends headed in 2025? Let’s dive in!
1. Connecting PPC advertising and AI
The capabilities, and as a result, the general awareness of artificial intelligence (AI) both skyrocketed in 2024. But even as many small businesses are still lagging behind in taking full advantage of this powerful tool, the landscape is changing. There are a few important connections between AI and PPC, centering around making PPC advertising platforms easier to use and increasing the effectiveness of campaigns.
One of the most important factors that contribute to a successful PPC campaign is putting the data available to you to good use. In 2024, 6 out of 10 marketers using AI used it for data analysis which makes sense. One of the more accessible uses for AI is analyzing large amounts of data quickly. For PPC campaigns, AI can assist in determining who to show your advertisements to and evaluating trends in the users who click. AI can also step in to determine which of your PPC campaigns is the most successful and why.
Of course, the use of AI on the creative side is still controversial for many. For example, some marketers believe AI can be used to create ad copy and images. Others disagree, saying that automating tasks and analyzing data can be helpful, but the human touch in advertising is very much necessary to draw consumers in. Regardless of how you choose to use AI, there’s no denying that in 2025, this technology is still developing. Much of the impact it may have on marketing in the future is still unknown.
2. Using Smart Bidding for PPC
The description of PPC might sound straightforward—when someone clicks on your ad, you pay a certain amount. But the pricing model—or what you pay for any one click—is actually quite complex. When you’re setting up a PPC campaign, in addition to setting preferences for who should see your ads and when, you have to set parameters for how much you are willing to pay for those clicks.
More and more businesses are using AI-based systems to set their strategies for these bids. Without a doubt, the system moving into the #1 spot in 2025 will be Smart Bidding, Google’s AI solution to optimizing PPC campaigns based on a strategy you set in advance.
Smart Bidding allows you to automatically use the strategy that makes the most sense for your business. You can opt for Target cost per action (CPA) which uses AI to set your bids so that they all fall around the same average cost per click. Another popular option is Target return on ad spend (ROAS), which will optimize your ads so that you get the best return on your investment. Because PPC bidding can be so complicated, having these options available means that the number of businesses using Smart Bidding is expected to grow exponentially over the next year.
3. Increasing voice search use
Alexa and Siri may not be new, but the explosion of new AI capabilities has meant their capacity to communicate with users has been improving throughout the last few years. As such, adoption of these devices is practically ubiquitous. They have become so integrated into daily life that more and more users are beginning to explore conducting product searches verbally rather than through traditional search engines. In fact, 56% of smartphone users in 2024 said they use voice search to learn more about a business. This new trend has the effect of putting PPC at a disadvantage, since the primary objective of these advertising campaigns is to display online.
But with the number of voice assistant users expected to grow from 85.4 million in 2023 to 91.9 million in 2025, the obvious prediction is that this trend is here to stay and will only grow more popular. Rest assured, PPC advertising isn’t going anywhere, but the shift in focus to voice search is a reminder to optimize your website, social media, and directory listing for search engines. This means using voice-friendly copy, a conversational tone, long-tail keywords, and providing clear, concise answers to common questions on your website.
4. Growing popularity of video advertising
You can’t stop the signal! You may be wondering exactly how video advertising can get any more popular, but that is exactly what is predicted for 2025. Video has long been a major part of the digital marketing landscape but its value for PPC advertising is still growing. The overwhelming evidence that potential customers are far more likely to stop scrolling for a video than for an image or text advertisement means video is a requirement for any successful digital marketing strategy.
New trends for video advertisements include ensuring they can be understood without sound, automatically including captions, and relying more on storytelling than ever before. A growing trend within video advertising is bumper ads. Bumper ads are the six-second ads that play before, during, or after another video, often on YouTube. These ads are powerful tools to reach your target audience, but they require putting in some work to ensure your message gets across in just a few seconds!
One aspect of video advertising will become even more important going forward. For the past few years, optimizing for mobile has been strongly suggested. The rule in 2025 is always optimize for mobile! Ninety percent of customers watch videos on their phones, and the vertical orientation of a phone (as opposed to the horizontal screens of computers or televisions) will impact how your video looks.
5. Changing how PPC ads are targeted
For the last few years, worry over rights to privacy online has been more pervasive than ever before. Most consumers are aware of the issue, with 80% of consumers saying they’re concerned about their data privacy. While the ultimate fate of third-party cookies may be in limbo, data mining and privacy issues remain at the forefront of the conversation for digital marketers. Many PPC platforms still allow the use of third-party cookies, but they may not be around forever
Throughout 2024, and now into 2025, digital marketers have been working toward adopting new ways to effectively reach target audiences without infringing on consumer privacy. First-party data, which is collected directly from your customers, is quickly becoming the new go-to for targeted marketing.
The key to first-party data is consent-based marketing—meaning getting explicit consent before collecting data on an individual or another business. For most small businesses this will mean putting in some extra work to gather data, but with the growing emphasis on building trust with potential customers, it has to be a priority. For B2B marketers, first-party data can be captured through webinars, interactive content, and providing resources in exchange for contact information.
6. Introducing new players to the PPC game
Google and Facebook have long been the leaders in PPC—but Amazon has recently started offering ads as well. While users on Google or Facebook aren’t necessarily looking to purchase something, Amazon customers are typically there to weigh their options and make a purchase. This gives Amazon a potential advantage for PPC advertising. Amazon ads are displayed both on and off Amazon, making them worth considering as part of a digital marketing strategy going into 2025.
Microsoft also offers PPC platforms. Campaigns through Microsoft ads will place advertisements on platforms including Bing, AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Outlook, and LinkedIn. These can be especially worthwhile for businesses looking to market to professionals or other demographics who are on these platforms. Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI has led to new technology features that benefit PPC campaigns.
To be sure, Google and Facebook aren’t going anywhere, but in 2025 they’re no longer the be-all, end-all of PPC advertising. Businesses with more specific demographics, products to sell, or that find Google overly competitive may do well to explore these new PPC offerings in the marketplace.
Leveling up your PPC campaigns for 2025
In 2025, no business can succeed without keeping up with digital marketing trends. But tracking and implementing all the new algorithms, technologies, and best practices is difficult. The good news is you don’t have to do it alone. Talk to one of our marketing experts today.
