Whether you realize it or not, science and math play a major role in marketing, and they usually come under the name of “statistics” (like, for example, the most important PPC stats from 2020 😉).

Why are PPC stats form 2029 so important?

Well, if there’s anything we know about marketers, it’s that they’re data gurus. When you collect data properly, analyze it thoroughly, and evaluate the results, advertising stats are an amazing thing. 

To break things down a bit, there are two major reasons marketers rely on ad stats and trends. 

  1. The right data helps you navigate common problems that may lead to inaccurate conclusions.
  2. Advertising statistics provide a way to assess the quality of your own analyses and the opinions of other marketers, researchers, and analysts. 
mobile devices in PPC

Unless you’re one of the select few that has the luxury of having a limitless advertising budget, you have to pick and choose the best strategies for how to spend your ad budget judiciously. Despite your personal preferences, the reality is that PPC ads are one of the oldest forms of online advertising. In my opinion, they’re still also one of the best. 

Let’s face it, digital shoppers have turned online shopping into an art form. PPC marketing ads are a marketing forum that was non-existent not that long ago. Since then, it’s turned into a multi-billion-dollar industry. That’s why you can expect a huge payoff when you implement PPC advertising to attract qualified leads.

Now that we’ve piqued your interest in the value of learning more about PPC stats, where do you find them? More importantly, where do you find the most valuable and recent advertising stats? Look no further.  

We’ve pulled the latest and greatest PPC stats from 2020 to guide you in the right direction for reaching your advertising goals in 2021. 

worldwide ad spend 2020

PPC Stats

The most effective PPC ads display for your target audience in the most profitable places at the most profitable times. When you get your ad campaigns right, your display ads will be showing on specific websites that directly relate to your business, and your search ads will soar to the top of the search engine results. 

Before you dig into your analytics today, take the time to review these 30 ad stats that just might influence your decisions:

  1. Just over half of searches contain more than 4 words, which means you shouldn’t be relying on seed keywords. (Digital Logic)
  2. About 65% of consumers will click on ads when they’re intent on making a purchase. (WebFX) 
  3. Text ads are more popular than shopping ads and video ads. Just under half of the shoppers click on text ads. (Search Engine Land, 2019) 
  4. Google Ads are more effective for increasing sales than organic results. You could get 65% clicks on Google Ads as opposed to only 35% with organic searches. (Craig McConnel) 
  5. LinkedIn ads tend to be incredibly lucrative for B2B companies. About 65% of B2 companies report acquiring customers using paid LinkedIn ads. (HubSpot) 
  6. Google tells us that search ads can increase your brand awareness by up to 80%. (Google) 
  7. Organic SEO traffic builds, but at a slower pace than display advertising. One of the most important ad statistics you need to know is that display ads have the potential to increase traffic to your website by 300%. (Visually) 
  8. Companies around the world spend around $106.5 billion in online search advertising. (Statista)
  9. Spending on search advertising is projected to increase to $132 billion the world over by 2022. These numbers could be low if the pandemic continues. (Statista) 
  10. Mobile advertising is becoming more popular with projections for companies to be spending around $146 billion by 2023. (Statista) 
  11. Online advertising leads to good ROI. About 45% of small businesses employ some kind of PPC advertising strategies. (Clutch.io, 2018) 
  12. On average, SMBs spend between $9,000 and $10,000 every month on PPC ad campaigns because they’re more profitable than print ads. (WebFX) 
  13. 72% of marketers don’t review their ad campaigns every month. (Neil Patel as reported by Cloudtweaks)
  14. PPC gives the best results for ROI which is why 32% of companies employ PPC ad campaigns to sell their products and services. (WebFX)
  15. Around 3 billion people around the world use mobile devices every day, and 90% of them use mobile searches to buy products and services. (eMarketer) 
  16. Here’s another interesting ad stat on mobile search. About 52% of PPC clicks originate through some sort of mobile device. (WebFX) 
  17. Google is the largest and most popular advertiser worldwide. Google drives 95% of paid search ad clicks on mobile devices. (WebFX) 
  18. Local companies target hyper-local PPC ads. About 80% of consumers are looking for ads by searching things like city, zip code, and other local search words. (Socialmediatoday) 
  19. Google gets about 97% of its total revenue from Google Ads advertising. (Wordstream)
  20. The PPC advertising industry is growing. The sophistication and technical knowledge that it requires mean that marketers with specialized talent are in high demand. To that end, the average PPC annual pay wage is just under $50,000. (PayScale, 2020 as reported by Digital Third Coast)
  21. PPC ads get good results fast. As evidence of this, 74% of companies report that PPC is one of the biggest drivers of their businesses. (State of PPC 2019/2020, 2019) 
  22. Google and Facebook hold gobs of data to help businesses reach their target audiences. Google has the largest share of digital ad spending in the U.S. with 37.2%, and Facebook comes in at a close second with 22.1% of digital ad spending. (eMarketer)
  23. Nearly 50% of all internet traffic stems from bots, and many of them can be very malicious toward PPC campaigns. (ClickGUARD, 2020) 
  24. Ad fraud is more profitable than drugs and could be as much as $42 billion. (Forbes)
  25. Bad bots are becoming so sophisticated that human beings don’t even see about 56% of them.  (AdAge, 2014) 
  26. Ad publishers are losing as much as $3.5 million per day because of ad fraud caused by spoofed domains on ad exchange. (Marketing Drive, 2019) 
  27. Bots including bot farms, click farms, and botnets create about 90% of click fraud. (ClickGUARD, 2020) ClickGUARD is an industry leader in click fraud prevention and they’re working hard to rid the internet of the problem. 
  28. Click fraud affects desktops and mobile devices. About 54% of ad fraud occurs on desktop computers while 46% attacks mobile devices. It’s essential for marketers to protect all computers and devices against click fraud. (Marketing Drive, 2019 as reported by ClickGUARD) – your ads are at risk on both platforms and precautions need  to be taken.
  29. The total estimated cost to companies around the world because of invalid clicks was $23 billion in 2020. This was one of the ad statistics that greatly motivated the development of reliable click fraud prevention software. (University of Baltimore, 2019 as reported by ClickGUARD)
bot-traffic

And there you have it! With such a robust list of ad stats, you’re gaining valuable information to expand your knowledge about click fraud. Did you find any advertising stats that challenged your beliefs and assumptions? This list demonstrates that there’s a lot to love about statistics. 

PPC stats will help you identify market trends and give you transparency about the success of your marketing program. In the truest sense, ad statistics are the key to helping you set appropriate goals and evaluate the success of your ad campaigns. If you know your target market well and you’re able to set up ad campaigns using the most effective marketing channels, you’re halfway to reaching your goals. That’s because PPC advertising has exponential potential to generate traffic to your website which is so vital to increasing conversions, as these ad stats so aptly demonstrate. 

Beyond the fact that PPC ad campaigns are a huge driver of revenue, you can count on your ad campaigns to give you instant results. Any investment that you make in PPC ad campaigns is worthwhile, as long as you work to mitigate the risks of click fraud. And ClickGUARD is doing its part to eliminate bad bots and bad actors. Billions of advertising dollars are on the line, and literally, thousands of companies are increasingly taking advantage of AI and cybersecurity solutions to reduce wasteful spending on ad campaigns.