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Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Advertising

COVID-19 has pushed all of us into that dark space from were coming out seems to be dangerous. We have been locked inside our homes; the economy is falling, jobs are declining exponentially and eventually, people running out of money. But since we all got time to remain at home, our online presence also increased. While people, especially professionals, hardly got time to use social media sites, they are now spending hours on various social media sites!

Like other industries, digital advertising, digital marketing is no exception. 69% of the brands expect that they will decrease the Ad spend in 2020. 65% of respondents noticed a decrease in revenue during March. Presently, 75% of brands surveyed are posting less on their company social media accounts. Bigger giants like Amazon had nearly turned off their Google ad spend in March and focused more on hiring workers to deliver products to people at home. In this article, we will discuss the impact of a pandemic on various digital marketing sectors.

Social Media:

The pandemic has kept people inside more often, and as a result, people across the globe are spending more time online. This can be seen on Facebook as fans of European Brand pages spent 11.9% more time on Facebook from March 16-22 compared to the last seven days of February. Backing up what you might expect considering the situation, Socialbakers data suggests that fans of Facebook Brand pages in Europe have spent more time online every day in recent weeks.

As more and more companies have settled into home office situations, the percentage of fans who have spent time on Facebook has increased a little each of the last three weeks. The peak time every day of the week is 8 p.m., and when looking at the most recent full week compared to the last full week of February, the activity increased by 16.1%. And it’s consistent throughout the week. Looking at the same time frame comparison, there was an identical 12.3% increase in activity at 8 p.m. on Sundays and Mondays.

People are attracted more towards organic content than paid, which can be seen from the fact that CTR across the 18 industries was down by 17.2% in mind-March this year.

PPC and SEO

The most important task of driving sales during the pandemic has been done by SEO. People are worried about their lives, jobs, and education, but are still searching for things related to COVID-19. Therefore, all the brands have focused on pandemic-related issues, whether the products, social media posts or safety messages. Using SEO analytics, you can know which products are more in demand and then start a new venture. Some of the popular search trends industry-wise are as follows:

  1. Essential Ecommerce Stores: “Toilet paper near me, Hand Sanitizer near me, Face Masks near me, Thermometers and Sanitary Wipes.”
  2. Health and Wellness Information: “Coronavirus symptoms, home remedies, prevention methods, handwashing techniques, antibacterial essential oils, antiviral foods, and antiviral herbs.”
  3. Travel Websites: “Travel restrictions, hotel/cruise ship quarantines, airlines/hotel queries related to cancellations and refunds.”

PPC Market: The non-profit organizations and charities have seen a 10% increase in search ad impressions, 23% in search ad conversions, and a 20% increase in search ad conversion rate. The ad clicks and conversion rates regarding healthcare products have seen a significant rise. Generally, the keywords are expensive, but now the CPCs have fallen. A surge is seen in the CTRs and CVRs. The cost to advertise is much lower for nearly every industry that PPCmate analyzed because of a decrease in the CPC on Facebook.

Most industries traditionally have the lowest CPC right after the new year. Brands, for example, were at $0.110 during that time. Comparing the most recent numbers to the last full week in February, Brands’ CPC dropped by 30.8% ($0.130 to $0.090). Looking at some specific industries during that same time frame, Accommodation decreased by 30.5% ($0.082 to $0.057) while Service decreased by 34.4% ($0.163 to $0.107). Because of this situation, the CPC is similar to or lower than those post-holiday costs. That means there’s a possible opportunity for brands with the budget to make their message go to a broader audience than it usually would.

Conclusion:

The usage of the internet all across the globe has risen by 50%, and this time, people are not spending time more on Google or shopping sites but YouTube, Netflix, Instagram etc. Since many events got canceled, organizers have shifted their budget to PPC to bring back the leads. There are more than 2.9 Billion posts on Coronavirus on the internet. There is a 52% increase in Ad Spend by the News sector. Due to lockdown, the travel sector saw a 65% decrease in Ad spend. E-Commerce saw an initial drop but is now going to double the ad spend as soon as the countries are lifting the lockdown.

But 22% of brands said they would be spending more on their ads. Thus, it can be seen that using the right strategies; one can capture this opportunity to scale up the business. PPCmate will help you in all the spheres of digital marketing. Using our platform, you can advertise on the Web’s major traffic networks from one user interface. We have expertise in generating eCommerce sales, boosting website engagement, brand loyalty and improving website rankings.

While etching out perfect marketing plans for your business, it’s your sole responsibility to keep an eye on your competitor’s strategy too! Through competitive intelligence tools, one can easily sense their email marketing plans, SEO strategy, blog activities, backlinks, ads, and financial health. PPCmate helps you trap all the data, which can hint at your competitor’s marketing plans. It will show you any site’s traffic data, SEO, SEM, affiliate marketing data, leads, partners and demographics, all with just one click. All this will help you improve your content on the website and generate more leads.

Analyzing the sales data, getting the proper analytical data, lead generation, integration with CRM tools are some of the exclusive features embedded with PPCmate. You can also track the sales data to target the right audience and follow the lead generation‘s correct strategy. Through the data accumulated, you can streamline the tasks distributed to the sales and marketing team.

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by Milir