Google has recently announced they will be passing on 2% digital service tax to advertisers beginning 1st November.

This is not an isolated incident, Amazon has announced it will also be passing on a 2% tax to users on their platform. 

Facebook which makes an estimated £4.2bn in ad revenue in the UK, is expected to follow suit.

Regardless of your spending, running ads on Google platforms is about to become 2% more expensive and if you also sell your products on Amazon your profits are going to be impacted.

So what's next?

If running Google ads is going to become 2% more expensive then you need to make your ads convert for less to prevent your spending spiralling out of control.

How to increase ROI On Your Ads

Search ads in super-competitive industries can cost several pounds or more per click – and that’s just the average. One way to lower your cost is with Google remarketing, this involves showing ads to people who have already been on your website. 

Google remarketing ads are some of the most cost-effective ad campaigns available to online advertisers. According to Wordstream the average cpc for Google search is $1.23 compared to $0.66 for the display network.

Advertising on the display network will get you a lot more impressions, but the way to succeed is with good, eye-catching graphics that are on brand. 

Reducing CPC

Lower your bids

This one is pretty straight-forward if your bids are high you will spend more. But we are not advocating you just start lowering your bids like Black Friday prices. 

You are probably asking wouldn’t lower bids imply a lower average CPC? In theory yes, but in practice your ad position will drop but you could still afford more clicks with the same budget. 

Try Long-tail keywords

If you are in a hyper-competitive industry, solicitors, accountants, estate agents etc.  One way you can still get clicks without blowing your budget is by targeting long-tail keywords. 

The downside to this is that long-tail  keywords usually have low volumes but the user intent is usually higher. 

A good way to come up with long-tail keywords is to see what people are searching in your industry using tools such as Answer the Public.

Improving organic traffic 

This one is pretty self explanatory, if you want to get rid of your ad costs completely improve your ranking in SERPs organically. 

Whilst this is easier than done, we are not talking about trying to outrank a regional competitor for a keyword with high competition. 

Do some keyword research and pick out the keyword with the least competition and optimise your site for these keywords. Whether it's through cornerstone articles, getting more backlinks to your site and improving internal linking.

That we should not be named

Bing ads are the forgotten child of digital marketing, despite Bing on average having users with high-income. Bing ads are rarely looked at as a leading source for traffic but now may be the time to start looking at running some ads.

Microsoft has not yet released any press releases stating whether they will also be passing on the digital service tax to advertisers. 

So now maybe the time to start advertising on Bing. Yes, Microsoft's system isn't as polished as Google ads but with some good strategies you can make Bing ads work. Even better now you can transfer campaign from your Google ad account.






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