Expert Tips For 2020 Election Season

Pay per click (PPC) advertising is one of the best ways to attract new leads to your brand, especially with Google Ads and Facebook Ads. But with the 2020 election quickly approaching this November 3rd, you may be wondering, “how does the election affect PPC advertising?” After all, the 2016 presidential election put Facebook Ads under scrutiny with a scandal of Russian influence on the platform. Given that recent history, are your PPC campaigns going to be affected due to the upcoming 2020 election?

The answer is most likely yes, and that exactly how the election will affect your PPC advertising is going to depend on the geolocations you’ll be advertising too. As a leading digital marketing agency that specializes in being a PPC agency, here is a discussion of four ways we expect PPC campaigns to be affected in the coming weeks leading up to the 2020 election.

• Getting Your Ads Approved Will Likely Be Harder as Google Ads and Facebook Ads Want to Ensure Ad Legitimacy

PPC campaign platforms like Facebook have come under the microscope for allowing fake or misleading ads on its platform both politically related and not. As such, both Facebook ads and Google ads are expected to be harder to get approved in the weeks before the 2020 election and to take a longer time to get approved too.

The reason – Google Ads and Facebook Ads want to make sure they are approving PPC campaigns that are legitimate and true. Since many different organizations run political ads outside of official candidates’ campaigns, you can expect there to be an influx in new Google Ads and Facebook Ads getting in line to be approved.

As a PPC agency, we encourage you to be proactive about getting your PPC campaigns, especially any that you have specifically created for the fall or the holiday season, created and submitted for approval in advance. By creating content now, even for ads you want to run for Halloween or Thanksgiving, you’ll be one step closer to getting them approved more quickly given the expected PPC campaign approval bottleneck thanks to the 2020 election.

• Facebook Ads and Google Ads Won’t Run Local 2020 Election Ads in Washington State and Canada

If you’re planning to run political PPC campaigns for the 2020 election, you should know they’re not allowed everywhere. Both Washington state and Canada have, through the threat of litigation, caused Facebook and Google to make the decision to not run any local election ads in these geolocations.

If you’re looking to create PPC campaigns on Facebook Ads or Google Ads that will be political in nature, you’ll need to look for an alternative advertising channel to get your message across to your intended audiences.

• There’s The Potential for Consumer Distrust in Pay Per Click Ads As the 2020 Election Approaches

As the 2020 election gets closer and closer, you can expect more pay per click ads to appear online on platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads. These PPC campaigns will be run by candidates, major parties, lobbyists, PACs, and Super Pacs, and more.

While some people love getting involved in elections and the political process, others don’t. This latter group is especially likely to have a growing distrust of political PPC campaigns, and potentially all PPC campaigns, the closer we get to the 2020 election.

As a digital marketing agency, we have a few suggestions to help maintain trust amongst Facebook Ads and Google Ads viewers. First, if your brand is apolitical and your company doesn’t support any political party, don’t mention politics or the 2020 election in your ads. This will help keep those who are tired of hearing about politics from avoiding clicking on your ads. However, if your ads will be political in nature, or have a political slant, make your political leaning very clear. This will help you better pinpoint your target audience and get a better response to your ads’ call to action, too.

• PPC Ads Are Expected to Spike in the Swing States

Our final thought in answering the question, “How does the election affect PPC advertising?” is that there’s an anticipated influx of PPC ads coming to American swing states in the coming weeks. This can mean a few things if you advertise in a swing state.

First, with the expected increase in Facebook Ads and Google Ads in swing states, there’s also the anticipation for ad fatigue until the 2020 election season is over. This means you may see a temporary drop in clicks to your PPC campaigns in these geolocations as Internet users simply get tired of seeing so many pay per click ads.

Second, if your product or service is discussed in politics, keywords that you commonly use may be in higher demand, thus driving up their cost per click (CPC). For example, if you work in the healthcare industry, you can expect related keywords to become more frequently bid on in the next few weeks, thus driving up your CPC on them.

Finally, just as we mentioned earlier that ads are going to start taking longer to get approved, these delays may be even more pronounced in swing states. So if you’re planning on running a geo-targeted PPC campaign in Ohio, for example, get started on it now.

As a PPC Agency, We Can Help You with Your Pay Per Click Campaigns

While we are a full-service digital marketing agency, many of our clients know us for our PPC agency specialities. We help brands throughout the US create, optimize, and manage a variety of PPC campaigns on Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and other pay per click platforms.

Whether you want to pay per click advertising help for the short term because of the upcoming 2020 election, or you’re ready to engage with a PPC agency to take over your PPC campaign efforts, we can help. Simply contact us today to express your needs by calling (877) 682-2012, emailing sales@agencypartner.com, or filling out our online contact form.

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