What are Google up to now?

There has been two pieces of news this week in the PPC world; firstly, Google has announced that there will now be a 2% DST fee on ad spend for campaigns targeting the UK. This includes if you are in the USA for example, and you run campaigns targeting the UK. The ad spend for those campaigns will incur the 2% tax

“As of November 1, 2020, a 2% UK DST Fee will be added to your next invoice or statement for ads served in the United Kingdom. The fee is driven by the new digital services tax in that country.” Source – Google

I have reached out to our great Account Strategist for some more information on the specifics.

Secondly this week, Google quietly announced via a notification in accounts that they will be removing some search term data they deem to be not worth showing and because of some privacy concerns and the PPC Twitter-verse has gone WILD.

So, why is this so controversial? Well, PPCers use Search Terms reports a LOT and we use the data for many things including identifying keywords to add as negatives (saving you money from wasted clicks) and also identifying new keywords to expand you campaigns and their reach to get you new customers.

There are calls to Google to sort of their AI for Exact Match keywords and make it more robust to reduce the urgency to use a Search Term report, and reduce the potential waste risk in the first place.

Google are in a bit of hot water as it has been seen in some accounts that telephone data has been exposed for users who have called ads from their mobile devices

If Search Term Reports are a privacy issue (many of us disagree), then SURELY this must be a big violation? Hopefully in the coming days we will see some more clarity.

So, who will be impacted by the two main changes? Well, anyone who uses Google Ads to be honest, but those who will suffer the most are SMEs, are surely they have had enough to deal with in 2020 already?

The big companies will still have to pay, but arguably it will be much less of an issue for them.

Matt Brooks on Twitter argues the point that “insignificant spend” from Google’s POV actually means a lot for SMEs

Marketing O’Clocks’s Greg Finn also argues that “if it is so insignificant to show, don’t charge us then”

But never fear, your PPC agency will be working hard to always save you money where possible and get the best bang for your buck.

Follow us on Twitter @platform_81 and @PPCRachel to stay up to date and drop us an email if you want to chat about your campaigns.