When COVID-19 became pandemic in the past few weeks our lives have change.  Many small businesses have been reducing or suspending operations and are already feeling the pressure on their bottom line.

As people’s behaviors change, their search behaviors change too. We’ve already seen how COVID-19 has impacted Google Ads Results for different industries but there is plenty of room for small businesses to adjust to the challenges and we will check several trends that have emerged over recent days and weeks.

Mobile search traffic cut by nearly 25% in March

As less people is moving around and using their phones for internet surfing, there has been a noticeable decline in mobile searches as well with paid search campaigns showing a large decline in mobile search traffic.

Traffic on mobile is generally cheaper for PPC advertisers, so this shift has meaningful implications for PPC strategy in the coming weeks.

How to adapt to this new situation – Adjust your PPC campaigns for less mobile traffic

• Revisit your device bid adjustments
• Consider smart bidding

As more people who are searching internet shift back to desktops while spending time inside, expect to see big shifts to their performance across devices. You may have set a mobile bid adjustment earlier using relevant data at the time, but given the fast shifts in the search at this moment, it may be good checking your current device bid adjustments.  Google’s smart bidding strategies may help advertisers by working with changing data and adjusting their CPC bids in real time to match their goals. When choosing a smart bidding strategy, be sure to consider your goals and campaign budget.

As Google search traffic falls, cross-network opportunities grow

Since COVID-19 spread around the world our internet use is up nearly 50% even though the Google search time drop down. The good news is that you can still reach your prospective customers online but they are now looking in different places more.

As of start of March, Google search and Shopping may have taken sizable drops, but there’s still plenty of opportunity out there. Bing Search and Google search partners have remained still safe and steady places to find your customers and mostly have cheaper CPCs than Google search.

How to adapt to this new situation – Reach your audience on other networks

• Now more than ever it’s crucial to advertise across networks
• Include Google search partners in your campaigns
• Dive into display and YouTube

Google search partners include many smaller search engines that are powered by Google and they make up about 10% of Google’s search reach, so consider using them in your campaigns to make up some of the lost Google.com search traffic. To use it simply check the “Include Google search partners” box in the networks tab of your campaign settings.

Now it’s easier than ever to find audience while they browse the web, scroll trough their social feeds, and watch videos online. Consider remarketing to your past customers and website visitors to bring them back to your site and keep your brand in their mind because they are often more likely to convert on their return visits.