Predicting the trends in PPC for 2025 is exciting but often tricky to act on.
To make it easier, I’ve gathered four underutilized yet impactful action items to boost your campaigns in the year ahead.
Let’s dive into the top tactics to try in 2025:
1. Use DSAs for competitive research
Dynamic search ads (DSAs) have been a beloved part of the PPC toolkit for years. Yet most advertisers only think about DSA as an active campaign type.
For those who need a refresher: DSA campaigns use a website and/or feed to identify the right landing page and headlines for a search query.
The advertiser provides descriptions, assets and rules about what they do and don’t want Google to include.
However, you don’t need to actually run any ad spend to get access to the dynamic targets section. This means you can get free intel on your (or your competitor’s website), including:
Monthly global search volume estimates.
Keyword categories Google sees as being relevant to the site.
Ad copy examples based on how Google understands the page.
The only rule is not to include more than one URL per campaign.
Aside from that, you can use DSA to get insights into how Google sees your competitors.
Note that you must go through the process of creating a campaign before you can turn on DSA.
Additionally, if you’re setting up a Google Ads account just to use DSA as a competitive research tool, you will need to provide a form of payment – or the ad account will eventually be canceled.
Knowing how Google understands your competitors can help you determine where to focus your content efforts.
This can mean cleaning up areas they’re leaving on the table or understanding whether they have secured complete dominance.
Dig deeper: How to benchmark PPC competitors: The definitive guide
2. Screen placements using CLS
Cumulative layout shift (CLS), part of Google’s Core Web Vitals, has historically been an SEO-exclusive metric.
It looks at how much the modules on your site change after 75% render.
Google uses 5 seconds to come up with the score, but 8 seconds is a safer metric.
Any CLS score of .2 or higher is bad, and keeping your score equal to or less than .1 is ideal.
One of the biggest detractors of CLS is having too many ads or pop-ups on the page. Sites designed for ads will naturally have poor CLS scores.
Between Performance Max, search partners and conventional display, we know many placements are “junk.”
Rather than visiting each site to vet the content, applying a site speed test can help you weed through the many spammy domains.
While there currently isn’t a way to do this automatically (the API is expensive), there’s still value in auditing placements for CLS.
Before moving on, CLS is a factor in Quality Score (which impacts your bids). It’s a factor in your landing page experience and shouldn’t be ignored.
Most landing page tools enable brands to meet CLS thresholds, but it’s still a good idea to audit.