Year in Search 2022 Interview with Jon Kagan

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We asked the leading industry experts about search in 2022 and what might happen in 2023. Today we talked to Jonathan Kagan, VP of Search & Biddable at 9Rooftops.

9Rooftops is a full service ad agency with offices throughout the US.

What did you love about Search in 2022?

I loved Q1. Record low CPC’s, low YouTube CPM’s, and a continuation of common sense and logic.

I also loved YouTube TV started pulling in regular YouTube ad units into it’s inventory. It was a fraction of the price of a direct buy.

After that, it got ugly…

What did you hate about Search in 2022?

A lot, and in my opinion it was largely out of the advertisers control. This included:

Mandatory shifting of local/smart shopping into Performance Max
Continued lack of transparency of Performance Max and studies contradicting Google’s claims it wouldn’t cannibalize search
For unexplainable reasons, CPC’s (especially on brand keywords) went through the roof starting in Q2 (I am not above believing it is tied to Pmax)
Continued pushing on advertisers of auto apply
Optimization Scores (they serve no purpose toward efficiency)
Bing’s in ability to grow during the pandemic
GA4, while not directly search, if you use GA, it can be life blood, and GA4 UI appears to have been developed by an engineer who has never spoken to an actual advertiser
RSA’s are fun, but if you can’t tell me data by combo, then you’re omitting a truth