Ginny Marvin says, “Aloha, here we are again — coming down from the high of holiday e-commerce, the Q4 scurry of lead gen and the calm before year-end reporting starts churning. Let’s take a breather and look back on all of the changes in PPC that came flying at us in 2016.

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. In last year’s year-end roundup, I said Yahoo might be worth paying attention to in 2016 due to the renegotiated search deal with Microsoft and CEO Marissa Mayer’s stated commitment to mobile search. So long ago. It did seem like Yahoo might just be able to gain steam back then. Now, that steam is gone like the data of over a billion user accounts.

The final adieu to the Yahoo Bing Network came in February, and for many advertisers, that was the last time Yahoo entered their campaign heads. Sure, if you advertise with Bing and/or Google, your ads typically show up on Yahoo, too, but other than the water cooler talk about who was going to buy Yahoo that developed into, “Will Verizon still buy it and at what discount,” Yahoo held little relevance for search marketers in 2016.

So, moving on to all the stuff that made 2016 a giant year in PPC! We’ll start with the biggies that impact most everyone and move to more specialized updates”.

2016: The year in paid search (A year of massive change!)

Search Engine Land

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