Google AdWords Upgrade – What’s Worth Watching!

For those of you, who have been in the online world for quite some time, know what Google AdWords means. Considered to be one of the most powerful SEO tools, Google AdWords, is used by millions of business website owners, bloggers and even content creators to get their web pages noticed by search engines.

Google AdWords is the ‘holy grail’ for those who are into what is known as Search Engine Optimization. In February this year, Google came up with an update to Google AdWords which is popularly known as Enhanced Campaigns. This upgrade is all set to transform the way mobile marketing & advertising was done until now. The new upgrade promises to help business owners market their products considering various variables at one single place. Let’s find out more about the Enhanced Campaigns and what it means for the marketers & advertisers out there!

What exactly are Enhanced Campaigns?

We live in an era where our lives are increasingly being dominated by a multitude of devices such as laptops, tablets, and smart phones. Enhanced Campaigns aims to help advertisers & marketers in refining paid-search targeting across different devices. The upgrade will come into full-swing by mid-2013 and will allow marketers to adjust bids of ads depending on geographical location, device type and time of day. Enhanced Campaigns, in a way, is a smarter way to manage ad campaigns and gain better control over these.

Today, millions of people use multiple devices to search, shop and get connected. A recent research has proven that as many as 90% of the multi-device consumers move between various screens to complete a particular task. As more and more devices get rolled out, it definitely opens up a new door of opportunities for marketers but also makes that task seemingly difficult to accomplish.

Consider this example, a restaurant selling burgers wants to showcase different ads to some searching for ‘burger’ at 12 pm on their desktop (may be a link to an online ordering form or menu) and a different ad to someone searching for ‘burger’ at 9 pm using an iPhone who is just some meters away from the restaurant (possibly a click-to-call contact number or restaurant locator). The Enhanced Campaign will allow marketers to manage ad campaigns considering the above mentioned variables at one place. It will also help them display the right ad on right time to the right person!

Features worth looking-out

Google’s official blog lists down the following three features of Enhanced Campaigns. These are described as under.

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Dynamic Marketing Tools – Consumers in the digital era are getting smarter with each passing day. They appreciate & desperately want search results which are relevant as per their needs & requirements. And, this is exactly what the Enhanced Campaigns allow you to do! Marketers can display search results as per the users’ content and taking into account their device type, location as well as time of the day. The upgrade lets marketers manage campaigns in a far better manner. The upgrade allows one to manage bids across locations, multi-devices and time of the day within a single campaign. Now that’s pretty cool! Take a look at this example to have a better understanding:

“A restaurant wants to target some people who are searching for “sandwiches” or “coffee” using a smart phone. The bid adjustments having three entries helps the restaurant owner to bid 25% higher for people searching a half-mile away, 20% lower for the searches made after 11 am, and 50% higher for searches on smart phones. All bid adjustments can apply to add ads and keywords within a single campaign.”

Smarter Ads – Enhanced Campaigns literally means smarter ads depending on different user contexts. It is very obvious that people near your shop are definitely looking for some different things than those sitting in front of a PC. The Google AdWords Upgrade allows marketers to display different ads across multiple devices with complete focus on the right ad, app/extension or sitelink. The best part is that you need not edit each campaign. Here’s an example:

“Consider a retailer having both an ecommerce website and physical store. The owner can seamlessly display ads with click-to-call and location extensions for those searching on smart phones and at the same time an ad for people searching using their desktop. All this can be managed within a single campaign.”

Advanced Reports – Quite often it is extremely difficult for marketers to measure and compare how successful their interactions are with customers. The Enhanced Campaigns helps you get the best out of marketing campaigns by helping you count calls and application downloads as conversions in the AdWords Reports. Consider this example:

“The Upgrade will allow you to count phone calls of 60 seconds or longer which result from a click-to-call ad as conversion in AdWords report. You can compare these to other conversions like leads, sales and downloads”

What’s the Impact?
There is no doubt that Google AdWords Upgrade i.e. Enhanced Campaigns will significantly affect paid search and marketers will have to adapt to the new way to manage this. This colossal change does bring with itself its own share of concerns and challenges. Let’s take a look at some these –

• Campaign managers stand to lose their control over specific bids for keywords on mobile devices. The mobile bids will have to be calculated by applying a multiplier to the desktop bid. What’s the implication? Well, it makes the bidding for position almost impossible.
• Next, conversion optimization at the keyword level is another challenge.
• As marketers migrate their campaigns, expect nothing more than history and statistics from the previous campaign to be retained. It is important to remember that data from secondary campaign will be available for reporting purposes, but will not be considered a part of the history of the new campaign.
• Expect mobile CPCs to shoot up considerably.

Enhanced Campaigns, from Google, is a major upgrade which promises to bring a substantial change in the marketing landscape. Time will bear the testimony to how much gains & challenges Enhanced Campaigns poses to marketers and advertisers.

Sources of information:
http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/