Google Revamps Adwords PPC Platform
Google is making some fairly big changes to Google Adwords, the PPC platform.
Google are revamping Adwords in what they are calling ‘Enhanced Campaigns’. It’s means the approach, structure and strategy of PPC accounts will change. The changes present both opportunities and threats to all advertisers within the PPC world.
Reason for the change
Like Facebook, Google hasn’t been able to capitalise on mobile and tablet traffic as strongly as the traditional desktop. PPC advertisers bid on a particular keyword to show a targeted ad above or next to the organic search results. However, despite rapidly increasing search volume through devices, many advertisers haven’t been able to get the same level of ROI. Advertisers that do target tablet and mobile successfully have invested into optimised landing pages and sites to the device. Therefore, many advertisers on desktop have turned off both tablet and mobile devices from showing ads. This means there is less competition bidding for the advertising spaces and consequently, a lower cost per click to the website. Therefore, Google’s strategy is to increase competitiveness and boost advertiser costs.
Current Adwords Platform
Traditionally we have been able to split campaigns by device. Think about a flower shop that wants to run a campaign targeting valentine’s flower related keywords. Traditionally (and currently) we will set up a separate campaign for mobile, tablet and desktop. Doing it this way means we can manage devices by the audience activity. For example, customers may visit the website in the morning by tablet, look on their lunch in mobile then come back in the evening on their desktop. So during each of the times of the day we can manage spend and position of the ads based on client objectives and how they are met by the devices e.g. sales, leads, low cost traffic etc. See below for the current structure;
New Adwords Platform
Within the new enhanced campaigns , the device set up has been radically changed so that as a minimum, every campaign will target tablet, desktop and mobile as an additional device to the campaign. They can be turned on or off and all devices are within one campaign. There is no option to have a mobile only campaign which means mobile campaigns will work to the same budget as desktop and tablet. Mobile within a campaign can be tweaked/customised both at keyword and advert level. Tablets have now been reclassified as desktops in the Adwords interface, therefore it has no option to switch off or on customised ads.
Additional Changes
Additional changes are found in the way in which we can target site link extensions. The links we have under the ad will be able to target by hour of day and day of the week (previously would have run 24/7). Therefore Monday to Friday, 12am till 4pm, we could add site links to say ‘Order Before 4pm For Next Day Delivery’ and then run with a different message in the evening. Bids for ads can be increased/decreased by locations e.g. a café may target keywords saying ‘coffee’ or ‘breakfast’ but increase the bids within half a mile of the location to get higher positions and more traffic. This is great for campaigns with location based shops or clients with prominent locations that work strongly. Time scales Campaigns will be able to opt in from the end of this month, becoming mandatory for ALL PPC accounts by June.
What this means for PPC advertisers – The Pros and Cons
Cons
•Because some clients have had tablets switched off due to low performance, when this is put back live (as mandatory) CPA is likely to increase therefore ROI within a given budget is likely to increase marginally due to 20% more traffic at a higher cost per lead/conversion
•Websites and/or landing pages will need to be effective for both mouse/keyboard and touch devices to be most effective
•Overall less flexibility in devices and the way ads are targeted
•May need account restructures/tweaks but is on a client-by-client basis pending current set up, objectives, device performance etc
•Poorer performing mobile campaigns (usually keywords outside the top 2 positions) can negatively have a direct impact on the cost/position of desktop ads
Pros
•Flexibility with ads – in particular site link extensions having day parting by hour of day and day of week
•Less campaigns in an account e.g. if an account targeted using separate campaigns for all devices had 144 campaigns this would change to 48
•Everyone is in the same boat and is an opportunity for clients to get both mobile and tablets right/improved to build more volume within their objectives
There are of course many other changes not mentioned above and since the only active accounts are a small number of test accounts there is very little information (Google team themselves haven’t seen a working campaign yet).
