In February, Google made sweeping changes to the Adwords interface, significantly changing the way advertisers market to PC, mobile, and tablet users.
In the Adwords blog, Google says, “People are constantly connected and moving from one device to another to communicate, shop and stay entertained.”
The introduction of many new forms of technology had made it cumbersome to advertise on Adwords; often advertisers would have to design multiple campaigns with similar ad groups, keywords and targeting, just linking to a mobile friendly landing page. Doing this not only wasted time, but it caused problems in reporting since campaigns were targeted similarly, yet tracked separately. There was also no way to track which users may have started browsing on a mobile phone, but completed their transaction on a computer.
One of the most significant changes in the new Adwords interface is the ability to target by device and utilize signals like location and time of day.
“With enhanced campaigns, instead of having to cobble together and compare several separate campaigns, reports and ad extensions [you can] manage all of this in one single place. Enhanced campaigns help you reach people with the right ads, based on their context like location, time of day and device type, across all devices without having to set up and manage several separate campaigns.”
When we first heard of this upgrade, our first thought was — but what about our existing campaigns? Google has answered this concern with an easy-to-use interface that allows you to upgrade your old campaigns. Simply follow the steps when you log in, and everything should transfer nicely. Learn more with video tutorials from Google.
After we completed our upgrades, we spent a good amount of time reading blogs, watching webinars and videos so we could get examples of what this system could really do.
At first glance, we love the following:
- Easy to update bids based on time of day, location, and device. Move bids up or down by percentage.
- More control over day and time bids
- Integration of Google Adwords Editor
- Upgraded enhancements and sitelinks
Overall, it seems like the new enhanced campaigns is going to be a useful system that marketers will grow to love. It’ll take a little time getting used to having data concentrated in one place, but it’s not anything to be too concerned about.
One thing that we believe could be great news for clients is the ability to create dynamic search ads. It’s an area we’re still exploring, but for those that haven’t heard about it, dynamic search ads are, Google says, “Dynamic Search Ads don’t use keywords. Instead, Dynamic Search Ads automatically show your ad based on the content of your website. This means you don’t have to choose keywords, tell us when you add a page to your website or take it down, or create an ad for each product page of your site.”
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