Those of you that currently use Google AdWords in the UK may have noticed a forced upgrade yesterday. Google has moved all its advertisers onto its new Enhanced Campaigns, you cannot stay on the older version – the upgrade is automatic.
As has become the norm now, Google has introduced these new campaigns to enhance its searchers’ user experience. The search giant intends to make the search ad experience more relevant to each user by showing the right content in the right place at the right time.
New signals to enhance user ad experience
Enhanced Campaigns will be using more “signals” to determine the context of an ad; these signals consist of device, time of day, location, and conversion type. By using these signals Google is bound to achieve its aim of placing the right ad in front of the right person at the right time.
Enhanced Campaigns have some drawbacks for advertisers
Google’s focus has been to improve the user experience of searchers; therefore some of the new changes might not go down too well with advertisers. Some of the less favourable changes for advertisers include:
- There is no longer the ability to split out campaigns into devices such as tablet and desktop, all devices are now merged.
- Advertisers can no longer set-up and run adverts targeting mobile only devices.
- Google has removed the ability to run BETA campaigns unless the campaign is enhanced.
Features of Enhanced Campaigns that should excite advertisers
The new campaigns have introduced many new features to help advertisers too, but no one likes changes so we’ll complain about one thing or another!
Here are some of the features I think advertisers should be looking forward to:
- There are currently bid multipliers for mobile at campaign level, but this will be changing to ad group level shortly. Once rolled out advertisers will be able to have a separate bid for mobile devices within the same campaign.
- It is now possible to use geographical distance bid multipliers. In essence this means that an advertiser can bid higher for a person who lives within 1 mile of a restaurant rather than a person who lives 5 miles away
- Sitelinks are now at the Ad Group Level – offering a higher level of control for advertisers who previously struggled to make their sitelinks relevant to every ad group in a campaign.
What does this mean for a business?
All businesses using Google AdWords need to make sure all their campaigns have been set-up to make the most of the new features. And, they need to ensure campaigns are not suffering because of any of the new features.
Businesses need to quiz their providers on their bid management tool too as some may not be best suited for Enhanced Campaigns.
Advertisers need to re-think mobile campaigns, historically it was possible to set separate budgets for smartphones or tablets; these budgets were easy to manage with separate device-targeted campaigns. Enhanced Campaigns makes this much harder.
Need help with Enhanced Campaigns?
If you have any questions around Enhanced Campaigns please feel free to check out our Online Marketing section.
Kaled@sem-specialist.co.uk
