Recently Google upgraded its AdWords digital advertising platform. The upgrade, called Enhanced Campaigns, offers new bid-management features for advertisers based on a customer’s location, device, and time of day. Google aims to simplify AdWords account structures and help advertisers identify and optimise new opportunities for success in a multi-device world.
Enhanced campaign features, bid boosting and improved management of sitelinks will simplify and increase account management efficiency.
While the new features are beneficial, they are counterbalanced by the fact that Google is removing the device targeting functionality that is still currently available with legacy campaigns. Advertisers will no longer be able to target or exclude devices (desktops, smartphones, tablets) at the campaign level—all keywords will trigger ads across all devices after the legacy campaign option is removed from Adwords.
You can migrate current Adwords campaigns into Enhanced Campaign format now, and in June Google will make these news settings and features mandatory. With new Adwords campaigns, through June, advertisers will be able to choose between Enhanced Campaigns or legacy campaign features.
Here are the primary benefits and concerns of the new features in Enhanced Campaigns.
Pros:
Simplified audience targeting and account structure: Advertisers can now leverage location-specific, time-specific, and smartphone-specific bid boosting strategies within a single 'root' campaign.
Straightforward smartphone ad management: For advertisers who are not currently segmenting campaigns by device, setting up smartphone-specific ad copy and ad extension strategies will be much simpler.
Efficient sitelink management: New ad extension scheduling will allow advertisers to leverage the extremely effective sitelink extensions, increasing their effectiveness, while making them easier to manage.
Individual sitelink management: Advertisers will now be able to see performance metrics and approval status for individual sitelinks—not just the group of sitelinks as a whole.
New conversion types: The ability to track new conversions (calls, app purchases, etc.) will provide additional value to paid search campaigns and offer new metrics for optimisation. Cross-device conversion tracking will be especially useful for identifying additional value for specific keywords.
Cons:
Loss of tablet-specific options: Advertisers who already have a tablet strategy in place (or who choose to opt out of serving ads on tablets) will lose that functionality. Segmenting tablet traffic and managing it differently has provided many benefits. While the tablet ad display format is similar to desktop, research indicates people use tablets differently to desktop. Losing that functionality will affect all advertisers currently seeing benefits from segmenting their tablet traffic.
Need to recreate mobile strategy in the new format: Advertisers who have a discrete mobile strategy in place will have to recreate that strategy as they migrate their campaigns. The new smartphone targeting functionality does not completely recreate current AdWords features that can be leveraged with positive results.
A smartphone strategy is no longer an option: Advertisers who do not have a smartphone strategy will be forced to come up with one, or leverage the bid multiplier workaround (setting the bid multiplier to -100 percent) to opt out of smartphones. Advertisers who don’t take the time to make this adjustment will start serving ads on smartphones unintentionally.
iProspect believes the increase in the number of advertisers participating in the auction on smartphone searches will lead to increased overall CPCs. Advertisers who do not have a mobile-optimised site should prioritise the creation of one.
Say goodbye to third-party conversion tracking by device: A lot of third-party conversion tracking will lose the option to split keyword-level conversion tracking data by device. While there is a workaround that would allow advertisers to split out smartphone conversion tracking, this solution is a trade-off that loses keyword-specific conversion tracking for the entire campaign. This decreases the granularity and value of non-Google conversion tracking.
Note: If you’re using AdWords conversion tracking you’ll still be able to split conversions by device in those reports.
While the new bid boosting features and the ability to “stack” multiple bid modification strategies are powerful, iProspect feels that these changes are also a potential pitfall for advertisers or agencies who don’t take the time to learn how to use these settings. Although easy to set up, they can quickly become complicated, as multiple-bid modifications can be stacked within each campaign. This adds significant complexity and room for error for those managing the campaigns.
As advertisers migrate to the Enhanced Campaigns format, iProspect recommends taking a step back to re-evaluate digital strategies across all devices, learn the new features, and strategically apply them to campaigns. Advertisers should consider implementation of the AdWords tracking pixel to maintain granularity of conversion tracking and in order to modify and evolve their AdWords strategy. After migration, consistent monitoring, testing and readjusting of these features should be employed in order to continue to get the most from the campaigns.
Source: iProspect POV “Google Enhanced Campaigns” by Jeremy Hull, associate director of paid search