4 Massive AdWords changes that are coming in 2016. Are you ready?
Last month at Google summit there were 4 huge changes announced to the AdWords system. Each with the potential to make big differences to the performance of your accounts.
1. Expanded Google Search Ads – Most space announced for Ad Copy
One of the only constants in the last 15 years of AdWords is the 25, 30, 30 character ad format; which is due to be updated later this year. Google are going to roll out headlines of 30 characters and one consolidated 80-character description line. People who update earlier could experience a higher click through rate due to occupying a larger percentage of the Google search results.
Why should you make an update?
- Potentially higher click through rate
- Increased CTR leads to improved quality score and lower CPC
- Improvement in ROI
Risks of update.
- Time intensive if a large manually controlled campaign.
2. Google testing filter buttons in shopping ads – Ensure your products are within the default filters
Spotted in the states as a test. Google are introducing filter buttons, allowing customers to filter shopping results by price, ratings or by local inventory; within the ‘all results’ not just in the shopping tab of the Google search results. The data from the results of these filters could help with pricing and new product design. Lets hope this data makes it way onto the dimensions Adwords report.
Why should you make an update?
- No update needed, Google will most likely serve this automatically.
Risks of update.
- Pricing filters likely to cause large drop off in impressions if your product is outside of filtered value
- Ratings to become much more important to gain impressions in the SERP.
3. Device bidding on all devices – Have greater control of bids at a device level.
In the coming months Google has released that it will bring back granular device targeting. Previously, bid modifiers could be used to test desktop, mobile or tablet, In this next update, specific targeted bid modifiers can be used for each device type. This is all inline with Google’s mobile first approach to digital, allowing mobile devices to form the base for performance that tablet and desktop can be adjusted simply.
Why should you make an update?
- Auto inclusion of tables into mobile devices has always been a bit of a thorn in the device targeting settings. Breaking out, allows for more granular bid management.
- As tablet users in some vertical sectors have massive variance on conversion rate, being able to target them with different keywords and bids will only improve conversion rates
Risks of update.
- As customers opt or reduce tablet bids, those accounts that don’t update are more likely to get more tablet traffic; a device type generally with a lower conversion rate
- User journeys where change of device by conversion stage can be targeted with a more accurate bidding strategy
5. Promoted Pins – Are local searches about to be monetised?
Monetisation of Google maps is now upon us. This year Google are going to role out AdWords style bidding for visibility for within its local search product. If this is like other products that have gone from free to paid (ie shopping ads) can we soon expect that any local visibility will need to be paid for?
Why should you make an update?
- Google have quoted around 56% of mobile searches have local intent. These searches might need to be paid for after this update.
- As with Shopping ads, as soon as a free product can be monetized to have any visibility these searches may need to be paid for.
Risks of update.
- By not running promoted pins you may lose visibility of local intent searches