Google have made a number of changes in the last month, check out the updates below.

Google Introduces WordPress Plugin

Google have developed a new plugin for WordPress that pulls in insights from Google tools to your WordPress dashboard. Site Kit by Google allows you to access data from the Search Console, Google Analytics, AdSense, and PageSpeed Insights from the WordPress admin panel.

The plugin is being released as a beta version in early 2019 and you can sign up here.

The plugin doesn’t add any additional insights, it simply makes the data easier to access. An example of this is that you can navigate to any page on your WordPress site, click on the Site Kit button and see the data for that specific page. The plugin will also alert you when you’ve hit publishing milestones, as well as showing the combined data for your most recently published posts.

In the future, and based on beta feedback, Google plans to expand the capabilities of the Site Kit.

Changes to Google Display Campaigns

Google have updated their Display ads features to try and drive more conversions in the new year.

Audience Expansion Tool

The first change is the development of an audience expansion tool. A lot of marketers increase their bids at the end of the month to make the most of their budgets. This can be unpredictable. With the audience expansion tool you can leave your budgets as they are, and instead expand your reach to drive more conversions with the same average CPA.

With user feedback, this tool has been updated for more granularity and can give you weekly impression estimates based on your selection. Advertisers who have been using this tool have seen 50% more conversions for the same investment.

Reach More Ideal Customers

Custom intent audiences are a great way to save time while reach specific audiences. All you need to do is enter keywords, URLs or apps, and Google will provide recommended segments for you to add to your campaign.

However, to save time. Google have now added thousands of new segments which are automatically created based on your account. By using these segments, you don’t have to manage hundreds of keywords to reach the right customers.

New Ways to Pay

Google Ads have added the option to pay for conversions when using Display campaigns. This means you only have to pay when a user converts after clicking the ad. It also means that you’ll never pay above your target CPA.

To find out more about the changes to Display ads, you can read the Google blog post here.

Exact Match is Getting Less Exact

Exact match keywords are no longer operating as exact match. They now include close variations which share the same meaning as your keyword.

Exact match examples

The change has introduced three new concepts:

  • Implied words
  • Paraphrase
  • Same Intent

However, it’s hard to infer the same intent. As per the example above, someone searching for Yosemite camping could be looking for campsites, or information about bears or camping policies. These intents would require different landing pages to satisfy a user’s search.

This also effects ad copy because it may not match the search a user has actually conducted. This means that advertisers could be missing out on clicks as the ad that has shown, doesn’t appear relevant to the user.

exact match selection

If you want to see how this is influencing your account, go to Google Ads, click “Keywords” and then “Search Terms”. If you then filter match type by exact match (close variant) at an account level you will be able to see how these searches are performing.