Following a month of no new features, Google came back strong with six new AdWords features in March. Below is a short overview of these new releases.
Apply Custom Columns at Keyword and Ad Group Level
Up until now, custom columns could only be applied. This was great for seeing top level custom data, but impossible to see this at a deeper level. Advertisers can now add custom columns at a keyword and ad group level, applied in the same way as they are to campaigns. With these, you can view attribution, Analytics and competitive metrics.
Improvements to the Keyword Planner Tool
The Keyword Planner tool is a must for advertisers that are planning search campaigns. The tool hasn’t always been the most reliable though, taking time to load or not loading at all. The tool will display traffic and suggested bids for keyword ideas. With the new improvements to the tool, advertisers get quicker results than before. This update only applies to the tool in the new interface.
Location Extensions Now Available for YouTube Campaigns
Google has rolled out affiliate location extensions for YouTube, meaning users can find nearby stores that sell your products. How can this be useful? Let’s say you are running a YouTube campaign showcasing your range of sports trainers. With location extensions, you can show users your nearby stores which stock the sports trainers.
TrueView for Action Ads on YouTube
This new type of YouTube campaign helps drive conversions as advertisers can now include CTA’s and text overlays to YouTube video. This can be useful for gaining leads from a campaign type that is often unmeasurable. This campaign subtype is only available for in-stream ads. There are some restrictions, such as text overlays can’t contain more that 15 characters and the CTA’s can’t have more that 10 characters.
How can this be useful? If we look at the example of video ads for a line of sports trainers, advertisers can include a CTA saying ‘Buy Online Now’ to drive sales.
Get More Insight with Shop Visit Conversions
Shop visit conversions can now be seen, allowing advertisers to measure when someone visits the business’s physical store. This can be done through the usual conversion tracking to measure clicks and viewable impressions from ads that cause shop visits. This feature is only available for Display Network campaigns as the conversion is measured with viewable impressions.
With the example of selling sports trainers, a banner ad can be measured to see how many people visit the physical shop.
Deactivation of Expired AdWords Accounts
Google have released that AdWords accounts with no spend in the past 15 months will be deactivated. If your account is deactivated, you will receive an email stating this. Fear not, if you account is cancelled, it can always be reactivated when there are ads running and spending.
If you have an account that has not spent in over a year, it is worth bearing this in mind.
So, there we have it, six new AdWords features released in March. More info on all of these can be found here.