There were many changes to Google Adwords in 2013, but we thought it would be a good idea to highlight the top 10 in terms of impact on our search campaigns:
1. Enhanced Campaigns
Enhanced Campaigns top the list as one of the biggest Adwords changes to have been implemented. Although a major change at the time, now that the dust has settled it’s thought by many to make managing campaigns more streamlined and the specific features make account management easier. The most notable changes to Enhanced Campaigns are:
- Mobile bid adjustment
- Location bid adjustment
2. Ad Extensions Now Factor info Ad Rank Calculation
Announced in October, this was another big change simply because it’s not often that Ad Rank or Quality score is changed. Ad Rank is calculated using an advertiser’s max CPC bid and Quality Score. With Google’s update, they started to factor in the “expected impact from ad extensions and formats.” Advertisers without ad extensions such as site links, call extensions or location extensions needed to rush to implement so as to not have a lower Ad Rank compared to their competition
3. Goodbye to the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator… Hello Keyword Planner
Google also consolidated their two tools used to gather keyword and estimate traffic insights into a new Keyword Planner. Another tool that took some getting used to, but again saw some useful new features including:
- Exclude keywords already in your account
- Add features such as average monthly searches and impression share
- Include/exclude keywords containing X, Y and Z
4. Improved scheduling
With changes such as Enhanced Campaigns, everything can now be scheduled. Examples include, scheduling site links to only run at certain hours of the day or a specific time. Other extensions such as call extensions can also be scheduled this way, which is useful to worm around call centre hours.
5. Comparison Report
This features is useful in that allows you to easily compare activity and changes during a set/custom period of time.
6. Paid and Organic Report
Google rolled out this report in August and it’s a great way to analyse the PPC and SEO performance and importantly whether or not Paid Search is cannibalising organic search traffic. This tool also allows us to review opportunities that exist within Organic Search but not within Paid Search and vice versa.
7. Estimated Total Conversions
Three months after the roll out of Enhanced Campaigns, a new conversion column called ‘Estimated Total Conversion’ was added to the Adword interface. The first conversion type to launch as part of the report is ‘Estimated cross-device conversions’. As the Google blog announced ‘estimated cross-device conversions are counted when a customer clicks on an ad on one device, then converts on another device’. The intent is to use this data to understand ROI and make improved budget adjustments.
Google calculated cross-device conversions by measuring a sample of data from users signed into multiple devices.
8. Calls added to the main ‘conversion’ column in Adwords
In November, Google announced phone calls from mobile click-to-call ads were added to the conversion column allowing phone calls to be used to enhance and optimise bidding solutions like Conversion Optimiser.
9. New Adwords Layout in SERP’s
You may have noticed how the appearance of Google Ads changed within the results pages last year. Here is a screen shot of how the ads appear and a few key points:
- A bright yellow button that says “Ad”
- No faint background colour to separate Paid vs Organic
- A faint grey line separates ads
10. Opportunities Tab – New Look and Feel
A much improved layout and a few new features complete the list. Key features included improved clarity of what you can do from a keyword, ad group or ad extension perspective.
MEC Opinion
Although we have detailed 10 key changes in 2013, there were in fact many more. What is important to us is that we embrace these changes and work with Google where possible to improve them. It’s important our clients are at the forefront of any changes that are implemented by Google from not only adopting the new features to our clients campaigns but ensuring we are ahead of the competition when it comes to BETA testing new features not yet released.