Adwords Enhanced Campaigns: Understanding Mobile Bid Adjustments
Advertising online used to be pretty straightforward. You put your banner on a website; someone saw it on a desktop computer, and boom: you had made your connection. Today, the online advertising space has become a vast landscape navigated by millions across the planet through a series of different channels. Nowadays advertisers have to look at a number of factors when deciding how to reach their audience; things like time of day, location and whether or not the search query is coming from a mobile device are crucial to know when targeting ads. Having this information can greatly increase your chances of reaching new customers at your target ROI.
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In February, AdWords launched Enhanced Campaigns to help advertisers gain a better sense of how and why potential customers were searching. By knowing the devices they were using, and other pertinent time location details, the delivery of ads could be customized to reach the most appropriate targets. The delivery of more relevant ads means more clicks for you, and more clicks can quickly translate into increased sales.
Sure, the updates are already noticeable, but AdWords has grand plans for even more customizable bids starting mid-May. In an effort to you give you more control over how your ads are displayed, you will now be able to set mobile bid adjustments at the Ad Group Level. Google anticipates this will be most useful for large, national brands that have been running campaigns targeted to specific devices.
Let’s say you’ve discovered that a majority of your keywords are having more success on desktop computers versus the equivalent bids you’ve set for mobile placements (and mobile is the focus of your online advertising platform). You see that 90% of your keywords in mobile-only campaigns have bid thresholds that are 10% lower than those in the matching desktop campaign. The remaining 10% of the keywords have varied bid ratios (we’re talking in the 40% lower to 100% higher range here) meaning you could lose serious cash on clicks if you’re not playing to the right audience. You also see a clear opportunity to save money on bids. In a case like this, you would benefit from adjusting the mobile bids of that single ad group, without having to completely alter the other bids (on all devices) currently associated with that campaign. Google is now providing an opportunity for advertisers to maintain lower prices on the mobile bids they’ve set when they upgrade to enhanced campaigns.
Despite the new rollout, Google maintains that most advertisers will benefit more from sticking with the existing campaign level bids currently available in enhanced campaigns. You can go ahead and upgrade to enhanced campaigns now by logging into AdWords and clicking “Get Started”. Select your mobile bid adjust and then click “Complete Upgrade”. All accounts will be officially upgraded to Enhanced Campaigns on July 22, 2013, so you might as well get familiar with the new functionality.
You should think of impression share as a serving bowl of tasty punch at a party. That full punch bowl represents the overall impression share (ultimately the total number of chances you have to display your ad to a potential customer) that’s available at any given time. You and all of your competitors want a glass. The more glasses you obtain, the more of the overall impression share you’re drinking. When you set up metrics, you’re able to measure that amount you’re drinking as compared to your competitors. This punch is delicious and you want as much as possible! The same principle applies with your search ad campaigns and the actual number of online impressions you can obtain. You want to have the highest level of exposure among the other players in the online market space.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or you hastily left it in a cab after a late night at the bar, you own (or used to own) a smart phone. In fact, a recent study presented by the Cisco Connected World Technology Report stated that more than 90% of young people use their smartphone first thing in the morning, often while they are still in bed. The important thing to take from this tidbit is the need for convenience and accessibility. In today’s world, people turn to their phones and other mobile devices for information constantly. Whether it’s at home before breakfast, or out late seeking midnight snacks, young people are using their phones for various reasons, from which many you could benefit as a business owner.
If you’re a retailer that offers a multitude of products that you want to advertise online, you may find yourself scratching your head and thinking, “Where do I start?” You know that running a successful ecommerce campaign means more exposure for your business and more cash for you, so it is worth the time and energy to get organized.
When you launch a new search ad campaign, so many factors play into the success or failure of your online marketing efforts. In order to make sure that you get the most mileage out of your ads, you’ll likely be analyzing performance reports regularly. Thankfully, you can link your Google Analytics details directly to your AdWords account, so you don’t miss valuable online traffic information.