Review of Enhanced Google Campaigns

In typical Google fashion, they have rolled out a new feature with little fanfare and waited for reactions. This newest development is called Enhanced Campaigns and response has been loud and fast. It does offer some new and exciting additions, but eliminates some old techniques, which has many veteran PPC advertisers complaining. The biggest issue is you will no longer be able to create separate campaigns based on the devices of the user when they searched from a computer desktop, tablet or smart phone. Some industry watchers say this is the biggest change in recent years, while skeptics say it’s only another Google tactic to make more money from their advertisers. But Google has been saying for some time that mobile devices are impacting the buying process, it’s really only a logical step for them to enhance this. Google believes mobile is a big deal and does not want it to be segregated from the rest, they want you to take it serious.

Yes, it does raise a flag that you should look at how your website is viewed on a mobile device, and if it looks bad, then you can bid a negative 100% to not displays ads. Google will provide you with data to help make an informed decision. The long term positive we see with this new development is the reporting and campaign management of mobile advertising will only improve. The location of your target market, the device they are using and even the time of day/hour can be identified when the are most reachable or ready to take action. It will require you to put more thinking into user behavior to optimize your ads for the most effective ROI, but since they provide the ability to customize bidding we only see this as a good thing.

Should you embrace this new feature or ignore it?

Google for now is serious about this change and has stated in June all campaigns will be automatically upgraded. Today, you can elect into this process, which only takes a few minutes. But it is a one way upgrade, so you may want to try it on one campaign first and watch for any dramatic changes in spending. Of course if you website is not mobile friendly, bid down for that device, and start budgeting for your own website changes in the future.

One final note, there are some real enhancements in the ad extensions that are welcomed and we will talking about this in more detail in another blog posting.