AdWords Enhanced Campaigns – PPC Hangout
Michael Wiegand Feb 20 2013
Portent PPC Google+ Hangouts
This will serve as the pilot for Portent’s ongoing hangout series where we talk about paid search current events and give you our analysis and commentary.
Today’s hangout topic: AdWords Enhanced Campaigns
A new feature announced just recently by Google. It’s caused quite a hullabaloo in the industry, to say the least.
On today’s hangout panel:
- Michael Wiegand – Senior PPC & Analytics Strategist (Moderator)
- Chad Kearns – PPC Strategist
- Kiko Correa – PPC Strategist
- Tim Johnson – PPC Strategist
Articles discussed in today’s hangout:
- Google’s Enhanced Campaigns Announcement
- Google’s Mobile Revenue Projections
- Google’s Q4 2012 Earnings Report
- Larry Kim’s Pros of Enhanced Campaigns
- Neil Sorenson’s Cons of Enhanced Campaigns
Notes from today’s hangout:
Why is Google making these changes? On a surface level, mobile advertising adoption rates are poor.
Also, they’re simply hedging their bets based on projected mobile industry growth.
What’s their underlying motivation for it? Google’s Q4 2012 earnings report showed their CPCs from AdWords were actually down 6% year-over-year!
By taking away some control from the advertisers, they’re hoping to bring that CPC number up for their investors by Q3 & Q4 2013.
Enhanced Campaign pros
Larry Kim, founder of WordStream, made a few great points.
First, it’ll be a lot easier for small businesses to run on mobile platforms and to maintain accounts themselves. Namely, Enhanced Campaigns allow you to tailor device-specific ad copy within a single campaign. It’ll also allow you to adjust default bids by location and time within the same campaign.
Ad scheduling options are being extended to ad extensions as well. Stats by individual sitelinks instead of group sitelinks will now be accessible.
And lastly, advanced reporting! In-store conversions, digital downloads and cross-device conversions will soon be unveiled.
Enhanced Campaign Cons
Neil Sorenson, Head of PPC at ZAGG.com, outlined some of the main gripes we have in the industry about it.
Tablet bids are now joined at the hip to Desktop bids, when those two segments of traffic can still behave drastically differently.
Additionally, Smartphone bids are now lumped into the same budgets as Tablets and Desktops. Businesses often have dedicated budgets for mobile advertising that are now really difficult to assign.
Stay tuned to the Portent blog for more PPC hangout announcements!
Michael Wiegand
Analytics Architect
In 14 years as a marketer, Michael's experience has run the gamut from design, development, direct mail, multivariate testing, print and search. He now heads Portent's Analytics practice, overseeing everything from Google Tag Management, to CRM integration for closed loop analytics, to solving ponderous digital marketing questions. Outside of work, he enjoys recording music, playing JRPGs and supporting Seattle Sounders FC. Read More