Google seems to be in development mode at the moment with several new AdWords updates being announced over the past month or so.
The biggie, that Sophie wrote about yesterday, and I must also stress my frustration about, is the change to keyword matching options. This big change means that advertisers have less control over what their ads will appear for and it seems like a way for Google to make even more money. Unfortunately there’s not a lot we can do about it, apart from being more vigilant and adding more negative terms to campaigns and /or ad groups.
Other updates it has announced are; dynamic sitelinks, website call conversions and changes to product listing ads.
Dynamic Sitelinks
Last month Google announced the launch of dynamic sitelinks, “automatically generated sitelinks that appear below your ad text, connecting potential customers to relevant pages on your website more easily.”
The interesting thing is that clicks on the dynamic sitelinks are free. Yes, Google’s giving clicks away for free. Shock! Although advertisers will still be charged if the user chooses to click on the headline of their ads or another ad extension instead of its dynamic one.
Annoyingly Google will not be reporting on what dynamic sitelinks it has inserted, but advertisers do have the option to opt out of having dynamic sitelinks associated with their ads but they have to contact Google in order to do so.
Website Call Conversions
All marketers and business owners know the importance of being able to track conversions and knowing exactly which activity is attracting leads and/or customers.
A lot of businesses rely on phone calls from their websites to develop these relationships and generate revenue, but without using a call tracking system this is almost impossible to track.
Now Google has launched its own call tracking system named ‘website call conversions’. This service dynamically inserts a Google forwarding number on your website, replacing your normal business phone number. Google then measures the calls made and can attribute the call conversion and conversion value back to the keyword and ad that the customer used to get there.
For more information about how to implement ‘website call conversions’ visit.
Changes to Product Listing Ads
Have you upgraded to Shopping campaigns? If not after the 31st August Google will upgrade your old Product Listing Ads campaigns to the new Shopping campaigns. This will happen automatically at some point during September.
The good news is that it has developed a tool to make the upgrade as easy as possible.
This, however, is in addition to the changes that need to be made to Google Merchant Centre product feeds by 30th September. For more information about the individual changes visit: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/3097504?hl=en-GB