I touched on this briefly in my My Five a couple of weeks ago but there’s currently a lot going on with Google AdWords, with some big changes rolling out across the platform.
Back at the end of April, Google held an event, named the AdWords Performance Forum, where it announced new features. You can catch a replay of the livestream here if you missed it.
Changes to app promotion
One of the big changes that was announced, was the next generation of features across Google search ads, the Display Network and YouTube that help businesses better promote their mobile apps.
The 3 main benefits of the new features are:
- Better discovery: When promoting app installs on the AdMob network, Google can now target users based on the apps they currently and frequency use, and also the types of in-app purchases they make.
- Easier re-engagement: If someone has already downloaded an app on their phone and searches for a term that relates to a page within the app on Google.com, they can be directed straight to that specific page in app, instead of being taken to the app’s main landing page.
- Enhanced measurement: Advertisers will soon be able to measure conversions across the entire lifecycle of the app – from install to re-engagement to in-app purchases.
Better conversion estimation
Further developments are also being made to the “Estimated Total Conversions”, allowing advertisers to get a better idea of the full value of their campaigns. This is not just based on online sales, but takes into account offline sales, phone calls and conversions that occur across devices.
Google is currently working on a way to better measure how search drives in-store sales by using anonymised purchase data from retail partners.
Changes within the AdWords platform
Changes are also being made to help users manage their campaigns more easily, with improvements being made to bulk actions, automated bidding, reporting and experiments:
- Bulk actions: Advertisers will be able to quickly and easily make changes to up to thousands of campaigns, in one easy step. These changes include extension and setting alterations.
- Automated bidding: This is being improved to allow advertisers to maximise their number of conversions or the total value of their conversions.
- Better reporting tools: One of the most exciting new features being introduced is the addition of new multi-dimensional data analysis and visualisation tools within the reporting section of AdWords. These will allow advertisers to easily and quickly pull in different attributes and metrics from their live data and compare them against each other to properly analyse their results. Something they would have had to use third party tools for in the past by exporting the data into spreadsheets and uploading them into the third party tool.
- Better experiments: AdWords will soon allow advertisers to make changes to their account, and keep them in draft form before they are made live. You’ll also be able to run tests with live traffic as an experimental trial. Things you can experiment with include bid changes, new keywords, different campaign settings, special bids for times and locations, different kinds of ad formats, and more.
It’s great to see that Google are still striving to make AdWords better, we are most excited about the enhanced reporting, drafting and experiment features.
The Google Keyword tool has also had some new features added recently. Stay tuned to find out about those when Sophie posts her thoughts!