Without doubt the hot topic in the world of Google AdWords the past few months has been Enhanced Campaigns. Here at High Position we’ve covered the topic from day one, having been invited to a presentation at Google HQ London just days before the official international announcement. But it’s worth mentioning again right now because on July 22nd all AdWords Campaigns that have not already been upgraded from Legacy to Enhanced will be automatically upgraded by Google, meaning that many advertisers could see some unexpected changes to their stats from this Monday.
The Clock Is Ticking
If you haven’t already upgraded your campaigns you might find this post from May 17th useful, Have Enhanced Campaigns Changed Your Life. It provides a great overview of the impact Enhanced Campaigns will have, what you need to look for, and a video tutorial showing you in simple steps how to upgrade a campaign.
At High Position we put in place a process way back in February that ensured all our accounts were upgraded sooner rather than later. Although Google have called this change to AdWords one of the biggest ever, they’ve also made it clear that it’s a straightforward process, and we’ve found this to be the case. However if you leave it to Google to make the change on Monday you could miss out on a few new opportunities or even see your key metrics move in the wrong direction without being able to see the reasons why. So what do you need to know?
Mobile Traffic – Do You want It?
The biggest change, and the area of Enhanced Campaigns that generated the most debate on launch, was that of targeting mobile devices. Previously you have had the ability to choose to target mobile devices and desktop users with separate campaigns. Now all campaigns target all devices, with the initial reaction being that Google were forcing people into mobile bidding thus increasing the amount of spend in that area. Not strictly true.
Using the mobile bid adjustment feature you’re able to decrease your mobile bid by -100%, effectively pricing you out of that particular game.
So there’s one concern dealt with very easily, although the more creative account managers might want to explore this feature a little further. The information you get related to mobile traffic is now far greater than ever before and it can be used and applied to CPC and CPA targets. If you take a look at these device stats for a campaign you may find that your default bid is getting you mobile traffic at a fraction of the cost of desktop traffic. If that’s the case it makes sense to increase your mobile bid towards a CPC that is equivalent to that of desktop, or one that at least gets you top of page position…providing the conversions are there of course!
Daily Campaign Budgets
For the majority of businesses the update will mean combining two or more campaigns into one new Enhanced Campaign. Remember when you do this to take into account the budget you’ll need to get similar results from this one campaign that you used to get from two or three. It may not be as simple as combining the budgets that you previously used into one, particularly when you take into account traffic from Tablet devices. Previously you could choose not to target Tablets, with Enhanced Campaigns this traffic source is currently treated the same as desktop, and unlike mobile traffic, there is no Bid Adjuster for Tablet traffic. The fact that you can see separate stats for these three traffic sources on the bid adjuster screen suggests this may be something that becomes available in time, and I know several people have asked that question.
New Features For Mobile
If you have been targeting mobile traffic through existing Legacy Campaigns then the upgrade will be music to your ears as it opens up several features aimed specifically at a mobile audience. Once you have combined existing Legacy Campaigns into new Enhanced Campaigns you can tailor you ads and ad Extensions to a mobile audience.
Ad Copy
When creating new ads there is the option to specify that the ad you’re creating is a mobile ad. This give you a bit more scope to play with the message. You can mention that you have a mobile site, a downloadable App or offers only available to mobile users. And of course the click to call option will be important to someone being shown your ad on a smart-phone.
Ad Extensions
Enhanced Campaigns also opens the door on Enhanced Sitelink Extensions. In a nutshell this means that you can control each Sitelink Extension on an individual level rather than creating them in groups.
An additional bonus to Enhanced Sitelinks is the ability to apply them at Adgroup rather than Campaign level, enabling you to further tailor and optimise your ads to a specific search. As we all know, anticipating what is being searched for is half the battle!
Your Enhanced Campaigns Checklist
If all of that has made you realise you really should migrate your campaigns before the weekend then here’s a simple but effective checklist that, if you follow, will ensure your arrival on the Enhanced Campaigns stage will be met with thunderous applause and not a slow hand clap.
- When combining campaigns choose the best performing ones and move whatever content you need into these. A campaign with a strong history is preferable to one that is new, receives low traffic numbers or performs badly.
- Make sure you use the bid adjuster for mobile. By default Google will set it at -20% of your desktop bid. This may be a good place to start but if you’re combining a desktop and mobile campaign and the strategy you have previously adopted for mobile is far more aggressive then you may want to increase it by 20%. Remember, if you do not want to target mobile traffic set the bid to -100%
- Create Ad Copy to be shown on mobile devices. If you have a mobile website make it clear that this is the case. It goes without saying that mobile sites are far more relevant to a mobile user than a desktop site.
- Introduce relevant Ad Extensions that distinguish between mobile and desktop users and apply them at AdGroup level rather than campaign level.
- Monitoring the performance over the days after you upgrade will be key to understanding your next moves. Benchmark and measure performance on a daily basis. Looking at the new reports that you can generate related to time, location and device are the big three you need to look at.
For more information on getting the most from Enhanced Campaigns feel free to contact one of our qualified team on 0800 046 4079.
