Five Big Changes Coming to Google Adwords

In our Spring edition, I discussed changes to how Paid Search Text ads have been removed from the right hand side of search return pages (SERPs) and the possible impacts to your business. This edition shares a brief overview of the 5 BIG changes Google announced shortly after Paid Search Ads.

Google continues to emphasize mobile-first, which means that the look of the SERP is changing in ways that favour the mobile experience. Paid ads are adapting to the mobile-first world including new ad formats and features you want to know about.

Search Ads to Appear on Google Maps - Get Local! Maps will be part of the Search Network moving forward. Expect to see significantly more ads appearing on the map platform. New ad formats allow you to place brand logos and offers directly on the surface of the map, rather than just alongside the map. Google Maps now has more than a billion users and people visit 1.5 billion destinations based on their Google searches. As Google noted, location-related searches account for nearly a third of all mobile searches and have grown 50 percent faster than overall mobile searches in the past year.

Expanded Text Ads Get Double Headlines & More Characters - Sorry Mobile SEO Text ads are about to undergo a significant change through expansion. With new, expanded text ads, headlines are about to get much bigger – advertisers will soon be able to have two 30-character headlines, up from a single headline of just 25 characters. In early testing, Google found this change dramatically increased CTR – by as much as 25 percent. In addition to more clicks, Google said longer headlines will be more useful for advertisers in terms of better qualified traffic. This change is huge, particularly with so little space on the smartphone screen, and for Organic in Mobile, this change has large implications.

Better Measurement of In-Store Conversions - See Sensible Business in this Edition Now you will be able to know how many people clicking on your AdWords ads are visiting your local business. This begins to bridge offline and online and the measurement that Google plans to use to measure in-store conversions. Google says it plans to look at phone location history to determine whether the person who searched and clicked on your ad ended up walking into the store. We trust this will be opt-in! And as an example, Nissan UK notes that 6 percent of people who clicked on ads went to the dealership, resulting in 25x ROI, during their testing.

New Responsive Display Ads - Ads Created from Your Inventory With this feature, you will give Google an URL, headline, description, and image, and Google will create responsive display ads for you. This means that ads will adapt to the content of the websites they're on and apps in the GDN, including native ad inventory.

Changes to Device Bidding - Hurray for Decoupling Currently, advertising pricing is based on desktop bids with a multiplier for mobile bids. Going forward, bids are being decoupled providing the ability to set mobile bids, desktop bids, and tablet bids independently or make them dependent on each other. More flexibility and further support of Google's mobile-first viewpoint.

Bottom Line: In a mobile world Google will give you great flexibility. Desktop ads continue to improve. Organic search is impacted for mobile and we suggest you consider your media mix (seo and paid) carefully.

Alex Wozny, is a digital analyst with amazing research skills. Through Concentric, he helps businesses develop, measure and optimize their digital advertising as well as their marketing initiatives.