GOOGLE ADWORDS ENHANCED CAMPAIGNS: THE SEVEN INCH ITCH
Google’s new announcement about campaign targeting in Adwords suggests the advertising giant is increasingly committed to the tablet format. Adwords campaigns will migrate to an ‘enhanced’ format where they collectively target desktop, mobile and tablet devices. Advertisers will no longer be able to target one device per campaign (as per Google best practice to date), but new campaigns will by default target desktops and tablets, with a bid multiplier to turn mobile paid search on and off. Google are defining tablets as any device with a screen of 7-inch or above, drawing a line in the sand at this size regardless of behavioural change by users at other screen sizes. Although advertisers must now scrap any of their own definitions and adhere to Google’s arbitrary 7-inch cut-off, it does remove the ambiguity around ‘phablet’ sizes and where they fit into the paid search marketplace. The new enhanced campaign setting is ‘device independent’. The association of a single campaign with a single device is no longer possible and therefore device selection has been taken out of the advertiser’s control. Campaigns will now target all devices within a single campaign, with one bid set for desktop and tablet devices together and a bid multiplier to specify the mobile bid. Creative, ad extensions, day parting and location settings can be set separately for mobiles but all three devices will be managed from one campaign. Desktop and tablet devices will be targeted by default whilst mobile can be opted out of when using a ‘-100%’ bid multiplier (useful where advertisers do not have a mobile optimised site). This exciting and significant change to campaign management increases Google’s commitment to mobile and tablet, making advertiser coverage across all devices compulsory. This change should raise the necessity of implementing a mobile or tablet optimised site experience to the forefront of client strategies. Tablet and desktop consumer use has been seen to be similar, therefore grouping both devices together may only raise a problem where client sites do not render well on tablet screens. As
1
users are exhibiting similar behaviour across internet-enabled devices, Google are recognising the consumer demand for this and now advertisers are being compelled to meet this demand. Since all advertisers will be present in at least the desktop and tablet paid search marketplaces, this will increase both Google revenue and advertiser competition, removing the significant benefit of the lower CPCs seen in mobile and tablet campaigns. With desktop and tablet parity, individual bids cannot be set for either device, removing a level of granularity. It is, however, likely that as more advertisers build mobile sites and deploy multi-device strategies, competition and CPCs will increase in these marketplaces. Therefore, this Google update is quite progressive because mobile and tablet CPCs remain below desktop levels but Google are recognising and prompting their advertisers to invest ahead of the curve in these marketplaces – smartphone usage now exceeds 1 billion worldwide and recent data suggests adult smartphone penetration exceeds 75% in many markets. From a management and optimisation perspective, advertisers need only set up one campaign now instead of three, taking just one third of the time. This also means fewer campaigns to manage and optimise in an account. This is a major selling point from Google, as they are clearly targeting the SMB market who may have found the complexity of campaign targeting options discouraging. Further benefits include moving a step closer to cracking cross-device attribution since a portion of signed-in traffic will be tracked over the Google search network across all devices. Although enhanced campaigns will benefit most advertisers, there are likely to be some verticals that lose out. The security and screen-size of tablet and mobile devices hinders users from completing application forms so this could impact insurance, some retail and finance. Advertisers who have a mobile-specific KPI such as app downloads will now need to have some level of coverage on desktop devices. The maximum mobile multiplier has currently been set at +300% therefore advertisers can only set a bid at 4 times that of the desktop bid – this could be problematic in highly competitive arenas such as insurance. Targeting individual operating systems, networks and handsets will also no longer be possible; although the volume from this type of activity is low, some advertisers may have better website performance on certain OS’s or suffer if they are promoting a product that is OS/handsetspecific. Web analytics data that features metrics at the mobile OS or handset level of granularity now has no application in paid search (although these settings are still available for Google Display Network campaigns).
2
By releasing enhanced campaigns, Google is empowering their advertisers to re-think their approach to device targeting. Advertisers will no doubt dispute the line in the sand at 7-inch as the definition of tablets but Google is such a huge advertising presence, other networks are likely to follow suit and a classification was sorely needed. This could be the beginning of an industry standard. The paid search marketplace is always evolving but Google has made an effort to advance the tablet and mobile marketplace itself by increasing the number of advertisers. This announcement is a game-changer and the effects of this will be seen in the coming months, keeping PPC specialists busy adapting to the new parameters. By opening up the market, advertisers must invest now in what Google see as the future: multi-device engagement with the internet. If 2012 was the year of mobile, Google are planning on making 2013 the year of the multi-screen.
3