As you are most likely aware, Google recently launched Enhanced Campaigns, the most significant change ever to be made to the Adwords interface.

 

With the option to upgrade our campaigns to Enhanced Campaigns now available, we thought it would be interesting to show some of the changes that have been made to the Adwords interface, and explain the process that advertisers will now have to follow to set up a campaign.

 

To quickly recap, the move to Enhanced Campaigns comes with the intent to simplify the management of multi-device campaigns. Until now, Paid Search managers had the ability to create individual campaigns targeting mobile, tablet and desktop searches separately. From now on, managers will set different bids and show different ads based on a user’s device type, location and time of day, all from within one campaign.

 

Upgrading to Enhanced Campaigns:

To explain some of the changes to the Adwords interface we have created a test campaign scenario. The summary below shows the process that all advertisers will now have to follow to create a campaign.

 

The process:

When logging on to Adwords interface, you will see that a new column has appeared called ‘Enhanced’, as the below screenshot shows. In addition, all existing campaigns have been labelled as ‘Legacy’, this label will change to ‘Enhanced’ when a campaign is upgraded.

When an individual campaign is clicked on, an alert appears notifying you that campaigns will automatically be upgraded in a few months, and also giving you the option to upgrade right now, as the screenshot below shows:

 

 

To upgrade, click on the ‘Get started’ button above. This will reveal the following screen:

 

 

Clicking on the ‘Start now’ button (as per the above screenshot) takes you to the mobile bid adjustments screen, which is shown below:

 

 

As you can see in the above screenshot we have selected a custom bid adjustment. Interestingly Google have not included ‘Decrease by 100%’ as a default option, this has to be done using the custom bid adjustment option, making it less obvious for advertisers to completely opt out of mobile.

 

As a general recommendation from Google, they have advised that advertisers should consider increasing their daily budgets so that ads will be shown across more devices.

 

Once the ‘Complete upgrade’ button is selected, the next screen provides links to more information on Google Enhanced Campaigns:

 

 

Managing the campaign settings:

Now that the campaign has become ‘Enhanced’, a new drop down menu appears from the campaigns settings tab, with a number of new sub tabs. These sub tabs, Locations, Ad schedule and Devices, will allow you to update targeting, set bid adjustments, and see reporting all in one place:

 

 

All settings tab: This provides the same Settings options available with Legacy campaigns.

 

Locations tab: This option enables you to set incremental bid adjustments based on location. This is a really useful feature for local businesses with store locations or campaigns where performance varies by geographical region. Previously if we had wanted to vary our bid by region we would have had to create two separate campaigns. The screenshot below shows the option to select a specific location (on the left hand side) and then manually adjust the bid for the region.

 

 

Ad Schedule tab: This option allows you to set bid adjustments, to increase or decrease your bids for specific days, times, as well as view reports.

 

Devices tab: This option allows you to modify the bid multiplier for devices. This is currently available only for mobile devices. The screenshot below highlights the option to adjust the bid by mobile device.

 

 

Please note that the maximum increase in the bid multiplier that you can input is also 300%, if you try to put in a higher number you get an error message, as per the screenshot below:

 

While Enhanced Campaigns still gives the ability to drive searchers to a mobile or desktop, the ability to uniquely target tablets has been removed. With the update, Google is stating that the desktop and tablet experiences are similar and thus will be managed the same. This will potentially put brands with flash-based websites at a disadvantage, as tablets don’t tend to render flash applications well.

 

Historically brands with flash websites could choose to exclude tablet devices, going forward this will no longer be the case. Brands will therefore have to carefully manage the consumer experience and the financial implication of traffic that they did not necessarily want to from this device type.

 

We will continue to monitor the impact that this approach will have on the management and execution of our campaigns.

 

Changes to the Ad Extensions tab:

As advertisers click on the Ad extensions tab, a yellow box now appears enabling you to upgrade to ‘improve sitelink extensions’, as the below screenshot shows:

 

 

 

After clicking on the ‘Upgrade campaign’s sitelinks extensions’ you will then be given the option to edit sitelinks, as shown in the screenshot below. This will also allow you to schedule them (useful for updating offers) and select whether or not the sitelinks will be given ‘preference’ on mobile.

 

It is worth noting that ticking the ‘Device preference’ tick box (as per the above screenshot) to mobile does not appear to guarantee that they will only show on mobile. While mobile-optimised extensions will be given preference over standard extensions on mobile devices, if a campaign or ad group only has mobile-optimised extensions, these may also show on desktop and tablets.

 

Please also note that we believe that the length of sitelinks will now be restricted from 35 characters to 25 characters.

 

For more information on upgraded ad extensions please visit, https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2954783?rd=1. This gives an in-depth explanation of some of the changes and an overview of some of the benefits that these will provide to campaigns.

 

Next Steps for advertisers

The above gives an indication of the steps involved in transitioning campaigns to a new Enhanced Campaigns structure. We anticipate that this transition is going to take some time and effort to make campaigns work as effectively as possible, as soon as possible.

 

It is clear that advertisers will need to develop new best practices for structuring accounts and campaigns, as well as coming up with new creative that will work most effectively across multiple devices.

 

Google says it will be providing additional educational materials and support to help advertisers manage the changes. They have developed a comprehensive online guide, which can be found at http://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2909484?hl=en& and they are planning a series of educational webinars, http://www.google.com/ads/experienced/webinars.html, also.

 

We will be sharing further comment and analysis on these developments in the coming weeks so do keep reading our blog. In the meantime, check out the top 5 things that we believe advertisers need to know now about Enhanced Campaigns on our other bog post, http://www.netmediaplanet.com/blog/new-google-enhanced-campaigns-top-5-things-to-know.

 

If you require further information on the above please contact Digby Mothes at Digby@netmediaplanet.com

As the winner of the Best Mobile Campaign and Grand Prix Award at the UK Search Awards 2012, we were delighted to be invited to speak at the UK Search Conference in London to share the work carried out with leading pizza company Papa John’s.

 

James Murray, Digital Insight Manager of Experian Marketing Services, a judge on the panel, explains further; “The innovative approach to the campaign which thought about the needs and motivations of a customer, rather than simply pushing discount offers was very clever and got great results for the client.”

 

This project has been recognised across the industry as one of the most innovative approaches to Paid Search Marketing in 2012.

 

At the conference Sri Sharma, our MD,  explained quite why the campaign has received such industry recognition.

 

The approach:

Papa John’s was looking for an alternative to the industry discounting approach that would drive online revenues across an already saturated market. The team at Net Media Planet challenged a conventional wisdom in the industry and rather than discounting to drive sales, developed a campaign which tapped into the customer’s needstate –and used the latest technological advancements to ensure the message was delivered in the right place, at the right time.

 

Firstly, the team worked on deeply understanding the profile of a typical consumer, and understanding their different behaviours and mind-sets.

 

Secondly, the team experimented with ad copy that tapped into that mind-set, creating tantalising ads that would appeal and connect with the consumer mind-set at that time.

 

Finally, the campaign employed the latest technological innovations to explore new ways to connect, and engage, with the customer. In this case, a clever combination of desktop, mobile and tablet device targeting was used to deliver messages to people while at home or whilst on the move – when commuting home or coming back from a night out.

 

Through a combination of advanced technology, creative copy-writing and detailed consumer insight, the team were able to results without resorting to discounting.

 

Talking of the campaign, Andrew Gallagher, Marketing Director of Papa John’s UK explains; “Through their creative and lateral thinking, Net Media Planet has delivered an effective new way of generating sales through mobile whilst reducing the need to discount. It’s a powerful weapon to have in our marketing armory. This kind of innovative thinking is what makes them such a great agency to work with.”