Editor’s note: Richard Zwicky is CEO of BlueGlass Interactive, a digital marketing agency and software provider. Follow him on Twitter @rzwicky.
Does Wednesday’s AdWords announcement mean Google is already acknowledging the end of the desktop?
When AdWords was developed, people only worried about ads delivered
from websites to people sitting at a desk in front of a computer. No one
cared about phones, tablets were not on the market, and notebooks
weren’t useful Internet devices unless they were connected to a wall,
just like a desktop.
Over the last 10 years, the variety of devices and interfaces has
increased dramatically, and AdWords has evolved to keep up, adding
features, and offering campaign managers more options and ways to manage
campaigns.
The problem is, like any IT project gone awry, it’s gotten out of
hand. Ask any developer “Is it possible?” and invariably, the answer is
“Yes but…” In Google’s case, whatever was requested usually got built.
AdWords evolved like a really inspiring dev version of a Frankenstein
experiment, built to address all the possibilities asked of it.
But on Wednesday, Google addressed this problem and changed the
landscape when it announced it had to move on, even if we weren’t ready;
the AdWords platform couldn’t continue to scale to add more device
types and options ad infinitum. So, they took an ax to the options, and simplified everything into a campaign management interface called Enhanced Campaigns.
Few companies in the world consider the future the way Google
does. If you take a long-term perspective, Google’s Enhanced Campaigns
launch may indicate their belief that the decline in desktop search —
first seen in October 2012 – is going to become an even stronger trend.
If this is the case, their move to do away with differentiation
between mobile and desktop AdWords is quite logical and a
well-thought-out, strategic move towards tomorrow, dragging the
marketplace towards fulfilling Google’s vision, whether we are ready or
not.
The change to AdWords also means Google doesn’t just see mobile as
the future. It implies that from their perspective, the convergence has
already happened, and we just don’t know it yet. For Google, the future
is now. That’s probably the most important strategic takeaway.
If we listen to Google trumpet the changes, we’re to believe the
platform is being simplified and enhanced. On the other hand, the
doomsayers would have us believe the sky is falling. Regardless of
whether you like the update or not, the move to Enhanced Campaigns
really is a case of more is less.
Make no mistake, AdWords had to change. Google either had to move
ahead of the market, or watch another company appear and force the
issue. They chose the more aggressive route.
As Larry Page’s comments
in 2012 would indicate, Google’s leadership team is convinced there
should — and will — be no difference in the user experience between
mobile and desktop platforms in the future.
Page has also gone on the record stating that he wishes more web
designers would build for mobile, as that’s the future. I believe
Google’s move will force everyone to begin to move in that direction today.
Is Google right? Will desktops become as passé and obsolete as fax machines?
No one knows, but it’s absolutely clear that Google has put a stake in the ground around mobile search. Google’s Q4 earnings call
was dominated by questions focused on understanding mobile Cost Per
Click (CPC), which has been used as a measuring stick by which the
strength of Google’s mobile strategy has been calculated.
Despite all of Google’s revenue successes, these particular numbers
weren’t inspiring, and I could hear frustration in the voices of
Google’s leadership team when answering the many questions about their
mobile CPC numbers. Rather than answer those questions in detail, they
preferred to steer commentary towards other technological advances the
company has made, such as the self-driving car.
Clearly, Google doesn’t want the focus of discussion about Google to
be on mobile CPC; they want us talking about the amazing things they’re
doing and where they could lead.
The change in AdWords removes the distracting mobile CPC topic from the table, and makes the old discussion obsolete. The number is no longer there to discuss. But
to argue that the move to the new AdWords is simply to get rid of
mobile CPC as a measuring stick would be understating both the
implications and the rationale.
Google is absolutely correct when it says search behavior across
devices is similar. However, conversion rates have proved to be
dissimilar. Google is moving toward grouping ad management for desktop
and mobile platforms together, thereby forcing advertisers, by default,
to pay the same rates for all devices. This goes against the economic
reality of today, but perhaps not of tomorrow, where the mobile
experience will be the norm.
In a utopian world, this simplicity is awesome. If user behavior —
and most importantly, conversion rates — on mobile platforms and
desktops were similar, everyone would welcome this. The only problem is,
we don’t live in that world. People don’t pay for clicks, they pay for conversions.
Smart marketers understand that clicks from different platforms and
devices result in differing conversion rates, and return on investment.
Lumping all types of clicks together regardless of outcome just dilutes
their value.
How will this change affect Google? The new platform should be
simpler to maintain, and support; so that should be an obvious benefit.
It’s also built with the future in mind, so better scalability would
necessarily be factored in. For people observing Google, it might be a
little more difficult to judge success, as this change effectively does
away with many historically comparable numbers, and none will exist
until a full calendar year under the new system has passed.
The new AdWords system starts rolling out immediately, and will be
fully migrated by mid-2013, which ideally means by the end of June, or
the end of Q2. So assuming that Q3 is the first full quarter where all
advertisers are on the new system, Q3 2014 is the first year-over-year
period we will be able to measure on an apples-to-apples basis.
At this point, you’re probably wondering how will the changes affect
you if you’re an advertiser? Less complicated campaign management should
mean fewer campaigns to manage, which is simpler and should
theoretically be less work. Beyond that, I can foresee many implications
— some broad, and some tactical.
For the less sophisticated advertiser, this update is a
simplification, therefore less to worry about. But advertisers who
manage highly effective, fine-tuned campaigns to maximize ROI will need
to start over from scratch. Unfortunately, this change also means there
are fewer insights to draw from in campaign testing that allow you to
learn about and understand your client better.
For example, small advertisers who have a low, fixed monthly budget
will see that budget used up more quickly than before. With the bids
being set uniformly by default — and most people not knowing or
understanding how to make adjustments for the mobile channel – advertisers will pay more for fewer clicks from mobile.
This issue will be exacerbated because by default, all advertisers will
automatically — and often unwittingly — become mobile advertisers, thus
increasing competition for mobile’s highly limited ad-display space.
Previously, you could manage ad campaigns for desktop and mobile
devices separately. You could also target by operating system and other
factors depending on your level of sophistication. This still-live AdWords support page tells you all about the benefits:
People use mobile devices differently than desktop computers, so it probably won’t surprise you that people also interact differently with ads on mobile devices than those on desktop computers. Setting up a separate mobile ad campaign helps ensure that your ads can be as effective as possible.Going forward, this will not be the case.
If you’re a more sophisticated advertiser running large global campaigns, the changes might be overwhelming. Some advertisers, like Intel, were looking at mobile as being more of a branding channel, and less about conversions. For these, I expect the changes will affect the personae they have developed over time based on iterative campaign data.
For example, Intel has a marketing persona representing the trendy mobile user that it created to represent and speak to millennials. From a strictly traditional PPC perspective, it is challenging to target a campaign at the persona level, unless you can have granular control across content, video, social, and paid channels.
In the area of persona marketing, the keyword triggers are just keywords; it’s the platforms and devices that really help advertisers segment and target most effectively. With the changes to AdWords, one of these channels just became much more difficult to use.
In the case of the millennial generation, mobile is the most common means of connecting to the web. The most effective way for advertisers to generate the budgets to target these audiences is to track their behavior. Advertisers will now need to adjust to the new reality that Enhanced Campaigns presents and find new and novel ways to build these relationships.
If you believe Google is correct, that in the future everyone’s Internet experience should be a mobile experience, then Wednesday’s move is absolutely brilliant. The question is: Is the market ready? Absolutely not, which is why I expect Google to backpedal lightly on some of these changes to make the transition easier.
Original Article : http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/09/the-big-google-adwords-update-why-more-is-truly-less/
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