Google launches "enhanced" ad system

WARC, 8 February 2013

NEW YORK: Google, the online giant, has updated its system for buying sponsored search links in a bid to reflect the "multi-device world", a move that could help mobile advertising but hurt some marketers.

The firm has unveiled "enhanced campaigns" for its AdWords platform, meaning clients are able to buy sponsored links and manage campaigns for PCs, smartphones and tablets from one dashboard, rather than separately, as was previously the case.

Sridhar Ramaswamy, SVP, engineering, at Google, wrote on a blog that this would mean its customers could "more simply and smartly manage ... ad campaigns in today's multi-device world."

"Enhanced campaigns help you reach people with the right ads, based on their context like location, time of day and device type, across all devices without having to set up and manage several separate campaigns," he added.

Carat, the media agency, was a test partner with Google on the project. Tom Cull, its director of search and social, revealed that the new campaign types did "drive improvements in results".

"What will be really exciting, however, is the cross-device reporting and attribution which will be a huge step forward in allowing brands to assign the correct value to their search marketing pounds," he added.

Cull also pointed out that Google has now bundled PCs and tablets into one targeting option, only allowing them to be split within a specific campaign, which may not be welcomed by all advertisers.

The impetus behind this move is partly related to the lower cost of mobile than PC ad inventory, which contributed to the 6% annual dip in Google's "cost-per click" rates in the final quarter of 2012.

Given this metric fell by 15% year on year in the third quarter, some analysts had begun to express concern that the growing popular uptake of the mobile web may damage Google's business model.

Bill Mungovan, director of product marketing and strategy, media and advertising solutions at Adobe, the software firm, argued "lumping" high-performing tablets and lower-performing PC had a clear motive.

"This, pre­sum­ably, will address Google's mobile mon­e­ti­sa­tion gap as an increas­ing share of searches is com­ing from tablets and smartphones."

Daina Middleton, chief executive of Performics, the search agency, also suggested this move would boost mobile advertising uptake, but not be universally popular given the limitations. "It's a great step forward, but not for everyone," she said.

Richard Zwicky, CEO of digital agency Blueglass, was more critical still. "If Google weren't in such a strong position, it would never get away with this," he said. "It's just different and less transparent."

Data sourced from Google, Adobe, Washington Post, Business Insider; additional content by Warc staff