Jellyfish Publishing highlights the latest developments from Google and how this impacts campaigns for its publishing clients

1. Jellyfish POV
AdWords Enhanced Campaigns
Overview and implications
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6 February 2013

2. Jellyfish POV
AdWords Enhanced Campaigns
Introduction
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On February 6 2013, Google officially announced what is arguably the most significant change to
the AdWords platform since….well, since AdWords began!
The update is officially called AdWords Enhanced Campaigns, and in this POV, we’ll provide a brief
overview of the update, key features, and implications for PPC in 2013 and beyond.
Note that this initial analysis is based on a preliminary presentation delivered by Google to select
agency partners earlier this month – as full documentation is released, we’ll be providing further
information and analysis.
What are Enhanced Campaigns (EC)?
According to Google, EC will simplify the complexity of creating and executing campaigns that
target multiple devices across locations, time of day etc. Instead of creating device specific
campaigns for mobile, tablet and desktop, all devices will be served within the same campaign.
Yes, you read that correctly!
In a bit more detail, desktop and tablet campaigns are treated as a singular entity; bid strategy
will be aligned, and we will not be able to (for example) specify budget for specific device types.
Within the EC structure, there will be a ‘weighted’ bid modifier for mobile (so that you can opt to
decrease mobile bids by -100%, or by up to +300%), but you cannot categorically opt out of
serving to mobile devices.
And you definitely cannot serve to mobile only. So, to re-cap, all existing desktop / tablet / mobile
campaigns will be merged into a single EC. Also, there will be no device specific targeting……
Some Google products are conceptually similar to EC; for example, you can’t choose which
search partners you serve your ads on; it’s all or none. Or the ability to opt out of session-based
matching has never been an option. But the difference here is that the quality of search partner
traffic does not vary a great deal. Mobile and tablet traffic and interactions do vary by significant
degrees.
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3. EC details…so far
EC includes three main features:
Smart ads – EC campaigns will be able to serve customised messaging based on context,
location and device, which applies to ad headline, text, URL, extensions. The mechanics of this
are to be confirmed, but presumably dynamic components will be assigned based on rules set up
by advertisers.
The big question is of course how these rules around content, location and device and
customised messaging will be controlled by us/you, the advertiser. Ad copy testing protocols are
also tbc at this stage. Other features of smart ads include the ability to schedule ad extensions,
plus improved control over site links.
Bid adjustments – ……will be based on time, location, device, but within the new EC structure,
and with its inherent pros and cons – see above.
Advanced reporting – EC will deliver a range of improved reporting features including ‘advanced’
call tracking (no details on this), cross device conversion tracking (no date on this), app
download reporting and in store conversion tracking (for example, using coupon codes and
relevant offer ad extensions – US only to start).
How soon will EC roll out?
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Selected brands will receive direct communications from Google on Thursday February 7 . Once
full support and best practice documentation is released, EC will begin to roll out immediately,
and advice from Google is not to create any new campaigns that are split out by device type from
now on. There will be a six month grace period, so by Q3 2013, all existing campaigns will require
migration to this new structure.
EC in practice – some scenarios to consider
Flash content on landing pages – you’ll no longer be able to stop tablet users from visiting
your pages via non-flash compatible devices e.g. iPad. It may be that your ads would be
served less frequently on tablets over time as Google detects that the landing page may
not be suitable for that device type, but to what lengths they do this remains to be seen.
The impact of amalgamating Tablet and Desktop at campaign level brings into question
how historic strategies based on position will migrate effectively from currently device
specific campaigns. For example, a campaign targeting solely Tablets might be managed
to appear in the top 3 positions, avoiding the issue of appearing at the very bottom of the
SERPS even though your average position is 4. Whereas your Desktop strategy might allow
for an average position of 5 or even 6 as the traffic and performance metrics appearing on
the right hand side of the desktop SERPs may allow for this. Managing these two
associated variable now is possible, how will EC allow for this in the future?
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4. You may have different goals for mobile compared to desktop. Perhaps serving
customised content because a mobile user might be more likely to be in an information
gathering stage as opposed to the buying stage, or you simply get very different ROI on
mobile because it’s more difficult to navigate through a purchase process on a small
screen. With EC, it will be more difficult to bid manage accordingly, hence potentially
wasting money on mobile traffic.
If you only sell mobile products like mobile apps, you cannot set up a campaign just to
target mobile devices.
Consider location targeting. How will this be affected by these changes? If you have
extremely targeted campaigns for specific geo-targeted locations and Google is
essentially choosing where and when your ads are displayed, are you investing in the
locations that bring you the most return?
Caveat – the scenarios listed may seem rather negative, but could be negated / managed
depending on the efficiency of the optimisation engine that we assume will ‘power’ EC. Stay
tuned for more…..
The analytics viewpoint - ensure correct integration between AdWords and
Google Analytics
With the forthcoming changes it’s never been more important to ensure you have correct
implementation of your Google Analytics and AdWord accounts. There’s a wealth of information
Google Analytics provides. Integration can offer the additional benefits of specific audience
information, such as mobile and tablet device used to drive the conversion. With the use of
segmentation in Google Analytics, even the most granular of detail can be displayed.
Upon integration, conversion data is present within its own report. This can be correlated with
Ecommerce data to gauge sale performance by paid keyword to gain a true understanding of
contribution.
For those that would like to go the extra mile, it is possible to greatly enhance visibility by utilising
third party products, such as Infinity Call Tracking. This fills the missing gap between users who
have entered via a paid keyword and generated a phone lead. Infinity operates by producing a
unique number dependent on paid keyword. Integration with Google Analytics is now also
available to view call data directly in the interface itself.
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5. Summary and observations
What is Google trying to achieve, and what does this mean for advertisers?
EC will make the creation and roll-out of multi-device campaigns quicker and easier – no
need to replicate across device types. With burgeoning device proliferation in mind, and
the convergence of user journeys across tablets, laptops, desktops, this may be a good
thing from a scale and simplicity perspective.
Current levels of control over device / location specific campaigns will be eroded as
Google takes over / automates optimisation. This will (in theory) encourage advertisers
to ‘think mobile’, and to ensure that a multi-device strategy is implemented from the get
go. So, for example, expect the deployment of responsive design content to climb up
digital agendas very quickly!
Overall campaign efficiencies may decrease if brands cannot deliver competitive and
well-optimised mobile / tablet experiences – you could be paying for the traffic, whether
you like it or not!
EC may encourage new advertisers into the market, possibly smaller brands who have
been previously discouraged by the apparent complexity of context / device and location
aware targeting.
Overall, it feels like EC could be great news for brand and engagement focused PPC campaigns,
and / or less sophisticated agencies and brands.
From an acquisition perspective, EC seems less good, and may remove significant control and
granularity from complex high-budget activity.
About Jellyfish & Jellyfish Publishing
Jellyfish was born at the same time as PPC advertising back in 1999. In our early years, we
concentrated exclusively on paid search and we got pretty good at it. We focused our efforts on
perfecting paid search in publishing and by 2005 we had a turnover of £5 million and were
dominating the sector.
By 2011, our turnover had increased to over £25 million and we were employing more than 80
staff across three continents. We expanded our service offering as a response to our clients'
needs and the ever changing digital landscape.
Today we are at the forefront of digital marketing, pushing boundaries and getting results. Our
success is down to great people, innovative ideas and lots of hard work.
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6. Publishing has been at the heart of the Jellyfish business, ever since we acquired our first
publishing client in 2002. As the business has grown over the years more digital specialisms
evolved and today Jellyfish Publishing is a standalone business division within the Jellyfish Group.
Our success is down to working in partnership with our clients, having great people, innovative
ideas and lots of hard work.
For further information
Contact:
Carola York, Managing Director, Jellyfish Publishing
carola.york@jellyfishpublishing.co.uk
Follow us:
Twitter: @JFPublishing
LinkedIn: Jellyfish Publishing
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