When the notion of Google’s Enhanced Campaigns was first introduced, there was a great deal of chatter from the search advertising community and a fair quantity of it wasn’t positive. Advertisers were concerned about the combination of tablet and desktop search, and the mandatory mobile opt-in. This was a major undertaking from both a technological and change management standpoint on Google’s end; they’re dramatically changing the way they’ve segmented out search by device for years and how advertisers can target users – by context. Google calls this the marrying of intent (the user’s search query) and context (the device, time, and location from where the query was conducted.)
Despite all the heated discussions going on about Enhanced Campaigns, there’s one group that hasn’t said a word: the users. Despite the massive changes in the way that ads are served, segmented, and tracked – the users will not see any changes in the way they get information from Google. They’ll just see the ads they click on provide much better experiences, and as further adoption grows it will continue to improve. Enhanced Campaigns will force advertisers to step up their mobile game and provide what users want depending on when and where they’re searching. With all of the additional targeting features available, advertisers can provide a much richer experience for their mobile users and embrace the fact that users are searching across all devices and that a unique experience needs to be provided in the context from where that search was conducted.
As advertisers start to focus on improving their mobile sites to provide mobile users with relevant information that fits on their screen, the mobile web will flourish and with it mobile search advertising. Advertisers that fail to adopt the new technologies may lose market share to their competitors that are taking advantage of the new features. I expect to see the checkout process improve dramatically (from the average of 21 steps that they are now – impossible on a smartphone unless you truly, truly want the product,) for sites to work seamless between a tablet and PC, and as the silver lining for advertisers: a way to stitch all visits and actions from a single user across all devices together. Users will want to have a continuation of the experience they started on one device to another, and instead of advertisers having to ask for it, we may find ourselves in a situation where users demand it. This would be the marketer’s dream, seeing how each search started and where it ended and what devices and touch points got them to the final conversion all in one flow – voluntarily submitted. We may be a bit far from the last point yet, but we can dream.
On Google’s end, this is very forward thinking on driving innovation from marketers and there will be hurdles, some pain points, but there are already success stories of advertisers who are seeing great gains from the new program. The one thing that is known is that users are going to benefit the most from these changes. Not to say Google won’t benefit from increased ad revenue, but at the end of the day, it’s making it a great time to be a consumer – regardless what device you’re searching on.
To learn more about strategies to improve your search campaigns as you migrate to Enhanced Campaigns, contact Chase at chase.wells@webtrends.com.