Google is constantly improving upon their practices across their many platforms. Recently at their Google Marketing Live event, they announced a whole slew of changes impacting advertising, analytics, and more. One of the major changes? Google AdWords is now Google Ads.
What are some major updates coming to Google Ads?
- Responsive Search AdsResponsive search ads will allow you to create 15 headlines (at 30 characters) and 4 descriptions (at 90 characters). Google will then mix and match these headlines and descriptions to create the optimal ad. Not only will this allow you to have more high performing ads, in theory. But, the ads will be much larger in size, thus taking up more real estate on the page, and standing out from competitors.
- New Expanded Text AdsThe new expanded text ads allow for you to take up more space. They feature 3 headlines (at 30 characters) and 2 descriptions (at 90 characters). The 3rd headline and the 2nd description may not always show if the screen is smaller or for other reasons. However, this shows that more real estate on the search engine results pages are going to be taken up by paid advertising. Thus making paid advertising more important than ever.
- Landing Page Speed ScoreGoogle will now give your landing page speed a score from 1 to 10 (10 being the fastest) in your column options in the landing pages detail page. We all know how important the overall user experience is to Google, so if your landing page is not fast (especially on mobile) this could impact your campaign.
- Cross Device ReportingGoogle will incorporate cross device reporting in Google Analytics. This will improve upon their current tracking if someone switches from mobile device to desktop and completes a conversion (or vice versa).
- Smart CampaignsSmart campaigns are an easier way to set up and get results for your Google Ads campaign. The ads can be shown on search and display networks. But the main feature is that Google will auto-optimize a landing page. This helps out the small businesses that may not have a website or a high quality website to still have an easy and positive Google Ads experience.
- Automated Google Shopping FeedsGoogle Ads will crawl your website, and create a feed from your inventory. This will, also, come with new campaign goals you can choose to implement including drive store visits and drive new customer acquisition. This will allow your shopping campaigns to become more streamlined.
- Local CampaignsNow brick and mortar stores will be able to drive in store visits with the new local campaigns. This campaign will be linked to your Google my Business listing, and will be optimized to get customers walking into your store.
