Surely you’ve heard by now about Google’s most recent effort to increase mobile sales through “Enhanced Campaigns.” As usual, it’s going to cost the advertiser more time and more money.
So what are “Enhanced Campaigns”? According to Google this is an easier way for advertisers to target their audience across all mobile devices, any time and any place. Oh yeah, and if you’re currently running specific mobile campaigns on Google, upgrading to Enhanced Campaigns will become mandatory by mid-2013. Don’t run mobile campaigns at all? Too bad, You’re paying for mobile clicks unless you set a new mobile multiplier down to -100.
It sucks, but it’s not all bad.
If Google’s intention holds true, getting the right ad to the right person – no matter what the device is – could potentially turn out to be great for targeting your audience and boosting sales (all assuming your website strategy is set up to support all mobile devices).
It’s no question that many people use multiple devices for various reasons: work, travel, school, boredom. I have a smartphone, tablet and laptop that I carry everywhere, every day and I will often switch between different devices, sometimes simply because my batteries may be dying.
If you’re an advertiser, here are some issues to consider:
- Set up mobile web pages: this is CRITICAL. Don’t miss out on opportunities because visitors cannot navigate through your website!
- Enable cross device tracking and analytics: the ability to track and report on performance for each device type will help you compare results between them.
- Set up bid optimization for Google enhanced campaigns: does your SEM platform support it? The option to optimize bids at the keyword level just got more difficult; you will need a platform that supports making bid adjustments at the campaign level (I recommend SearchForce).
- Managing Bing: The models between Google and Bing are no longer the same. Be sure to separate the optimization of bids as data for Google includes desktop, tablet and mobile and Bing may not.
Here is a more detailed analysis on how Google Enhanced Campaigns will affect existing CPC or CPA strategy.
It’s going to be a tough transition for many advertisers and though these changes will force a lot of advertisers to rethink their strategy, following the right best practices can help you optimize and stay ahead of the game. And if you’re using a third party platform, ensure that they too are keeping up with Google’s changes.
Good luck!
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