There’s a lot to love about Google in 2018. Although privacy is still not high on their list of priorities, they are unleashing many cool new features and upgrading existing ones to the AdWords platform. The new AdWords interface may take some getting used to, like when your parents brought your adopted brother home, but you’ll eventually come around.
Yet, family dynamics are not the only thing shifting in 2018. Google has found itself in a wrestling match with Amazon over product advertising. AdWords has stepped up with some cool new features for e-commerce businesses this year.
Whether you’re managing a digital store or a B2B company, these five AdWords tools are must-haves for 2018. Now, let’s dig in!
First, AdWord’s new user interface (UI) is the cool kid on the block these days. By 2019, the old version will be completely phased out. Like it or not, it’s time to trade in your ‘Dimensions’ for ‘Predefined Reports.’
Here’s a look at five of the top AdWords Features you should be using in 2018:
1. AdWords New Interface
The new UI takes some time, but I assure everyone that it will eventually win you over. Imagine a world where you could bid on call extensions, limit your targeting by household income, review landing page performance, or even use extensions to promote discounts. Then imagine no more! The new UI makes all this possible.
AdWords provided more control in the new UI and unlocked more useful data. Personally, my favorite upgrade is with the call details reporting. In the old UI, we could only get as granular as the AdGroup level; now, we can accurately see which keywords and ads produce the most extended call duration.
The new UI has a sexy new dashboard that highlights trends visually, so you know precisely which rabbit hole to jump into. With the newly advanced bid adjustments, audience dashboards, campaign goals, and actionable insights, you should quickly be in and out of optimizations.
2. Promotion Extensions
Today’s digital ocean is being dominated by big fish. Last year, more than 200 billion dollars was spent on digital ad space. With Facebook and Google getting fat off the lion’s share, naturally, Amazon, the Moby Dick of digital sales, is ready for a bite.
Amazon is the only digital platform that’s garnered enough loyalty for users to bypass search engines and start shopping on the website or app. In fact, more product searches have started on Amazon in the past few years than any other search engine.
What does this have to do with promotion extensions? For e-commerce stores, promotion extensions are a significant upgrade and a real chance to push more products out the door. It’s well-documented that extensions raise click-through rates with an expansion that speaks directly to a holiday sale, a one-time promotion, a special discount, etc. Advertisers are likely to engage even more users. Expect more cool features like promotion extensions for your e-commerce platform. Google will do everything possible to keep you spending in AdWords, not Amazon. Take advantage of these strategies to maximize your advertising dollars.
3. Message Extensions
Even if your landing page is as well written as this masterpiece, chances are they’d instead find a more natural way to contact you before reading through it. Insert ‘Message Extension’ here.
Message extensions are unique and allow your prospect to chat with you directly on the search results page instead of reading through your landing page. Convenience sells, and message extension is the definition of accessibility.
This is not just an opinion. Wordstream found an increased click-through rate of better than 50% on mobile devices alone for some of their customers. Yet, even better than the added engagement is new learning.
In a standard text ad, your user clicks through and may or may not interact with you. With a message extension, even if you don’t turn that lead into an opportunity, you’ve had a chance to speak with them and learn a little more about their pain points. That information is priceless.
4. Call Only Ads
Call-only ads are only run on phone-enabled devices. They’re optimized for phone call clicks and lead to auto-dial on a touch screen. There is no headline, just a number description and URL, so a simple call-to-action can go a long way.
Google AdWords unlocks enough data to run a successful campaign with call-only ads. With call-just ads, you can see the following:
How many users clicked through without initiating the call
How many requests were made
Length of each call
Where did the call come from
Which ad was clicked, and which keyword produced the call
5. Shopping Campaigns
Did I mention that Google, Facebook, and Amazon are currently slugging it out for ad spend? Good, you’ve probably assumed that e-commerce is trending way up for 2018.
You can see why shopping ads would be so successful from a pure eyeball test. Searching for your favorite product will produce plenty of results on the front page with a media asset, review, pricing, etc. The statistics back up the power of shopping ads as well.
According to a report from Adthena, “The Rise of Google Shopping,” US retailers now spend more than 76% of their search budget on Google Shopping Ads, and about 40% of that is on mobile.
More than 85% of clicks come from shopping ads for online retailers, with a measly 15% left over for text ads. What I find most interesting is that 66% of Google Shopping ads are for non-brand keywords. Your competitors are bidding on an audience still in the consideration stage of their customer journey (users who know what they want but haven’t picked a brand).
Looking ahead…
AdWords upped its game in 2018. Hopefully, while some of these tools are not new, the insights and explanations will inspire a fresh approach to your Paid Media efforts. If you’re struggling to make headway, or this information is too overwhelming, schedule an audit with a trained professional and bring your AdWords Account up to speed.
