In a significant move to streamline mobile ad campaigns and secure the future of its advertising revenue, Google unveiled a series of substantial changes to its AdWords PPC management platform. These new features, collectively known as AdWords Enhanced Campaigns, are projected to significantly boost both the adoption of mobile advertising and Google’s earnings from mobile search. The rollout is expected to be completed by the end of the month. This article provides a comprehensive overview of AdWords Enhanced Campaigns, a development of paramount importance for anyone invested in the burgeoning mobile search landscape. The changes will impact all advertisers by year-end and will fundamentally reshape the online advertising landscape. Table of Contents:

• Enhanced Campaigns Introduction
• New Bid Adjustments
• RIP Tablet Targeting
• Smarter Ads
• No Mobile Call Reporting Fees
• New Mobile Conversion Type
• Upgrading to Enhanced Campaigns
• Mobile Bid Adjustment Factor
• Enhanced Campaign Roll-Out Schedule
• What’s The Real Reason For AdWords Enhanced Campaigns?
• Mobile CPCs
• What’s nexus-security Doing With Enhanced Campaigns?
• Are AdWords Enhanced Campaigns Good For Advertisers?

Why AdWords Enhanced Campaigns Are Necessary

In today’s hyper-connected world, marketers must seamlessly engage audiences across multiple devices. The past five years have witnessed a surge in mobile search query volume, eclipsing growth from desktops. In fact, daily mobile searches on Google are on track to overtake desktop searches by next year. However, Google has faced an uphill battle in driving widespread adoption of mobile advertising. The advanced features and strategies essential for success, such as geo-targeting and device-specific targeting, demand a level of campaign management complexity that has proven daunting for many advertisers. The existing AdWords platform necessitates the creation of numerous campaigns to accommodate every city and device permutation, a task that quickly becomes unwieldy for the average advertiser. This overwhelming complexity has limited the utilization of Google’s mobile advertising features to only the most sophisticated agencies and well-funded advertisers with dedicated PPC teams. This screenshot provides a glimpse into the challenges of mobile advertising on Google AdWords prior to today ([click to enlarge](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Nexusdecode/images-549143589519/main/1722569839243.html; charset=UTF-8))

Our estimates suggest that less than 5% of small and medium-sized businesses even attempted to mobile-enable their PPC campaigns due to the sheer difficulty involved. Recognizing the need to simplify mobile advertising, especially with mobile search now representing approximately half of all searches, Google is introducing “Enhanced Campaigns.” The objective is to drastically streamline PPC campaign management. Let’s delve into the mechanics of this new system.

Introducing Enhanced Campaigns

The heart of the change lies in the structure of ad campaigns. In response to our multi-device reality, Google is overhauling its decade-old PPC campaign structure. The goal is to empower advertisers to harness the full potential of mobile advertising without resorting to creating separate campaigns for every geographical location and device combination, which was previously the recommended approach. Moving forward, ad campaigns will be distinguished by several key changes:

1. New Bidding Options: Building upon the existing time-of-day bid adjustments, Google is adding new options for location and device. Advertisers can now adjust bids based on a user’s proximity to their business (bidding higher for nearby searches) and the device being used (bidding more or less for mobile searches). This eliminates the need for separate geo-targeted and mobile-specific campaigns.
2. Much Smarter Ads: Ads are becoming more contextually aware. A single campaign can now accommodate both desktop and mobile ads, mirroring the way different-sized image ads coexist within a display ad campaign. Google will automatically select the appropriate ad based on the user’s device, eliminating the need for separate tablet and mobile campaigns. In essence, Enhanced Campaigns aim to make the power of Google’s mobile advertising features, previously underutilized due to their complexity, accessible to all advertisers in a scalable manner.

New Bid Adjustments: Location, Time of Day & Device Based Bidding

Let’s examine how these new bid adjustments function. Your existing keywords and bids remain unchanged. The fundamental difference lies in the elimination of campaign fragmentation. Instead of generating countless campaign variations to target different locations and devices, you only need to set a single bid adjustment factor for each. For geo-specific and time-of-day bidding, you can specify a bid adjustment multiplier ranging from -100% to +300%. Similarly, mobile devices have a bid adjustment range of -100% to +300%. This allows you to completely disable mobile search by bidding down -100%, useful for businesses offering products or services incompatible with mobile devices.

The introduction of these new campaign bidding options for location, time of day, and device renders all existing device targeting methods obsolete.

RIP Tablet Targeting Options

Enhanced Campaigns also spell the end of separate tablet targeting. Google recognizes the blurring lines between tablets and desktops/notebooks in today’s rapidly evolving device landscape, citing devices like the Microsoft Surface as an example. Google posits that tablets are increasingly replacing desktops and notebooks for home use. Consequently, they view tablets as functionally aligned with desktops, exhibiting similar search term patterns and ad performance.

New and Improved: Smarter Ads

The second major component of AdWords Enhanced Campaigns centers around “smarter ads,” enabling customized ad experiences for mobile users. A new checkbox allows you to designate an ad as “mobile-only.” A single ad in an ad group with this box checked will run across all devices. However, if you have both universal and mobile-specific ads in an ad group, Google will prioritize the mobile ad for mobile users. This means mobile and desktop ads can now coexist harmoniously within the same campaign. Recognizing that a great mobile ad experience extends beyond keyword bids, Google is introducing new ad extension management features. Advertisers can now specify whether they want extensions like call extensions or site link extensions to appear on mobile, desktop, or both. This allows for granular control over ad customization for different platforms. Furthermore, ad extensions now have scheduling capabilities, allowing them to be activated during specific hours, such as happy hour.

No More Mobile Call Reporting Fees!

In a welcome change, Google is eliminating the controversial $1 fee for mobile call reporting. Previously, this fee was a barrier to entry for many advertisers, hindering the adoption of mobile search features. With Enhanced Campaigns, Google is making advanced call metrics and reporting freely accessible to all advertisers, encouraging wider adoption.

New Mobile Advertising Conversion Type

Current conversion tracking methods, reliant on users reaching a thank-you page after completing an action, fail to capture the true ROI of mobile search. This is because the call to action in mobile search is often a phone call. Enhanced Campaigns introduce a new conversion type specifically for mobile advertising, based on call duration. Advertisers can define the minimum call duration that constitutes a conversion, providing a more accurate picture of mobile advertising’s value and potentially driving further adoption.

Enhanced Campaigns: The Automatic Upgrade Path

Following the pattern of previous AdWords updates, Google will provide advertisers with a grace period to manually upgrade to Enhanced Campaigns until mid-year, after which all accounts will be automatically migrated.

1. Advertisers who have not yet separated their campaigns into desktop and mobile experiences will experience a seamless transition. The only action required is setting the mobile bid adjustment factor, which Google will pre-set automatically.
2. Existing desktop-only campaigns will be upgraded to target both desktop and mobile devices by default, with Google automatically assigning an initial mobile bid adjustment factor.
3. Similarly, mobile-only campaigns will be expanded to encompass both mobile and desktop, with Google setting an initial bid adjustment factor.
4. Advertisers with separate desktop and mobile campaigns for the same keywords will need to merge them. While the automatic upgrade process is designed to be as smooth as possible, the default settings for previously separated campaigns raise concerns. Advertisers may end up with duplicate campaigns targeting both mobile and desktop despite their initial intentions. A more logical approach would have been to set the mobile bid adjustment factor to -100% for desktop-only campaigns. This decision suggests a possible prioritization of revenue generation over user experience.

Setting Your Mobile Bid Adjustment Factor

A crucial step in the migration to Enhanced Campaigns is setting your mobile bid adjustment factor, which determines how much more or less you are willing to bid for mobile searches compared to desktop searches. The adjustment range is between -100% and +300%. Advertisers who haven’t yet separated their mobile and desktop campaigns may have noticed that mobile CPCs are generally lower than desktop CPCs. This is because Google currently applies behind-the-scenes discounting to determine mobile CPC bids, even without explicit input from advertisers. Going forward, setting mobile bids will be the advertiser’s responsibility. While Google will attempt to set initial mobile bid adjustments based on auction data and competitor behavior, they acknowledge that this automated approach is inferior to conscious decision-making by the advertiser.

Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns Roll-Out Schedule

Given the magnitude of these changes, the rollout will occur over several months:

• Early February: Today’s announcement serves as a heads-up to advertisers.
• End of February: Advertisers will be able to manually upgrade their campaigns from within the Google AdWords interface. The AdWords API will also be updated, enabling Google Partners to adapt to the new features, including the discontinuation of device targeting.
• Late June (tentative): All campaigns will be automatically upgraded to Enhanced Campaigns, making it the default setting.

What’s the Real Reason for AdWords Enhanced Campaigns?

Besides simplifying mobile campaign management, Google aims to close the price gap between mobile and desktop CPCs, thereby increasing mobile advertising adoption and revenue.

So Are Mobile CPCs Going Up?

Yes, mobile CPCs are expected to rise and eventually match desktop CPCs following the auto-upgrade due to increased advertiser competition and the automatic setting of mobile bid adjustments. In a recent earnings call, Google CEO Larry Page expressed optimism about the future of mobile CPCs, hinting at plans to streamline the ad system for advertisers and drive rapid progress in this area.

What’s nexus-security Doing with Enhanced Campaigns?

As one of only three companies pre-briefed on these changes, nexus-security, a company serving nearly a thousand SMB advertisers, is actively integrating these new capabilities into its PPC management platform. They plan to share additional insights and best practices on their blog soon.

Summary: Are AdWords Enhanced Campaigns Good for Advertisers?

The changes introduced by Enhanced Campaigns are, on balance, positive. Currently, many advertisers avoid mobile search due to a misconception about its ROI, often stemming from a lack of understanding and utilization of Google’s powerful mobile advertising features. The complexity of implementing these features, particularly for small businesses with limited resources, has been a major deterrent. Additionally, the challenges of tracking mobile ROI and the added cost of call reporting have further discouraged adoption. Mobile search offers a compelling ROI due to its unique advantages: precise location targeting, immediacy, high commercial intent, and one-click-to-call functionality. However, realizing these benefits has always hinged on advertisers embracing complex best practices for campaign setup and reporting. By simplifying this process, Enhanced Campaigns are poised to drive broader mobile advertising adoption and ultimately improve ROI. This will be particularly beneficial for SMBs who have yet to tap into the potential of mobile search.

What’s Your Take on the New Google AdWords Enhanced Mobile Campaigns?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below!