There is so much going on in the world of PPC lately that we’re spending an entire week introducing the changes and letting you know how to make the most of them. It goes beyond Google’s new “Enhanced Campaigns” feature to Facebook and Analytics. Over the next week, PPC Hero is going to take a look at each of these updates in a series of posts designed to get you ready for all of the added functionality, the new best practices and even more.
To wrap up this month’s series on the recent Enhanced Campaign changes made by Google, we thought it might be good to reflect and provide some constructive feedback, because complaining only gets us so far, right?
Given that there are silver linings to some of the enhanced campaign changes and that we can’t exactly tell Google to make it go away, what would make it better? What’s missing and what needs to be different for us as account managers to utilize this feature to its highest benefit?
Bid Segmentations
So while we find it pretty awesome that you can bid by geotarget within enhanced campaigns, there seem to be a few obvious bid segments that aren’t available. For example, why can’t you bid separately for search and search partner networks? And then there’s this tablet bids situation. After months and months of “tablets aren’t like mobile OR desktop devices,” now we’re told not only are tablets lumped with desktops, we have to bid on them the same no matter what. Clearly the segmentation of bids is available in some degree, why wouldn’t it be expanded to allow for one more device segment and by network? Finally, keyword level bid modifiers have been eliminated and without the option to override campaign-level bids with individual keyword bids…we’re certainly at a bit of a disadvantage; “we” being account managers who prefer a very detailed, segmented and down-to-the-line management style.
Obviously this overall loss of control when it comes to bids and budgets is the biggest problem child when it comes to the Enhanced Campaign changes. If there’s one thing a PPC manager doesn’t like, it’s when you take away their control! I’ll be honest and say that I truly believe we’re going to do enough belly aching to get some of these issues righted before the full roll out occurs. I’m guessing the ‘tablets as desktops’ portion will stick because it’s far more lucrative for Google in the long run, but keyword level bid adjustments could very well become a revision of the final product. Don’t make us work around it!
Intended ‘Small Business’ Audience
Many of you out there have expressed some confusion as to why many of the Enhanced Campaign changes were rolled out to the full AdWords interface and not just to Express, which would contain more of it’s “target” SMB clients. I have to agree! Again, of course there are parts that make sense for any account (reporting, etc.), but the force of these changes on all accounts can’t leave the enterprise-level managers feeling a bit disregarded. Obviously Google won’t be reversing the option in all AdWords accounts, but still…so confusing.
Budget Buckets
This is another segmentation-based thought, but the lack of ability to set daily budgets by device is also somewhat alarming. In most testing situations I’ve been in with a client, they allow for X number of budget dollars to be allocated toward a particular test or segment. Considering that now all devices will be siphoning off of one daily budget, monitoring and manipulating by overall budget will be troublesome.
This is another portion of the changes that I could see being altered before we see the final version of Enhanced Campaigns. I’ll give you that I’m not a mastermind by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels like gross negligence to take away the ability to set daily budgets by device.
So what do we do? What we always do…persevere! The truth is, those of us who accept the things Enhanced Campaigns are lacking with what we’re gaining will be the ones ahead of the curve when these features are 100% pushed in our accounts. Truthfully, what gives our jobs their creative flair is stuff just like this and how our community reacts with work around ideas or ways to work with the changes.
What else?! Digging down in to the nitty gritty of the Enhanced Campaign changes and what they’ll mean for our accounts, what other potential alterations to the features would you like to see? If you were in the driver’s seat at Google, how would you change Enhanced Campaigns from their current state to make them better for advertisers across the board? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below!
