The Quarter 3 was flooded with major announcements both from AdWords and Bing Ads. One of the major developments made by AdWords was the removal of Converted Clicks as a conversion metric type, that drove a lot of discussion in the PPC space. This time period also witnessed the launch of one of the most anticipated features – Expanded Text Ads in AdWords. Following its footsteps Bing Ads soon launched the pilot run for ETAs too, along with the launch of Structured Snippet extensions and Upgraded URLs.
If you missed out on any of these major updates introduced in the PPC world, then here is a swift recap of the top Q3 PPC news.
Expanded Text Ads – Bing Ads and AdWords
1. Expanded Text Ads Are There – The First Results Also
Martin Rottgerding dwells into how expanded text ads had been performing with data collected from beta testing. With the change having eventually taken place, the advertisers need to put in a lot of work to make expanded text ads work for them.
2. Expanded text ads: more time to test and iterate
Google extended the the time to make the transition from Standard Ads to Expanded Text Ads. The earlier October 26, 2016 deadline has been increased till January 31, 2017. This time is given to let advertisers test and iterate your ETAs for a smooth transition.
3. Expanded Text Ads now available for pilot to all Bing Ads
Have a Bing Ads account for which you wish to enable the Expanded Ads? Sign up to get pilot access for the Expanded Text Ads. Jamie Chung shares the details in this announcement.
AdWords Announcements
1. Track your goals with campaign groups and performance targets
AdWords announced new feature that helps advertisers track and forecast their campaigns against the advertising goals set. Learn about these new features namely campaign groups and performance targets.
2. More prominent reporting helps you monitor the health of your automated bidding
Google has introduced new features to enhance how you view the bidding insights. With such upgraded features, you can flag your bidding issues, appearance of bid strategy statuses and access rich performance reporting.
3. Showcase your services and range of products with price extensions
Google recently introduced price extensions that will let advertisers show their services/ products along with details of their cost. With such a feature advertisers can expect to drive more relevant and qualified clicks.
4. Simplifying conversion measurement: saying goodbye to “Converted clicks”
The previous arrangement of using converting clicks as the bidding and report metric, will soon see a massive change with Converted Clicks retiring by September 21. More about this change in this announcement.
5. New cross-device attribution reports and benchmarks
To help advertisers measure cross-device conversion path, Google announced that they will be launching three new reports in the attribution section in the coming weeks.
5. Three ad innovations for a mobile-first world
The changes announced during the Google Performance Summit, that were meant to bring ease to advertising on mobile, were rolled out last week. Changes that are now available are expanded text ads, responsive ads and setting device bid adjustments.
Bing Ads Announcements
1. Compare your performance between two time periods
With the new comparison feature you can check the performance of your ads between two time periods which helps advertisers draw valuable comparison on many performance metrics. Claire Lee shares details.
2. Easily highlight your products and services with Structured Snippets
Now highlight specific aspects of your business with the new Structured Snippets in Bing Ads. Currently released for US advertisers, it will be made internationally available over the coming few weeks.
3. Upgraded URLs now available in Bing Ads: An easier way to manage your tracking URLs
Jamie Chung, Program manger at Bing, share the tips and best practices for using Upgraded URL’s now available across Bing Account. Learn about the benefits of upgraded URL’s and how it can simplify things for you.
Digital Marketing Reports & Findings
1. US Google search spend was flat, but mobile spend jumped 55 percent in Q2
Google paid search spend in US dropped slightly YoY in Q2 2016 as surveyed by IgnitionOne. Ginny Marvin shares some of the other finding in this post. The report can be downloaded from here.
2. 5 Insights from Analyzing Half a Billion Dollars in Ad Spend
‘Negative Keywords are still a missed optimization opportunity’ and more such insights disclosed by Larry Kim in this data driven post. Know where you need to drive your focus and how to do so.
3. Google Mobile Brand CPCs Skyrocketing…Again
‘Brand CPC rose considerably in 2015, but by the end of Q2 2016, the same is 22% than the historical average over the previous 4 years’ shares Andy Taylor. More about it in this post.
Other Stories
1. The biggest Google ad updates are also the quietest
Andy Taylor shares the biggest updates made by Google over the last year and how they might be a little hyped than the less publicized yet significant updates. Details about such updates in this post.
2. Call-Only AdWords Campaigns To DRASTICALLY Increase Calls
AdWords call-only campaign is a perfect tool to ramp up the phone call traffic. Here is a post by Mitch Larson that attends to some of the questions that advertisers struggle and discusses the best practices to optimize your call only campaigns.
3. Google officially throttling Keyword Planner data for low spending AdWords accounts
AdWords users might start noticing limited data in the Keyword planner data. This is a change introduced primarily for accounts with low monthly spend. How limited the information will be, Gregg Finn shares in this post.
Related Articles:
Stop the wasted ad spend. Get more conversions from the same ad budget.
Our customers save over $16 Million per year on Google and Amazon Ads.