A recap of AdWords innovations in 2015 last quarter

29 Jan A recap of AdWords innovations in 2015 last quarter

New trial run & interstitial ads for app install

Because one in four apps installed are never used, Google has redesigned their in-app mobile ad formats, and want to improve the app ad experience (original source here: adwords.blogspot.com/2015/12/trial-run-ads-interactive-interstitials-beta.html).
With two new more appealing types of ad formats, Google is trying to grow their suite of creative app install solutions.
Trial run ads is the app ad format that lets a user play a game up to 60 seconds using the stream content of the app before downloading it.
With this option, Google is trying to increase the probability of that install to be made from a user that is actually enjoying playing the game.
With the Trial Run Ads the user will get ads that are more captivating for games, the chance to actually play and trial it before the download and the click with be more relevant and therefor also the downloads and pre-qualified app users.
 
HTML5 interactive interstital ads are the other new feature, aimed to improve customized mobile ads.
You can use HTML5 creatives instead of the rigid and dated templates and this way get a more engaging, flexible content of the game of product advertised.
HTML5 interactive interstital ads are the other new feature, aimed to improve customized mobile ads
You can use HTML5 creatives instead of the rigid and dated templates and this way get a more engaging, flexible content of the game of product advertised.
Optimization and testing also becomes easier this way.
Customization is the greatest asset in this feature, with the tremendous possibility of creative adjustment. You can showcase special offers through galleries and choose the elements that attract more clicks.
On both new types of mobile ad formats, advertisers will pay Google only when the users click the Install button and there is no payment for the in-ad game feature or the interactions with interstitials.
Trial Run ads and Interactive Interstitials are still in Beta and only available to a limited set of advertisers for now.
 

Google In-Store Visit Data Update

Google has announced a few weeks ago the store visit reports, an update on a feature that allows advertisers to get a more detailed view of offline measurement and the estimated number of store visitors from paid search on keyword and ad group levels.
It works on users interactions with local maps listings with stores connected to the advertisers (a large portion of those users will actually visit the store within 3 days from the interaction).
This new feature is by now only available to a limited number of advertisers and we do not know a timetable for global release, but it was announced that the new metrics will be available by day, week, month (which will give much more information on bidding and campaign strategy). All the data from store visit reports will definitely give a great insight on campaign performances for retail advertisers with brick and mortar stores, but according to Google numbers will be much more precise when store visits will go over 100.
More info at: support.google.com/adwords/answer/6100636
 

New Improvements to automated bidding reporting

Google has recently launched three new reporting features to improve and gain transparency in the bidding and save time troubleshooting issues that might reflect in your account’s performance.
The New Status Annotations will inform advertisers on actions to eventually take. The “Learning” status will display how many estimated days you should wait before making changes, or evaluating performance.
If your campaign bid strategy appears to be as “Limited (bid limits)” status, Google will show you the percentage of impressions or spend limited.
Moreover two new reporting options are now available in the Shared library (bid strategy):
Status Over Time reporting shows bid strategy statuses on the performance graph. You can have a better understanding of what might be influencing bid strategy for the date range selected. In case your spending increases and at the same time a bid strategy shows a status of “Limited (not enough data)” this indicates that you’ve raised the campaign budget to turn higher conversion rate and give algorithms more data to work and to optimize bids.
To give better context for your historical targets over performance data there is the new feature Target Over Time reporting. For example, if a trend line shows that conversions are dropping and if at the same time period indicates the targeted CPA has also decreased. It will explain the performance drop.

Source: http://adwords.blogspot.it/2015/12/get-deeper-insight-into-your-automated.html?m=1
 

Huge innovation in Analytics to optimize Adwords: say hello to Smart Goals

The key metric of most campaigns is conversions, wether is a sale, a lead, a contact is that action that you are waiting for.  Measuring conversions is vital because it allows you to understand where your quality traffic comes from and accordingly optimize your campaigns.
Many small and medium businesses don’t have this control and are not measuring their website conversions, some businesses might not have a way of a conversion action being made and other may not have the time or technical skills to implement it.
That is why Google Analytics launched Smart Goals.  These dynamic/automatic goals reflect visits that Google considers most likely to convert, basing its models on session duration, pages per sessions, location, device and browser.
To activate it in Google Analytics, go to “Admin”, clicks “Goals” and select the option “Smart Goals”. There is no need for additional tagging or customization.

Smart Goals can be imported into AdWords and used to optimize your campaigns, manually or via an automatic bidding option, such as switching to CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) or enhanced manual bidding.
To use Smart Goals this way you need to have modify rights in both AdWords and Analytics (at least at property level) an then:

1. activate the new smartgoals in Analytics;
2. link Analytics and Adwords accounts via property’s control panel in Analytics;
3. select and import conversions in the tool > conversion > Analytics menu in AdWords
4. set the category of conversion (we suggest “other”), the time lag (we suggest “90 days” if you have not large numbers you to count on) and check the imported goals to be counted as conversion in the conversion setting page (it is the default setting).

We finally suggest to close the connection between the two platforms in AdWords too in the menu account > linked account > Analytics, setting a view to import data form. This is not necessary for smart goals, but will import bounce rates data from Analytics directly in AdWords, which could be useful to know if your keywords or placements are working properly with your landing pages.
To work properly Smart Goals have to record at least 1000 clicks from Adwords over a 30 day period.
Here you will find more info: adwords.blogspot.it/2015/12/use-smart-goals-powered-by-google.html?m=1