Search giant and household name Google has made several major product announcements this year. Expanded text ads come to mind – they only came out very recently, but they’re already making serious waves due to their impressive gains in click-through rates, compared to the regular text ad format.
Now, Google has announced more big changes, and we’re here to give you the scoop on what these new developments mean for you as advertisers.
Device-Based Bid Adjustment Is Here!
As an AdWords client, you’ve probably been waiting for the arrival of device bid adjustments. Google announced this tweak back in May at the Performance Summit, but we had to wait until July 26th for the official rollout, and the full deployment should be complete this week.
Device bid adjustments allow you to adjust your bid per engagement for different types of devices. This is extremely useful. For example, let’s say your campaign performs much better on mobile devices than on desktops. You can now increase your bid for phones and tablets and beat out the competition.
Seasoned marketers may remember a similar option previously available that disappeared in 2013 with the introduction of enhanced campaigns. Now it’s back – a welcome and much-anticipated return for an extremely helpful feature.
Review Your Multiplication Tables
Bear in mind that it’s not quite as simple because bids are now adjusted based on multipliers, so it may take some time and calculation to get used to the new format. If you’d like to deepen your knowledge of how stacked bid multipliers might look in a real-world setting, head over to Josh Benson-Merron’s post that addresses that issue in detail.
As you can already tell, the reintegration of device-based bid adjustments is big news. It gives savvy marketers access to increased granularity among devices, which should lead to more efficient campaigns and a potentially more lucrative ROI.
And while the new system may require some additional work for advertisers, the efficiency gains and probable integration of useful third-party tools should make the extra effort pay off in spades.
The Game Is Changing; Get Ready to Up Your Game
By now, you’re probably eager to get started. If you’re among the advertisers who are able to take advantage of the beta rollout, then now’s the time to get started. You’ll have a leg up on the general public, which should get full access sometime during Q3, and possibly by the end of this month.
So what can you do to get ready to leverage the power of device bid adjustments? Reviewing your conversion data would be an excellent start. Break your existing campaign’s performance down to device level. That should give you an excellent starting point for assessing each type of device’s contribution to your overall conversion mix.