2016 AdWords Updates: What You Need To Know
![blog-2016-adwords-changes-tinypng blog-2016-adwords-changes-tinypng](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/blog-2016-adwords-changes-tinypng.jpg)
Two weeks ago at the Google Summit, Google announced some big feature changes in AdWords. Stephen and I had such a productive discussion analyzing the ad layout change in February, that we sat down again to share a discourse on what these changes mean for search marketers as the dust settles.
What follows is a transcript of that discussion.
Too Long; Don’t Want to Read:
- Longer text ads: Two 30-character headlines, one 80 character description line
- Bid adjustments for mobile, desktop and tablets up to +900%
- Promoted location pins and updated location pages in Maps
- Better store visit tracking
- New responsive Display ads and new cross-exchange ad placement access
- Similar audiences and demographics for search ads
- A new AdWords interface for 2017
2016 AdWords Updates: A(nother) Socratic Dialogue
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“So, Stephen, we find ourselves staring down more industry-shaking news and I’m having a hard time processing it all. Could you please tell me more about the impending changes?”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“I certainly can! What would you like to hear about first?”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Start by giving me some context on this whole thing.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“You see, Nick, about 7.6 billion years from now, it is highly likely that the Earth will be engulfed when the sun expands into a red giant, rendering everything we do ultimately and, quite probably, meaningless.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“I was thinking more along the lines of context for these changes.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Oh, right. Well, it’s clear that we now live in what Google is calling a ‘mobile-first’ world, where over half of web traffic comes from phones and tablets. Many of the feature changes are centered on this concept.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“But I thought we lived in a multi-device world?”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“What? Where did you get such a an idea …
![google-multidevice-world google-multidevice-world](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/google-multidevice-world.png)
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
… Oh.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“It seems that the emphasis used to be on users moving across devices.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Right, which is what those enhanced campaigns were originally designed to address. The idea was that you could have one campaign targeting users seamlessly across devices. Now, we can adjust bids on each device type, including desktop and tablets, up to +900%. Thus, we hit the devices and moments that are most valuable to our businesses.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“That’s pretty interesting.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Indeed. We also have the ability to serve our users a longer message. There will now be two 30-character headlines, and the description lines will be consolidated into one 80-character line. Your site’s domain will also be automatically extracted for your display URL, so you don’t have to worry about matching your display and final URL anymore. Please see the table Google helpfully crafted for us below:”
![expanded-text-ads-table expanded-text-ads-table](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/expanded-text-ads-table.png)
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Wait, more device targeting options and one, longer line of ad text? Are you sure Google didn’t accidentally demo Bing Ads?”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“The conspiracy runs deeper than I thought.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“So Google also emphasized bridging the digital and physical worlds, giving us more opportunity to drive and measure store visits. Tell me more about this.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Yes they did. 1/3 of mobile searches are now local and Google introduced new ad formats to reflect that. The most interesting feature is the promoted location pins that show up in your Maps. So, for example, if you’re driving home at 3 a.m., you might see a promoted pin for a Walgreens location on the way so you can buy pepperoni-flavored Combos, a kite, and the director’s cut of Kazaam on Blu-Ray.“
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Ah, the usual.”
![promoted-pins promoted-pins](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/promoted-pins.png)
New Maps ad formats
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Users can also see location-specific information when they click on a location, like special promotions and that particular store’s inventory.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“So instead of being disappointed in person when they don’t have your item in stock, you can now be disappointed digitally.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Exactly. But if you do decide to go into the store anyway, they’re making it easier to measure ad-driven store visits, as they claim to now be 99% accurate when measuring store visits.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“That should help with attribution. The more you can tie business performance to ads, the better decisions you can make. There were also rumblings about the Display Network, Stephen. Let’s talk about that.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Yes, there will now be responsive ads for display, which adapt to the content format of the site on which they are serving. All you need are headlines, an image, a description, and a URL, and you have yourself a snazzy native ad, my friend.”
![adwords-new-native-ads adwords-new-native-ads](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/adwords-new-native-ads-1.png)
Snazzy native ads
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Ooooh, that seems fancy. And you can serve those across more sites now, right?”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Correctamundo. They’re now giving us access to cross-exchange inventory, so we can advertise on more sites and apps from around the world. So instead of just one flashlight app or puzzle game site, you now have access to several.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Sounds enticing.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“But display isn’t getting all the love. In addition to the longer text ads, we now have more opportunities for audience targeting in search. Specifically, we can use our remarketing lists to create similar audiences to target in search. So we’ll be able to specifically target search ads to users who have similar interest to our visitors, but have never actually been to our site.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Wait, that wasn’t a feature? I thought AdWords always created a similar audience.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“It does, but you could only use it for display. If you uploaded a customer email list for example, a feature only available for search, it would create an ‘active’ similar audience that was unusable since similar audiences were only for display.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“So you would have an allegedly active similar audience in your list but you couldn’t target it?”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Precisely.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Weird.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Quite. There are also now demographics for search ads, so we can adjust our bidding based on age and gender to reach more qualified users.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“It seems like they’re really trying to give us a chance to leverage context and intent.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“They are, and it’s about time. Previously, we’ve had to rely primarily on the user’s query and location to get a handle on their qualification. We now have more buttons to push to serve the right ad to the right user at the right time.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Speaking of buttons, give me some information about the new AdWords interface.”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Only if you say the magic word.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Please?”
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“No, you fool. Kazaam. Why do you think we purchased that God-awful movie at our promoted Walgreens location all those lines ago?”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Forgive me.”
![2016-new-adwords-interface-redesign 2016-new-adwords-interface-redesign](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/2016-new-adwords-interface-redesign.png)
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“In due time. But, back to the interface. In addition to simple changes like moving the navigation to the lefthand side, it looks like the main goal of the redesign is to make the information marketers care about immediately available in the form of a dashboard. And the way you create campaigns allows you to customize objectives for your business and utilize specific features in order to meet those goals. So it’s all about making sure AdWords is working for your specific organization. Do you want to drive site visits? Calls? Store visits? The world is your oyster.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“So there are now campaign objectives? Are you sure they didn’t accidentally demo Facebook Ads?”
![sean-nerf sean-nerf](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/sean-nerf.gif)
*Sean suddenly slides into the room down a fire pole, firing a NERF dart that hits Nick squarely in the head*
“Hey-o! Headshot! Are you really gonna use the same joke twice in one post, Oats?”
Editor’s Note: Nick peacefully eats oatmeal every day at 3 p.m., and has thus been christened “Oats” by some of his less tolerant and, frankly, ill-mannered co-workers.
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“Sean, can’t you see Stephen and I are having a civil discussion about AdWords? And where did that fire pole come from? We have a staircase.”
![Canadian-Sean Canadian-Sean](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/sean-small.png)
“Not anymore! I decided to upgrade the office a bit. And AdWords? BOOOORING. Check out this cool GIF I just found!”
![shaq-gif-wiggle shaq-gif-wiggle](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/shaq.gif)
![Canadian-Stephen Canadian-Stephen](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/stephen-small.png)
“Classic.”
![Canadian-Nick Canadian-Nick](/sites/default/files/luna-migrate/nick-small.png)
“I hate all of you.”