Archive for adwords

AdWords Announces Enhanced Campaigns

google adwords

Earlier this week,  Google announced a set of improvements to AdWords they are calling enhanced campaigns.

The announced changes help deal with the reality that people use different devices (and often switch from one to the other throughout the day) to communicate and shop. They want results that are relevant to where they are, what they’re doing, and when they’re doing it.

Enhanced campaigns make it easier to customize ads and adjust bids depending on your customer’s location, device, and time of day. Here is an example from the Adwords post that illustrates how this type of flexibility can help a breakfast café:

A breakfast cafe wants to reach people nearby searching for “coffee” or “breakfast” on a smartphone. Using bid adjustments, with three simple entries, they can bid 25% higher for people searching a half-mile away, 20% lower for searches after 11am, and 50% higher for searches on smartphones. These bid adjustments can apply to all ads and all keywords in one single campaign.

It appears that these “new” features are more of a consolidation of existing features – meaning you will now be able to do things in one campaign that in the past may have required multiple campaigns (i.e. one campaign for desktop searchers and a separate one for mobile). This should save time and make life a little simpler for small business advertisers.

You can learn more about AdWords Enhance Campaigns here.

Google AdWords Express

Small business marketers have a new option for online advertising with Google’s AdWords Express.

AdWords Express works to make Search Engine Marketing as simple as possible for small business owners. With AdWords Express,  you simply set up a monthly budget for your ad, and Google determines what search keywords trigger your ad based on the categories that you select. Just like a regular AdWords account, you’ll only pay for the clicks that your ad actually receives.

If you haven’t already set up a Place Page or Google+ Page, do that first. By creating a Places business listing, you can make sure new customers will be able to find you when searching for the products and services you offer.

When you add AdWords Express, you can advertise your local business on Google and Google Maps (including mobile devices) and attract more visitors to your website, Place Page or Google+ Page. That means that even if you don’t have a website (even though you should) you can still advertise on Google and drive people to your place page.

AdWords Express can be the perfect solution for small businesses who have limited budgets or don’t have the time learn how to set up a classic AdWords campaign.

This table from Google shows some of the main differences between AdWords and AdWords Express:

AdWords Express AdWords

Designed for Local Businesses

Advertising that can be seen globally
Quick and simple setup Greater control and advanced features

Automated daily management

Full reporting and tracking tools
Available for customers that don’t have a website Various display formats possible

Here is a short video overview of AdWords Express

AdWords Express is only available in the US for now. Google plans to roll out AdWords Express to Canada early next year.