AdWords Updates Give Accounts Better Focus
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | November 9, 2006 | Share This
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Search Engine Watch reports three new features for Google Adwords: A Keyword Diagnostic Tool, Account Snapshots, and Channel Targeting. None are particularly major updates, but each gives AdWords a new degree of flexibility.
First, the Keyword Diagnostic Tool is a tiny magnifying glass that Google has added beside each keyword. When clicked, it opens a snapshot view of that keyword’s status. The “diagnostic” doesn’t really say much other than “An Ad is showing for this keyword” or “This keyword isn’t showing ads”, but it’s kind of nice to see a live report. For larger SEM firms, this is an interesting, but not particularly helpful add-on, since keyword information is already aggregated by our account management software. The Keyword Diagnostic tool has been in testing on select accounts for a few weeks.
Similarly, Google is also testing an Account Snapshot feature that displays an account overview at log in. The snapshot includes Alerts and Status, Announcements, Help and Tips, overall Campaign Performance reports, and graphs. The graphs, especially, provide a nice evolutionary overview of performance indicators (Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Cost). Though Blogue Marketing Interactif delivered the first report of the test back in August, the thread didn’t show up elsewhere until today.
Finally, Google has introduced a new level of targeting for Adwords and AdSense clients. Like picking out billboard real estate, AdWords clients can now select specific channels that they wish to target on Adsense sites (each channel refers to a designated ad location). By breaking down each publisher site into more specific ad spots, Advertisers can theoretically improve audience targeting, while Publishers can increase the value of their custom channels.
Although channel targeting sounds like a good opportunity in theory, there are a few issues that could detract from it in practice. First, Adwords clients are dependent on AdSense publishers to opt in to the service on a per-channel basis. This will take a significant amount of time and will likely stunt initial adoption rates. Second, Adwords clients are dependent on AdSense publishers to segment inventory in a rational and meaningful way. If a publisher mis-segments their channel inventory, advertisers effectively lose the ability to target specific audiences. Finally, channel targeting presents a statistical nightmare for SEM firms. To properly leverage this service, tracking tags would need to be set up for each ad group in each specific content section on each publisher site running ads for each client. If Google doesnt report clicks and costs for specific content sections, the sections would have to be run as separate campaigns in order to properly measure performance. That’s a heck of a lot of account management for ads that may not even be segmented properly.
All three updates are still in testing, so clearly it’ll take awhile to work out the kinks.
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Topics: Google: AdWords |
From everything else I have read concerning this latest update, it appears that Google is trying to drive all the PPC Arbitrageurs and affiliates out of their program.