Google AdWords new design. What’s happening and what can we expect?

This week, we followed the Google Performance Summit 2016 where information about AdWords’ new design and other updates was promised.

A major focus was placed on the MOBILE-FIRST development, and it didn’t take long before the terms “Moments” and “Micro Moments” were frequently used by the speakers. Micro Moments refer to those moments when you realize you need help with something and pull out your phone to search for the information. It describes the flow between online and offline, where the mobile plays the most important role. For example, when you Google a pair of stylish shoes before going into the store, or when you want to know if an item is in stock at your nearest physical store.

So, what were the big news then? Above all, there are 2-3 major changes that will directly affect us working with AdWords.

Separate bids for all devices – including tablet!

This flexible solution opens up greater optimization opportunities, allowing you to focus on the right device at the right time. They are bringing back the ability to bid separately on tablets. This feature was available about 3-4 years ago. The bid adjustment will also be expanded. The bid increase will now be able to go up to +900%, a significant change from the current +300%.

Longer ad texts

Now we understand a bit better why Google removed ads from the right-hand side a while ago. Perhaps the biggest change will be the increase in the number of characters in text ads. This will give the ad more space in the results and increase the chances of delivering the right message in the ad. Currently, the ad text consists of a headline with 25 characters and two description lines with 35 characters each. The new ad format will allow for a headline with 30 characters and a merged description text of up to 80 characters.

Similar Audiences for search

For those of us who work a lot with RLSA (Remarketing for Search), this is an exciting update. RLSA is a feature that allows you to adjust bids in search results based on your Remarketing lists, such as previous visitors. You can also choose to only show the ad to these users. Similar Audiences for search will allow you to target ads to an audience similar to the one in your lists, but for completely new visitors. This opens up great growth opportunities for many advertisers.

Other updates

Other news included local ads in Maps, responsive and better ads for GDN, and a lot of new features for the new Google Analytics 360 Suite (which can currently only be used by premium users).

New design

We have previously seen some images of the design, and now a few more have been released. It’s a sleek design, with a structure that somewhat resembles AdWords Editor, while the overall look is more similar to Google Analytics, with beautiful, colorful graphs. It’s also said to be more user-friendly, with a greater focus on business goals and advertising objectives, rather than on the features themselves. This is somewhat similar to Facebook’s layout and to the smaller changes previously made in AdWords Display campaigns, where you choose an advertising goal during setup, rather than focusing on the specific function.

A small note here, especially for new users. Just because you and the interface agree on an advertising goal doesn’t mean you’ll want to use all the features included with the selected goal. Therefore, it’s important to check exactly which features are included for each option.

The new design is said to start rolling out around the turn of the year. A guess is that Swedish users may have to wait until later in 2017. However, a few advertisers will get to test the design throughout this year. We’ll get back to you when we know more about this.