Our most important Google AdWords Predictions for 2018

After investigating and analyzing with our team of experts the expectations of possible changes in the Google AdWords platform and also after analyzing the products and tools Google offers us for 2018, CommonMind decided to share with our readers the main changes that we think will happen during this year, and also share our thoughts on some of these changes that are already taking place.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and smart bidding.

First, we expect a greater application of artificial intelligence (AI).

With the help of a greater adoption of this technology, it is expected that A.I. will support routine work of account managers by spending less time optimizing campaigns manually and having computers do this routine work while giving the platform the opportunity to manage bids, bid adjustments and budgets according to the criteria established by the AdWords account administrator

With the new and improved smart bidding strategies, we have the opportunity to streamline the daily work within accounts. This will help us take better decisions and facilitate the task of making analysis much faster. All these benefits could be obtained from an A.I. system since it has the ability to process data, compute results and make conclusions much faster than any human being so that we can improve the results and performance of our campaigns.

There are many features and configurations within Google AdWords that we can use to have the tool make optimizations based on historic behaviors.

One of these tools is smart bidding where, depending on the situation, we can choose between getting the most clicks within a certain budget, or setting a CPA (cost per acquisition) in such a way that the system adjusts automatically the bids and thus obtains the desired results.

We could also use an automated bid to get the most conversions out of the current available budget or maybe set a desired Return On Investment (ROI) for a campaign.

It is obvious that it will be necessary to have a history of the behavior of each campaign as well as a good structure of the account so that the tool works properly.

For example, for an eCPC (enhanced CPC) strategy to work properly, we must have at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days, whereas if we are thinking about using a target CPA we will need at least 30 conversions in the last month and to be able to apply an ROI bidding strategy (target ROAS) it is essential that the campaign has at least 50 conversions in its history over the last 30 days.

New and improved analysis and optimization tools.

The next point we want to emphasize is that it is a kit of new tools that Google puts at our fingertips to improve the results of any digital marketing campaign, among them, included are Google Attribution, Google Optimize, and Google Data Studio.

All three tools obviously owned by Google.

Google Attribution will help us measure all the points of contact that a user has had since they saw a Google AdWords ad until they make a conversion, such as a purchase, a subscription, or fill out a form on the website they are visiting.

Google Attribution is mainly intended for digital marketing professionals to have a way to measure and analyze the results of the actions and strategies applied in all channels and devices where digital advertising campaigns are carried out. The same tool integrates data from Google AdWords, Analytics, and DoubleClick Search and can visualize or evaluate the actions that took place on different social networks, search engines, applications, videos, etc.

Google Optimize is the testing and personalization platform. Its main objective is to run A/B tests in order to improve and optimize the user experience by creating and launching experiments based on hypotheses obtained in previous analyzes.

Google Data Studio is a tool mainly for reporting and facilitating the analysis of data in a more clear and visual way, also integrates with various data sources such as AdWords, Analytics, and any other data desired, since it is mainly thought so that companies who manage customer accounts might want to submit performance reports of their digital marketing strategies in a more agile, customizable and real-time manner.

These tools link and relate to each other to take advantage of them together with Google AdWords to exponentially improve the results.

The New Google AdWords Interface.

And last, but not least, we have more than one prediction, we have a certainty: The new Google AdWords interface.

It’s not a surprise for those of us who regularly access the AdWords platform and after several years working on a version that is about to be replaced by a newer interface, which has been in the Alpha phase since last year and is currently in the Beta phase, that during this 2018 the transition to the new platform will be complete.

Although this new interface presents interesting improvements in performance and in the way it shows data in a faster and more visual way, we have the challenge of getting used to this new way of managing an account since the design and the way of presenting the information is totally different.

Currently, it is possible to switch between the old and the new version, obviously because the Beta version is still under development and despite the fact that we, Google AdWords accounts managers for CommonMind, are trying as much as possible to use the new version to get used to it. We expect to make the final migration during 2018 however, on several occasions, we have felt frustrated as we find missing functions or functions that are yet not available or have errors.

Next, we want to show one of those cases of differences between the old and new interfaces.

On audience targeting and bid adjustment by age, for a campaign where we have an adjustment for the ages of 18-24 and 25-34 to a -30% bid adjustment the new interface has no way to modify it or it is shown incorrectly.

Please check these details in the images below.

Bid adjustments by age on the old interface:

Bid adjustments by age on the new interface:

We over at CommonMind continue to overcome day-to-day challenges that we face with our great team of collaborators, specialized in the various internet marketing disciplines to make your business more productive each day.