Right before the Black Friday kicks in next week in the US, Google made several announcements for AdWords advertisers. They rolled out three new features for the latest AdWords interface- AdWords promotion extensions, custom intent audiences & ad variations for testing.
AdWords promotion extensions
A year ago, Google started testing the ‘promotion extension in text ads’ feature. Later, it got extended to the new AdWords interface. Now, it is being rolled out globally by Google in the new AdWords interface, in all supported AdWords languages and currencies. It is a great upgrade for AdWords advertisers who can now display specific offers in their text ads without having to create new ads. They can include a percentage off, a promotion code and offer period.
Custom intent audiences
Google is rolling out custom intent audiences on the Google Display Network. It will enable advertisers to target “people who want to buy the specific products you offer – based on data from your campaigns, website and YouTube channel.”
In a recent interview, Anothony Chavez, the director of product management for AdWords explained that there are two variations of custom intent audiences. In one variation, advertisers can create their own based on topics and URLs that people who are likely to be interested in their products read about and visit. The second variation is machine-learning based and automated. Google will create an audience based on the campaign and infer characteristics of target consumers.
The auto-generated custom intent audience lists would be displayed to the advertisers in the Audience Center as an auto-created audience. Google will show reach and performance estimates for each of these audiences.
Ad Variations
Google is also rolling out a new way to test ad variations. As per Google, this feature will let you test thousands of ads in a few clicks. Google will display results once they are statistically significant.
An ‘Ad Variations’ tab will now be present, along with Campaign Drafts and Campaign Experiments, in the new UI. The example below shows a headline test using “Happy Holidays,” but advertisers can also use ad variations to test display paths and descriptions.
Google’s views about the new AdWords experience
If you are yet not a big fan of the new AdWords, you are surely going to love it with the new features rolled out exclusively for the new interface. Chavez pointed out that the new interface has combined audience management in one place, enhanced the ads preview experience and beefed up what’s shown in the Opportunities tab – including an MCC view that enables managers to apply recommendations across accounts.
“We are trying to make it more assistive to help managers be more effective and efficient,” said Chavez. One example is that the campaign construction workflow now asks for the objective up front and then surfaces most relevant features in set-up workflow.