2010 was a funny year for Google Adwords. While there was some movement towards having more control of your account with the inclusion of modified broad match there were also steps towards letting Google have full control in the form of keywordless ads. (My thoughts on such remained unchanged from when they were first rumoured).
We also saw some great developments in terms of ad formats with the full roll out of paid sitelinks and plus boxes along with several others.
It’s always a tough one to predict future releases, so below I’ve taken a rather safer option of going for what I’d like to see.
Reporting:
The advent of impression assisted conversions is a truly fantastic development if you happen to use Google Analytics and Google conversion tracking. The policy of not opening this up through the API for third party campaign management tools though is still a big disappointment. I’m not naysaying the free tools that Google provide, the quality is remarkable, but the reasons for not making these stats widely available is unclear.
The main reason I want to have this data is to measure the real benefit of impressions to your account. Google insist that there is a big branding benefit but without being able to measure it advertisers will remain reticent to invest in non-directly converting terms. If this data were readily available the incentive to invest in high cost generics would be significantly raised and accounts would evolve far beyond simply direct response.
Search Based Re-Marketing
Yahoo already offer re-targeting based on a user’s search history as opposed to their browsing and it makes perfect sense. Google however are very aware of privacy issues and the potential to start being seen as big brother and so are hesitant to go down this road. As a consumer I’m not sure how I feel about it but as an advertiser I can’t help but be excited by this idea. It would certainly improve the relevance of display advertising but could turn people away.
Ad Scheduling
Currently if you have a set of ads pertaining to a sale, a time of day or a day of the week and you want them to come down at a certain time or rotate then you need to either sit there with editor open and do it manually or to set up a duplicate campaign (Same keywords, bids etc) with different ads and day parting set up. This is farcical. It amazes me that the option to set up start and end dates by ad doesn’t exist. It would make sense to include this in the next release of Adwords along with scheduling by ad so that they could be rotated throughout the day, week or month without the need for duplicating campaigns. While I think this is an obvious and necessary development I’ve been expecting the release for four years and so I shan’t be holding my breath!
Weather Parting
Bit of a unicorn this one. The idea is that you could set bids to automatically adjust based on the weather. So if it’s hammering down with rain and less than 10°C you might want to ramp up “Gym membership” or “Holidays in Nice”.
Technologically this should work as Google know pretty much where you are via IP and what the weather is doing near you. For a lot of clients you will see the weather has a massive impact so why not change bids to reflect this?
Search in Search
Google have shown this year they aren’t above copying the other engines with their introduction of page previews on the natural results. I would be surprised if we don’t see at least a beta where Google copy Yahoo’s rich ads in search (RAIS) and allow for a search box to be used in paid ads. This would be a great addition to ads for large retailers such as Amazon and I would expect it lure in a lot of people who would otherwise use the natural results. This has been hinted at by Google and I’d be amazed not to see it in beta in 2011.
Resurrect Video ads (ish)
Last year Google flirted with video plus boxes, and after some beta testing they are continuing with them for media owners in the US only. The reasoning behind this is that everyman and his dog would want a video on their ads because it’s eye catching and new but this would lead to a very messy and confusing SERP. A situation that Google wishes to avoid. Whilst I appreciate the thinking here I’d like the approach to be somewhat different. As a no-brainer it should only be ads in the top box which qualify, and at that only ones that reach a certain CTR threshold (much as Sitelinks currently behave). Secondly would be the proviso that the ad must lead to a page where the video is displayed prominently. A page like this is unlikely to be the greatest converter so the quality of the video would need to be high, and to be highly relevant rather than just the standard TV ad. It would make sense for the hosting to be provided by YouTube.
Negative search partners
By allowing your account to appear on the search partners network you will increase your clicks substantially. Any decent campaign management software will allow you to assess how specific partner sites perform in terms of conversion rate but there is no way to pick and choose which ones you appear on. As there is already a negative placement option in adwords it seems like a huge oversight not to be able to apply these to search as well as display.
So, just a few ideas on the things we may see from Google this year. I’d be amazed if they all appeared (especially the weather one) and disappointed if they didn’t throw out a surprise or two. I think the integration of on and offline will grow, as seen by their call centre tracking and offer ads as will mobile specific formats. To maximise the benefit of any new formats it’s key to get in on the ground floor – everyone likes something new and typically the competitive advantage erodes over time as the new ads become commonplace. As with all PPC the key is to plan, test and refine. We’ll keep you updated throughout the year.
Matt on 
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