2 Very Important PPC Changes Made by Google and What They Mean for Your Hotel
Google recently announced some changes to its PPC advertising platform that could have some major implications for your hotel or resort’s PPC campaigns. There were a number of changes presented by Google at their annual Performance Summit in San Francisco, but two of them stood out to us as being very much worth noting for hotels.
Expanded Ad Text
Google announced that they will make some changes to the amount of ad text available to advertisers. Currently, we’re able to write one 25-character headline followed by two 30-character description lines. When Google implements its changes, we’ll now be able to have two 35-character headlines followed by an 80-character description line.
Since the headline is bold and in larger text than the descriptions, it’s already much more prominent. Beyond that, the extended headline affords advertisers a number of new opportunities. With over double the amount of headline space, we can include CTAs (calls to action) in the headline and fit search terms, or even brand names, that were just too long to fit before.
We envision that the 80-character description will allow advertisers more room to brand the ad, instead of trying to stuff keywords in order to lower CPC (cost per click). Or, it could provide more room to expand upon the unique selling proposition. Imagine being able to include a strong CTA, a package or special, and some branding all in one ad!
Needless to day, when you combine this extra ad copy with extensions like sitelinks or callouts, the ad has the opportunity to capture A LOT of search real estate. Interestingly, these changes seem to blur the lines even further between paid and organic listings; something Google might be trying to do since it derives a lot of its revenue from its PPC program.
Bid Modifiers for All Devices
One of the more important factors in optimizing a campaign is differentiating between desktop, mobile, and tablet devices. Currently, Google lumps together desktops and tablets, and only separates out mobile devices in terms of setting bids based on device type. Now Google will allow advertisers to increase or decrease the bids on each device separately, enabling advertisers to better optimize their campaigns.
Although tablets and desktops are similar, they’re not so similar that they can have the same bidding strategies. This is a feature we’re very excited about as it allows advertisers to prioritize one device over another, further optimizing the efficiency of a campaign. We envision the priority being Desktop > Tablet > Mobile.
Google usually doesn’t make big changes like this to its PPC advertising platform, so these changes are unusually impactful. But we envision them providing very positive impacts on PPC campaigns if used properly. Be sure to stay tuned for future updates and case studies on how these changes impact our campaigns!
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