Your Do Or Die Enhanced Campaigns Checklist

by | Jul 22, 2013 | Articles, PPC

July 22, 2013: As of today, all legacy campaigns in Google AdWords will be automatically migrated to Enhanced Campaigns. Ever since Enhanced Campaigns were launched, PPC specialists have been watching out for possible problems and pitfalls as they move to the new platform. As such, the Didit SEM teams have provided a suggested checklist of essentials to aid you in your post-migration review.

1. Check Your Budget
Are your budgets high enough? Campaigns that weren’t targeting tablets will see an increase in both traffic and CPC. Make sure you have allotted enough funds to capture the additional click volume and to gain the most insights from the onset of your use of Enhanced Campaigns. Remember, everyone will be automatically opted into Tablet, so you may see a rise in click prices as new competitors enter the landscape.

2. Check Your Settings
Settings are a big deal. There are several elements to check as you go over your campaign settings. Once your campaigns are configured, you want to make sure that all of their settings are correct. Wrong settings in your campaigns can lead to many “oops” moments. Double and triple check!Although all settings are important, The Bid Multiplier for Mobile Setting is the most critical. Why? Modifiers to the Bid Multiplier act like compound interest. Make sure to take this into account when setting them. You should also:

  • Make sure that your bid multiplier is set to obtain the same or better positioning. This should be monitored for the next few weeks as your campaign progresses.
  • Make sure the “-100% for mobile” setting isapplied for campaigns targeting Desktop/Tablet only.
  • Make sure that the Locations and Languages settings, Networks and Ad Delivery options are set as intended.

3. Check Your Usability
Usability is also a big deal. Are your landing pages giving the user a customized experience based on the device they are using?Both Adaptive Web Design and Google Valuetrack are highly important and should be adopted as best practices. In the case of Valuetrack, using multiple URL tags to track both device use and content can show you usage patterns that can let you tailor your ads across platforms to make your ads more relevant – platform, time of day and configuring your content for ease of use among mobile devices and traditional desktops is also best practice.

4. Check Your Flash
Have you eliminated Flash from your website? Kevin Lee writes about this and other Enhanced Campaign topics at length. According to IDC, 65.3% of tablets are IPads which cannot run Flash, making the elimination of Flash a best practice.

5. Check Your Extensions
Examine your Mobile AdWords Extensions profile. Sitelinks, phone numbers, and other features within Ad Extensions should be reviewed. Make sure to research the new functionalities, as ad extensions features are ever evolving. Make sure to review Offer Extensions and Call Extensions, combining these with appropriate tags to make offers directly to customers in specific area codes and call exchanges, as an example.  Also, sitelinks can open apps directly into deep-linked pages inside mobile apps. Specifically, mobile extensions now extend deeply from the campaign into the Ad Group level of AdWords. These changes open up new possibilities for local marketing and can positively impact your campaigns.

6. Check Your KPIs
Monitor KPI changes post migration.  Now is a good time to monitor major KPIs such as Quality Score and CPCs as the dynamic in which advertisers manage their program has been changed so drastically. Establishing  new baselines will be important in order to understand the overall impact of the switchover, so don’t forget to pull historical reports that will let you understand the impact of the changes over time and assist you in medium to long term strategy.

This is what we recommend, but you may have different needs and  insights. What are the issues that you’ve run into as you’ve deployed Enhanced Campaigns?  What’s working for your? What isn’t? Please share your opinions with us as we all go through the Enhanced Campaigns journey together.

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