Google announced changes to AdWords that are designed to better reflect the mobile-first world. The company revealed statistics to demonstrate that their advertising engine is helping bridge the real and digital worlds.
The search giant reports that there are trillions of searches on Google.com every year and says that now over half of those searches happen on mobile. Further, Google’s location-related mobile searches are growing 50 percent faster than all mobile searches.
At the Google Performance Summit, the company described changes in the appearance of mobile ads and talked about how they integrate with Google maps. For advertisers running text-based mobile ads, character limits will increase from two 35-character lines to one 80-character line; headlines will expand from one with a 25-character limit to two with 30-character limits. Google says that based on early testing, some advertisers saw increases in clickthrough rates of up to 20 percent, compared to current text ads.
Google is also seeking to make mobile ads better-looking and easier for advertisers to produce. The Google Display Network (GDN) is introducing responsive design, advertising formats that display properly regardless of device or screen size. The idea is simple: Businesses supply headlines, message, image, and a URL, and GDN will automatically design the responsive ads.
Google will also modify its ad auction process to allow advertisers to bid different amounts for each platform within a single ad campaign. This means advertisers can offer different amounts to run their ads on mobile, desktop, or tablets, depending on their needs and audience.
Perhaps the most significant changes announced today involve Google’s efforts to bridge the real and digital worlds. Speaking at a press briefing yesterday, Jerry Dischler, vice president of product management for AdWords, said that even with the rise of ecommerce, “90 percent of global sales happen in stores” and that Google maps have the opportunity to be the bridge “”where mobile and local meet.” He described the new local search ads on Google.com and Google Maps as responding to the needs of nearly one-third of all mobile searches related to location.