Advanced AdWords Users Question

Hi there.

I think there is more competition on Adwords generally so as experts we always have to up our game. Yes Adwords have made it easier for anyone to create an account - but also means that they have made it easy for people to lose their budget. Ultimately the 'cream will rise to the top'

I guess it really depends on your products, I see absolutely no change in traffic.

I guess it depends on your products. I see absolutely no change in traffic.

Ebb and flow. Numbers are not going to be the same every year. No reason to expect them to be.


Impressions, which I assume is the number you are talking about, will vary based on many factors. I'm looking at one campaign of a long-time client which I know has had QS of 9 and 10 as well as impression shares of nearly 100% for years.


Yes, this month compared to last year is down but there can be many reasons for that. He sells repair parts for power tools so people will search only when they need a part. Maybe they just haven't broken down as much this year. While I believe I have not changed keywords, maybe I did (we are talking a year after all) and this may had an effect. But basically, the number of impressions are out of my control. I just try to get the client as much quality clicks as possible.


I don't see how the new interface could be responsible. It has nothing to do with the serving of ads which is an entirely different system.


As time goes on, there will be more advertisers, that's a reality. It's easy to get into the game but few can play the game at a high level immediately. There are very few Wayne Gretzkys, Aaron Judges or Mike Trouts. But you still need to watch out for them and keep your game up.


Impressive you have 100 accounts.

Hi thelastog,

You are not alone in noticing something is up.

I run an AdWords agency with many clients spread across many industries. I too have noticed several trends.

Competition level is up, every month their are more AdWords account managers each gaining in experience, competence and sophistication as their experience grows. This particular trend has been going on for some time and has in the past made it very difficult for a new inexperienced advertiser to run a profitable campaign. Nothing new in regard to this trend.

It seems to me that nearly all of the recent "innovations" to the AdWords platform have been aimed at leveling the playing field. it appears that Google's strategy of late is to even the playing field between sophisticated professional marketers that have dominated their platform, and newbies that do not have a clue about how to market.

It started with the introduction a few years ago of Enhanced bidding. Then the introduction of stemming in exact match keywords. Stemming for exact match keywords feature was made optional in the beginning, but later forced upon advertisers,losing the ability to precisely target intent. That stemming feature has recently been expanded to the point that exact match targeting of keywords no longer functions the same way. There is now much less difference between exact match, phrase match and broad match targeting.

During discussions with Google reps some of the changes were revealed and what we must do differently to get effective results. If you've been paying attention to the recent mantra like advice that all their reps are repeating you may spot what I'm referring to, for now we are holding it closely for the advantage it gives our agency.

Then came auto conversion optimization, templated bidding strategies, and more recently the introduction of AI learning algorithms that manage enhanced bidding, bidding strategies and other significant platform changes.

Bit by bit AdWords has been removing the ability for account managers to manage their own campaigns. They now see smart account managers as their biggest threat. Each new change seems to be calculated to remove the levers of control that allow us to outsmart their algorithms with a superior strategy.

Google may be betting their future on fully automated campaign optimizations. It's as if they are trying to emulate Facebook which has redesigned their platform to automatically optimize campaigns. You just create ads and set a budget, the platform takes over all the optimizations from there.

If this trend continues, the only way to optimize in the future will be through the wording of your ads and budgeting. Even though we are doing quite well with our campaigns, it is disturbing to have control levers that give us a clear advantage being removed.

The general dumbing-down of the platform features is forcing us to adopt new strategies and more and more of these tactics take place off of the AdWords platform. Not sure if this is going to help Google, in the long run, or help providers with competing alternatives to AdWords, as more of the online budgets get shifted into tools and tactics outside of the AdWords environment.

For now AdWords is still highly effective, but we've had to adjust repeatedly to the reduced functionality of the platform, often finding methods outside the AdWords platform to keep and build our competitive advantage.

HTH,

Don Burk