I had my first visit to Google on Tuesday, as well as my first taste of the tube at rush hour. Both lived up to expectations. The tube was rammed and way too hot, and by the time I’d arrived at Google HQ I’d sweated through my t-shirt. Fortunately Google has their air con system nailed down, and within five minutes of arriving I’d dried out.
The event was the Q3 Product Kick Off, and whilst most of the content was sadly confidential, there are a few bits I can get away with chatting about without Google sending their drone shaped goons to sort me out. I should also briefly mention now that there was a free breakfast featuring an array of viennoiserie and cured meats, as well as coffee and some very middle class water. The miniature croissants were especially surprising, as they looked like they might be potentially dry, but they turned out to be surprisingly moist.
As I mentioned above there isn’t that much from the event that can be divulged, aside from things that have already come out of beta, so this blog post is running the risk on being spectacularly thin on actual content. However, one thing I can mention is what the future holds for text ads. As most people know Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) have now been rolled out across all accounts. Standard ads will continue to show, but moving forward it’s only worth creating ETAs as closing down day for standard text ads will be on October 26th. They will continue to serve, but you’ll no longer be able to edit or upload them from that date. Then the apocalypse will most likely follow at some point, when they’ll no longer serve either, but this is some way off (I think).
Another point raised at the event was how to set mobile specific landing pages for ETAs, as the option to set one is no longer there as it was for the standard ads. The only way to do this for ETAs is to use Ad Variations to run a split test where you can specify a landing page to be for mobile only. Come to think of it, it’s possible they’ve made it slightly fiddlier to set a mobile landing page in order to coax the remaining stragglers to get a fully responsive website… But that’s a crack pot theory I just came up with.
The real pièce de résistance was the news that we’ll soon be able to copy and paste audiences in AdWords; by their own admission a real game changer. As you can imagine that was hard to top, and if I’d been in charge of the schedule I’d have left that announcement till the end in order to finish with a bang.
Jokes aside, there were lots of new features that were showcased, many of which concerned DoubleClick and YouTube, but I’m not going to risk the wrath of Larry Page by breaking the Official Secrets Act today. There are a couple of new extensions for search, one in particular I think will be adopted by most, and there was a good bit about apps.
With regards to apps, the speaker made a very interesting point: there is a shift from advertisers trying to get as many installs as possible to them ensuring they get valuable installs; 17% of all app installs are responsible for 85% of revenue generated by apps. This means most revenue is actually coming from post install events, rather than the install itself. He then proceeded to plug Universal App Campaigns hard, so take a look at them if you can.
I’ve no doubt more details from the event will be released soon, so keep your eyes peeled for some new bits and bobs, but for now I’m sworn to secrecy.
