What is Google’s New Marketing Platform and What can it Do for You?

Earlier this week, Google hosted a live web broadcast announcing their new ad service rebrand. AdWords has become Google Ads, DoubleClick has become Google Analytics 360 and they all fall under Google Marketing Platform. A lot seems to have changed but, being a copywriter, I don’t interact much with the backend of advertising and most of the broadcast went right over my head. I sat down with our Director of Digital Strategy, Eric Lucas, for a simplified breakdown of Google’s new services.

What exactly is the update?

Google’s new “Google Marketing Platform” will act as an umbrella service to house: Google Ads, Google Analytics 360, and Google Ad Manager. This is a one-stop-shop for all the front-end and back-end marketing services that Google already had in place including: the research, setup, measurement and optimization of a campaign. Now, marketers won’t have to integrate the separate features to make them work together, but, instead, Google Marketing Platform will allow them to easily toggle between features and allow the features to “talk to each other.” In addition to the bundling of their services, Google Ads will now have “smart campaigns” which use machine learning to optimize ad headlines and descriptions (which are getting a character boost too).

What does this mean for marketers?

Marketers like Eric will now be able to do their job better and faster. With all of Google’s suite of marketing tools in one place, the research, set up, measurement, and optimization will all be in one place. Google Marketing Platform will cut down on set-up time so that marketers can start delivering reports faster and be able to see how effectively your ad budget is being used. There will be better visibility of where the budget is going and what returns on investment are coming back to you.

What does this mean for brands?

Ad campaigns will be much more effective. The new platform will cut down on set up time which and reduce errors that could have occurred before from integrating separate platforms. Measuring and attribution will be easier because the services are better connected. The clarity of results will also improve significantly. For smaller businesses who don’t have a huge ad budget, they may require less long-term professional help. If you don’t have a marketing background, you still might want to consult an agency like Fortress. Business owners will be able to more clearly see what the results are saying about the success of their campaign. The responsive ads that use machine learning will help you to optimize your budget by more quickly assessing which campaigns are working and which ones aren’t. While the platform is more streamlined, if you don’t have a marketing background, you still might want to consult an agency like Fortress.

Will consumers see any change in their ad experience?

The biggest change will be the ability to turn targeted ads on and off. Google will still show you ads, but your data won’t be used to decide which ones you see. Eventually, search ads will become more relevant to you (if you allow targeted ads). Google is allowing marketers to use more characters in the headlines and descriptions which will give you a clearer idea of what the ad will lead you to. This may result in search ads giving you more relevant results than before.

 

Overall, Google’s marketing rebrand will make life much easier for marketers by integrating all their services into one platform. And, although Google has streamlined the process of paid ad marketing, you should still consult an agency. We’ve taken over several campaigns where the client started it themselves and couldn’t clearly see their results or wasted their budget trying to figure it out. In either scenario, we could quickly overhaul and revamp the campaigns to run more efficiently and maximize their budgets. Google has been the leader in paid digital advertising for a long time and is only getting stronger. Check out the recording of the broadcast here if you want to learn more in-depth about the changes happening in the world of Google Ads.

Why Mobile-Friendly Websites Are A Must

If your business depends on web traffic, you need to know this: Majority of online traffic comes from mobile devices and mobile apps. That. Is. Huge. 2014 was the first time in all of internet history for this statement to be true. If that isn’t enough to upgrade your site to mobile, below are a few statistics to consider.

According to ExactTarget’s 2014 Mobile Behavior Report shared on Hubspot:

• The majority of consumers are of the opinion mobile-optimized sites run faster than non-mobile-optimized sites.

• 54% of consumers believe it is easier to find information on mobile-optimized sites.

• 37% of consumers are more likely to purchase on a mobile-optimized site.

• 27% of consumers will leave a site if it isn’t a mobile-optimized site.

If you’re still not convinced, below are a few other reasons to consider having a mobile-friendly site.

It’s what people want.

Consumers are accessing websites from their mobile devices and tablets more than they are through their laptops and desktops. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly it won’t display properly on consumers’ smartphones, which will drive away potential customers from your business. Phones have smaller screens and will often alter images and text from regular sites so make sure to have a responsive website. This means your website will resize itself for best viewing depending on the device—phone, tablet, laptop—that is trying to access your site. Be sure to also have touchscreen navigation for mobile and tablet devices.

You can (and probably will) lose business.

If the above stats aren’t proof enough, let’s look at this from a different angle. Consider your competitors. If their sites are mobilized and offer easy navigation, purchasing options and images/text that display nicely on the mobile platform, why would consumers look at your outdated site when they can surf an updated one? You want to make a consumer’s experience on your website user-friendly on a variety of devices, especially mobile. Good user experiences equals potential customers.

Google isn’t going to deal with your mobile-unfriendly website.

Google’s goal is to increase all web traffic, including mobile, and it recognizes that people don’t just surf the internet on their computers anymore. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly it can lead to unhappy user experiences, and Google doesn’t want to be a part of that. As a consequence, Google will be less inclined to display your website as a legitimate search result on mobile devices, which can be bad for your business since Google is the largest search engine in the world and more consumers are searching on mobile than ever before.

Jump on the mobile bandwagon to give your customers what they want and increase your business! If you need help mobilizing your site, contact us and we will be happy to assist you.

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