Exploring The New Google Ads Interface

There has been a lot of debate lately among the Google Ads community regarding the new Google Ads Interface, which has been released on Beta earlier in 2017.

I, for one, have definitely been unenthusiastic about the “New Google Ads Experience” – When trying to get used to it, I always find myself getting frustrated not being able to find what I specifically am looking for, and switching back to the old interface.

Here is what Google had to say when announcing in 2016 that they started redesigning Google Ads:

“Since introducing Google Ads 15 years ago, we’ve seen a fundamental change in the way people find what they want, when they want it. What was once a tool to help advertisers place text ads on search results has become a solution which lets you reach potential customers on not only Search, but also Maps, YouTube, and on many other websites. This rise in complexity has created the need to reimagine Google Ads–to make sure it’s as relevant for the next 15 years as it was in the first 15.

Here are the three key areas of the platform we’ve focused on:

  • Google Ads should be more about your business, and less about our product.
  • You want the data you care about at your fingertips.
  • Offering you simple yet powerful tools that help you do more in less time.”

Struggling To Adapt

When I started writing this article, I wasn’t very happy with the (admittedly limited) experience I have had on the new interface – After years of working on the existing interface, I didn’t find the new experience very intuitive and struggled to find specific metrics and views that I have become accustomed to.

Changes to the layout such as tabs now being on the left-hand side of the screen instead of the top, were minor things that annoyed me right from the start. But then I started noticing small things that I actually like – lesson being that though the new layout may be a complete shock to the system, there are actually a few quite useful features that I could see myself using every day.

Here’s a few features that we may be losing out on by not making use of the “New Google Ads Experience:”

Interaction (Call) Bid Adjustments:

You can now increase bids for mobile devices to show call interaction ads more frequently for mobile phone users. According to Google, “Interaction bid adjustments influence how often you show call extensions and call-only ads to users. The flexibility of adjusting your bids for certain interactions gives you more control over how often they appear with your ad and how potential customers connect with your business.”

For clients that prioritise leads in the form of phone calls, adding interaction bid adjustments can ensure that call extensions and call-only ads show as often as possible.

Holistic View When Creating Expanded Text Ads

This handy new feature enables you to see your ad extensions as you create ads, to ensure that your messaging makes sense as a complete unit. It also allows you to see examples of what your ads would look like in both Mobile and Desktop formats:

desktop ad preview

Promotion Extensions

Unless you have beta access in the old interface, the only way to access the new promotion extension feature is via the new Google Ads interface.

This is a new ad extension that can highlight your sales and promotions for people that are searching for the best deals. They show below your ad and are quite eye-catching. There is also a special occasion option, where you can select occasions such as “Christmas”, “Black Friday” etc to make the ad text even more appealing.

Start and end dates can also be added to these extensions to make management of the deals a bit easier.

promotion extension mobile

 

promotion extension desktop

Audiences Page and New Terminology

The new “Audiences Page” offers a single place to manage audience targeting and optimizations.

There is also new terminology used for Audience Targeting:

What was previously know as “Target and Bid” will now be referred to as “Targeting”, and the old “Bid Only” will be know as “Observations.”

In Favour Of Change…

Though I have by no means spent enough time in the “New Google Ads Experience” to make a definitive statement on it, I have to admit that once I started actually playing around with the new features and layouts, it’s surprisingly starting to grow on me. I particularly like the Overview Page where you can customize dashboards to show you those key metrics that you always want to look at first before jumping into optimization.

Though I believe that it’s going to be a slow adoption process from the Google Ads community with lots of hesitation and debate still lying ahead, if we all give it a fair chance, I’m sure we’ll find that change isn’t always as bad as is seems. I will definitely be using the new interface to set up these new features on my accounts.