This article about the new features added to Google Adwords, written by Eldad Sotnick-Yogev, is from the Mindshare Original Thinker Series.

Google has announced changes within Adwords that fall into 3 areas: Innovative Ads, Insightful Reporting and new Power Tools. These changes may not be revolutionary per se, but rather continue the evolutionary path we are seeing as digital platforms look to better connect with consumers at any place, any time and any device.

Overall the changes look very promising and we are excited to see how Google keeps advancing from last year's Enhanced Campaigns that pushed location, device and time bidding. By giving advertisers more tools, reports and capabilities it continues to lead the search advertising space and the multiple ways it can be used to connect with consumers.

Details

Innovative ads

Innovative Ads focus on the fact that apps are more prominent than ever and that consumers see them as a source of solutions. The new ad features allow Google advertisers to better target and connect to these opportunities. For example, a calorie counting app/website could be shown to running app users through the new in-app install ads feature. This could be joined to another new feature – app keyword suggestions – which helps uncover key app-oriented search queries to add to your inventory.

Insightful reporting

Insightful Reporting concentrates on offline measurement and the need to better link up with digital marketing; thus, the introduction of the estimated total conversions tool. The goal here is to give hyper-local information for advertisers looking to capture "offline" sales/conversions. This feature will allow better measurement, but doesn't look like true attribution on first view.

Power tools

Power Tools give Google advertisers more benefit from the Adwords interface with bulk actions being simplified. At the same time, Automated Bidding to meet set specific goals (ROAS, CPA, Clicks) is going to be provided, enabling you to bid to maximise revenue or conversions. So, in theory an Auto OEM can target car configurations, while a retailer can go for sales. This will most likely make working within the interface the preferred method and could spell the end for Adwords Editor. These tools (and features) also will push Kenshoo, Marin and Adobe to advance what their 3rd party platforms offer at enterprise SEM management level.

Implications

The most impressive feature we saw was the Draft/Experiments part of the new Power Tools, which allow you to set up an experiment that will calculate and show you the impact of your changes – without actually implementing them. This means a more accurate method of forecasting will be made available in Adwords and it sounds like if the results fit your goals, it will be easy to make the theoretical a reality in a few clicks. This tool could really assist conversations for your 'what if?' scenarios, as well as being tangible proof of what budget and bid changes can look like.

Another Power Tool that will have both clients and Search teams excited is a new way to quickly use pivot table functionality within the interface and jointly build informative charts. This "multi-dimensional analysis tool" is sure to become an addition that many will like.

Finally, Innovative Ads strong focus on Apps proves that Google knows users are increasingly using mobile and that apps rule in this space. This looks to have more promise than just Admob and helps those still thinking about an App see the need to get involved. Just like mobile optimized websites, Google is pushing businesses to jump in.