How to Navigate the NEW Google Adwords Experience
May 31st, 2018 by
AdWords recently announced that they are fully switching to the new experience by the end of the year, and I’m here to tell you it’s going to be okay! The new experience has been available to all advertisers since October, but we’ve had exclusive access for a while and have been able to get acquainted with the new UI and I’m here to share our findings.
For those of you thinking, “Google’s changing something AGAIN?” I’m right there with you! But with the following tips and resources, you’ll soon love all the new experiences it has to offer.
So What’s so Different?
Google updated the interface to provide, “a faster and more intuitive experience that’s focused on helping you reach your goals.” All the features you rely on are available in the new experience, and Google incorporated feedback as well, since this has been in beta for a while. They’ve also rolled out some exclusive features that are available in the new interface, so you have to switch to take advantage of them. Some of my favorite new features are below.
A New “Overview” Page
The overview tab provides performance insights that are generated by Google depicted as charts and graphs for you to quickly review and take action. These make reviewing data for devices and time of day much more visually appealing and easier to understand.
Bid Adjustments for Calls
Adjust your bids on call extensions to show call interaction ads more frequently. This allows you more flexibility and control over how often these ads appear and how customers can connect with your business. The bid adjustments range from -90% (I don’t want these to show as much) to +900% (yes, please, show these all the time!).
Promotion Extensions
Promotion extensions are pretty fantastic! They allow users to show and link to a special offer in their search ads and even include a tag icon to help the promotion stand out. You can highlight specific sales and offers, all while taking up more valuable real estate in the SERPs.
Shortcuts
One of my all-time favorite new features is the introduction of shortcuts. You can pretty much navigate to anywhere in the interface in a matter of seconds! Need a list of shortcuts, just hit the question mark on your keyboard. Hit G and T (GoTo) to bring up a search bar, making it super easy to find anything you need!
Need More Help?
I couldn’t possibly cover all of the benefits of the new AdWords experience but wanted to include a few more tips and resources to get you started.
- The dimensions tab used to be one of my favorite places to go to pull reports to find actionable insights. I thought it was gone, but AdWords has re-named this and moved these reports to “Predefined reports,” found under the little graph icon in the upper right corner.
- Google has a guided tour of the new interface, which is great for beginners to get familiar with the changes. They also have a Help Center, which has been updated to help you navigate all the new features (bookmark this page!).
- Follow this page to view new information on AdWords features as they are added to the platform.
- If learning by video is more your thing, check out the guides to the New AdWords Experience Part 1 and Part 2.
- There are a few things that are changing and some features that are not yet available, so familiarize yourself with these in case you need to find a different solution.
Getting on board with big changes like this can take some time, so I recommend that you start poking around now. The end of the year will come quickly and is a critical time for most advertisers, so the more experience you have with the platform the more you’ll be able to take advantage of all the new features to set your campaigns up for success. If you have any questions or need help navigating this switch, the Online Advertising team at Search Influence has experts that can help.
All screenshots captured by Jeanne Gaudet Lobman on May 30, 2018
