Google Dynamic Search Ads – A Double Edged Sword

Ever since the beginning of search engine marketing or SEM, the basic process of getting the most out of search engines has largely stayed the same, small tweaks notwithstanding. With changing times, promising results, and growing competition, search engine marketing management strategies have evolved.

Google, arguably the most widely used search engine, has now upped the ante by beta-ing a new way of paid search marketing. Google insists that, through a process termed as ‘keyword-less’ ads, it has made capturing the long-tail keywords in a novel way. Long tails are generally high-volume keyword phrases inclusive of a few relevant words/phrases. There’s no denying that these long tails are important from a search perspective, but thanks to their generic nature, they can seldom be connoted in a typical keyword research and bid strategy.

Google has empowered these long tails in its keyword-less ads strategy, titled dynamic search ads by Google. How does it work? For example, an advertiser for office spaces in Hong Kong creates a new AdWords campaign to market his service. This does not require him to create an exhaustive keyword list; rather he simply associates the URL to his new campaign. The advertiser then picks a readymade creative search ad template that allows him to create the ad. On relevant searches for ‘office spaces in Hong Kong’, Google generates a title for your ad, displays the same, and directs the user to a URL that best describes the searched term, in this case – ‘office spaces in Hong Kong’.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It’s a double-edged sword, really. On the one hand, the need for an agency to do the dirty work, i.e., keyword research, bidding, monitoring, and tweaking is through. But thanks to a completely automated algorithm, you lose control over your keywords.

While keyword-less campaigns may guarantee you higher CTRs (click-through rates) and lower CPCs (cost per clicks) and a 10 percent rise in traffic as suggested by Google, it may not exactly attract traffic from your preferred audience due to the inability to add negative keywords, which are necessary to attract high-quality traffic. With respect to our example, what this means is that our advertiser may get traffic from people searching for the Jennifer Aniston-starring Hollywood flick “Office Space”! Pardon me for being pessimistic, but isn’t that the whole idea of a targeted search/BTL campaign, to attract your preferred audience?

Digital agencies optimise a search marketing campaign using many factors. One such factor is the Quality Score. Currently the beta version does not show any sort of quality scoring system, which again questions the quality of clicks. However, it’s just a matter of time before Google announces the regulations for bidding for ad positions.

Through this update, Google may be suggesting a brand’s SEO efforts be stepped up in order to keep up or it may just want to keep all profits to itself by removing search marketing agencies from the loop. But in doing so, some advertisers may be at the risk of competitors gaining campaign knowledge. Either way, Google has pointed out an intriguing new development in search marketing.

To sum up then, the future of SEM surely looks interesting with such experiments. However, if all control is taken away from advertisers, optimising search ads through strategies becomes cumbersome, unfriendly, and the results may be far from ideal. Remember, quality clicks count more than all traffic.