While Google AdWords has been going strong for over 15 years now, it’s been announced that the online advertising platform will be completely redesigned. Google plans to make it easier to use and navigate, as well as generally adapt it to modern times- the last revamp of AdWords took place in 2008. While they haven’t been entirely specific on what changes are coming, Google has given a few “sneak peeks” into the updates that will be taking places over the next two years.
What’s Changing & What’s Not
For one thing, the functionality and basic campaign processes will not be changing. So don’t worry about your existing marketing campaigns or your understanding of AdWords- Google’s main goal is to change the display and appearance of the program. For instance, Google will be introducing the overview screen, which will be available for all individual campaigns and ad groups. This will appear as an easy-to-read screen with graphics, charts, and etc. to track the progress of a specific ad. Users simply click on one of their campaigns and are given a dashboard-like overview that tells them what they need to know about that campaign. With this Google is hoping to provide more accessibility and organization when viewing ads at a glance.
Google has many goals with this new redesign, but their main overarching plan is to bring AdWords into current times,and adapt it for use in today’s changing market. A lot has changed in online advertising since the last revamp in 2008, and AdWords needs to change with it. As the market becomes more and more saturated, users needs more efficient, accessible programs to get their businesses out there. They have to easily use AdWords without worrying about complex or confusing navigation. To do this, Google has to change the display of their program, as well as the simplicity.
User Friendly Improvements
The redesign will simplify a lot of aspects of the program, like with the keyword navigation. With the new Keyword screen, the only navigation options are “keywords” “negative keywords” and “search terms”. When compared to today’s current navigation, this is much simpler and removes any navigation that does not involve keywords. This is just one specific example of the ways that Google plans to make AdWords more user-friendly and easier to use.
For their first major redesign since 2008, Google will begin rolling out some aspects of the new setup to certain businesses and AdWords specialists to test them out and give feedback. These will be small and large advertisers, and will be introduced to the changes over the next 12 to 18 months. Advertisers who are involved in a lot of video may be given video aspects of the program to try, while others will be given different areas to test out. You may be excited to try out this redesign for yourself, but this will not be an open beta- AdWords users will be given invites based on many different factors. In the end, Google plans to have the new redesign completely available to everyone by the end of 2017.